What's The Difference Between a BMW and a Hedgehog?

With a hedgehog, the pricks are on the OUTside.

 

Hey, that's not nice, I'M a BMW Driver!

 

I'd rather be a roadhog than a hedgehog.

 

While on the outside this morning we had this guy (there was a gap behind me and plenty of warning about the lane being shut off):

Then, just before lunchtime, this guy on a motorbike - the Dashcam makes it look calmer than it actually happened.

Meanwhile, over in Greater Manchester, some twerp has been using a Fiesta to transport a greenhouse.  Not sure of the legality of this one, it looks securely affixed and would have weighed in at bugger all.

Now, what's the difference between a JCB and a male giraffe?

 

One's got hy-draulics.

Ministry O'Transport

Did you hear the one about the Irishman who wanted to get an MOT for his car?

Well he couldn't.

The BBC story is here.

Apparently, there are only 15 Test Centres in Northern Ireland - and they all have dodgy car-lifts.

Only fifteen!?  There are two in the village that I live in.

Yes, but they have a different system over there than us on the Mainland.  They don't let local garages do MOT Testing.  They have large centres with big and little doors for big and little vehicles:

So it prevents your dodgy local mechanic sticking his screwdriver through your CV-Joint Gaiter to make some extra work/money for himself.  "Dangerous that mate - good job I can fix it for you."

Problem is, the vehicles are not the only things that get regularly inspected.

The vehicles lifts in the test centres do too.

And faults have been found on 48 of the 55 vehicle lifts in those centres.

The faults seeming to be cracking:

Imagine having your car fail on needing welding when it is sat on one of those.

Sharp intake of breath - "That ain't going to cheap, mate."

In the meantime, testing has been suspended in Northern Ireland until a solution can be found with four-month extensions being given to the MOTs of cars which have had tests cancelled.

Apparently, the failure rate is 20% so there will be a lot of potentially dangerous cars driving about on these extended certificates.

And every Monday morning, a couple of transporters loaded up with NI cars come over here:

 

Haven't a clue where they're going but they must come off the Belfast Ferry and head South.

 

Perhaps they are going to a church.  Did you hear the one about the Irishman who took his car to a church?  He said it needed a service.

Doggy Style

I found this satisfying story and video on the Car+Driver site today.  It's about a couple of thickos attempting and failing to break in to a Tesla in Las Vegas and then trying and failing to vandalise the charging unit.  Meanwhile, the car is filming it all in high quality and it ends up on YouTube where they are quite rightly ridiculed.

At the end of that story, I was pointed at another Car+Driver Tesla story which I thought was new but turned out to be from last October.  This is about how Teslas now have a mode whereby you can leave your dog safely in a car with the windows shut because it will keep the temperature within a sensible limit - until the battery goes flat at which point it will alert the driver by text.

That would never work with a cat.

 

A cat would steal the car.

 

But my favourite recent Car+Driver Tesla story comes from the festive period.  They have one as a long-term test vehicle.  The driver received a message to say that his car, which was parked outside the house on Christmas Day, had developed a fault which made it undriveable.

 

Rather impressively, a tow truck came and collected the car within half an hour.

Less impressively, there was no information about what the fault was and how long it would take to repair.  And, unlike in their previous experience, there was no offer of a loan car, or a rental car or the Uber credits that have been offered to other customers in similar situations.

 

However,

 

UPDATE 12/31/19, 10:00 a.m.: Although it’s possible the timing is purely coincidental, the service department at Tesla’s Toledo, Ohio, facility contacted C/D within three hours of this story's initial publication, offering a loaner car, a rental, or $100 per day in Uber credit while our Model 3 is in the shop. They also said parts are on the way and the car will be ready for us on Thursday (January 2).

 

Funny that.

Blatantly Wrong

It's not easy being a perfect driver.

I catch many errors and misdemeanours of others on my Dashcam.

Here is someone who thinks Mirror/Signal/Manoeuvre should be Mirror?/Manoueuvre/Signal:

Also from last year, we have this incredibly stupid, and lazy, woman attempting to cross a dark, busy and wet road with two small children just yards from a zebra crossing:

Her attempt at crossing made me cross.

 

Yesterday, I was doing an airport run and got stuck behind this person who didn't seem to understand that we drive on the left in Britain:

I wouldn't bother watching the whole lot, it's just footage of the back of a car driving along the overtaking lane.  I also had to cut the footage in half to get it small enough for Blogger to publish it. 

 

He (or she I suppose) may argue that he (or she) was driving above the speed limit but I'm not sure how breaking one law gives him (or her) the moral high-ground to try to stop me breaking a different one.

 

Or they could have just been oblivious to what they were doing.

 

Now, talking of breaking laws, the guy in the van in the next photo is actually enforcing them:

He is therefore doing absolutely nothing wrong.

 

So why does it feel like he is?

 

Also, why does it look at first glance like the billboard in the photo is actually showing my photo?

 

Every time I visit that airport, there is somebody sat there in a van, with the engine running, trying to catch people dropping off other people without using the official drop-off places that you have to pay to use unless you know about Drop-Off 2 which is free to use but no use if you can't walk very far.

 

I use Drop-off 2.

 

Finally, on the outskirts of the airport, if I hadn't accidentally switched off the audio on my Dashcam at some point recently, you would hear me state how blatant this guy going through a red light was:

Only trouble is, watching it again, IT'S NOT THAT BLATANT!

 

He does go through on red.

 

But only just.  On re-watching it, I realised that the traffic light on the left was still amber up until the last second before he (or she I suppose) goes through.  The red traffic light on the right is for traffic turning in that direction so not relevant for those of us going straight ahead.

 

That's enough footage for now.  Remember to be careful out there, you never know who is watching you.

 

Must dash.(cam)

Slim Shady

I really like this idea from Bosch that Autocar are reporting on.  It's a sun visor that you can see through - but it still works because where the sunlight hits your eyes there are some hexagonal sunglasses-type panels.

AI technology uses a driver-facing camera to work out where your eyes are and where the sun is shining.  It then switches on the LED hexagons in between.

Seems a bit unfair on the photons that have just travelled 93 Million miles to get there.

And I'm sure with a bit of re-programming, the woman above could be made to look like the man below: