The Undertakers

 This is one of several versions of my favourite anti-drink-drive adverts:

The caption is usually something like, "Who is going to drive you home tonight?"

Most excellent.

This morning, my dash-cam caught a couple of candidates for the undertakers undertaking undertaking manoeuvres.

The first one is an impatient van driver who doesn't appreciate driving at 25mph in the 20mph zone I highlighted the other week.

I have no sympathy for him - he is a tosser.

The second one though, I may have to admit doing myself - I hate middle-lane hogs.

And will someone please remind me to shift that flyer from my dashboard?

Plane to see the problem

I think this is why you don't have drive-ins at airports.

I wonder what he'll put on his insurance claim?

Something similar to this bloke from 2016 I suppose:

The High Road

So high you need a ladder.

I'm sharing a short bit of dashcam footage today from the M53.

It came not long after the electronic signs were telling everybody to slow down to 40mph.

Not that anybody did.

It was because of a broken-down bus on the hard shoulder - not because of this guy:

Here's a still:

I did a quick search on the Internet just to make sure that nothing untoward had come to him.

It looks like nothing untoward has come to him.

But ladders on the M53 is certainly not a new thing.

This one is from (despite the time-stamp) 2018:

Looks like a bit of sensible driving from the dashcam-owner and another driver has allowed the ladder-loser to safely retrieve it and it is probable that an accident has been avoided.

 

Meanwhile, somebody else lost a ladder in 2020 - the comments under the post on the Motorway Police Facebook Page are brilliant.

Van Morrison River Dance

We are in middle of Storm Christophe.

Here in the North-West of England we have a lot of water - the BBC report it thusly.

They have a dramatic picture:

That is a Ford Ranger.

Unfortunately it is not a Ford Ranger Splash which I think were only available Stateside.

It is, however, a Ford Ranger splash.

If you have a Ford Ranger then you can confidently make a big splash.  More of a splash than was happening on my commute home this evening - but we still had to make a splash:

Apologies for the lack of sound, I guess I must have accidentally switched off the audio recording.

I was amazed that most of the other vehicle drivers didn't test their brakes after going through that.

They could have got into an accident - like the Morrisons van driver in this other story from BBC News today.

I always think that Morrisons vans look like UK ambulances:

So I tend to refer to them as Morrisons Ambulances.  The driver of the van in the story was taken to hospital although it sounds like it was precautionary rather than necessary.

He "had to be rescued from his overturned van after he careered off the road and ended up in a fast-flowing ford", police said.

The pictures are pretty dramatic so it looks like he was very lucky although how he ended up in there is a bit of a mystery - on the radio it said he was driving through the ford (in his Mercedes) but it was swollen and too deep.  The Web story talks about careering off the road and speculates about sat-navs.

In any case, I like Morrisons because they give me 10% off my shopping because I work for the NHS.

So I'll finish this post now without any of my usual comedic comments or puns despite the list of Van Morrison albums with very relevant titles.

 

Leaning on a Lampost

They've started to swap over the street-lamps in my street:

The old sodium lamp on the left is being replaced by the more efficient LED one on the right.

 

I was wondering which one would come on last night - it was the new one.

 

I totally get why they are being replaced and I agree with the thinking behind it.  But the change also makes me a little sad.  No more coming in to land on a plane and seeing the towns and roads lit up below in orange light.

 

No more playing out with your friends and knowing it was getting late because the lamps came on one by one firstly red, then changing to orange once warmed up - admittedly we are talking 40 years ago for me but it must be true for todays youngsters.  But not tomorrows. 

 

It's a bit like when France did away with the yellow headlamps - another bit of history gone forever.

 

Is it really though?  I'm sure I have memories of one or two old incandescent street lamps from my early childhood - they were few and far between then but white light must have been prevalent for many years before sodium lamps came on the scene.

 

Go back a further still and you find that people were employed to wander around lighting gas lamps:

There are still some in use in Europe today - but I think that's more to keep nostalgic people like me happy - maybe somewhere will do the same with sodium.

 

Meanwhile British Gas are buying electric vans - now that can't be right, can it?

Signal Failure

I saw a bloke driving a Nissan Juke today.

Not sure I've ever seen one driven by a man before.

It's certainly not something you see every day.

I also saw a pink and mint coloured traffic cone on the M53:

Again, not something you see every day.

 

Or maybe it will be now that I know it's there.

 

What I do tend to see every day, especially on the M53 is people who don't understand Mirror-Signal-Manoeuvre.

 

This one doesn't bother with the "signal" bit at all:

I think I was miffed because I'm the BMW driver and I'd been signalling since the second exit marker.

 

Now I think this one has gone for Manoeuvre-Mirror-Signal which is quite a popular combination on the M53:

It doesn't look quite as dramatic on Dash-Cam as real life but I had figured out what was about to happen so wasn't too bothered.

 

Now, back to that Juke.

 

Maybe it was his wife's car.

Smashed

You can't legislate for stupid.

This is what happens when you put your Tesla into Auto-Pilot mode so you can eat your breakfast:

It didn't catch fire (which some Teslas have been known to do even when not crashing) but it did take out a Fire Truck.  Car+Driver have the story here.  Apparently, because the driver spilled his coffee and his bagel was smashed up in the crash, they aren't sure which was in his hand at the time.

Meanwhile, in the North-West of England yesterday.  It was a gin truck that was driven into - by another HGV. (Heavy Gin Vehicle?)

Gin spilled onto the carriageway but was coated with foam before anyone could get smashed on it.  The M6 was shut leading to much annoyance and many puns.  The BBC have the story here.  My favourite pun was "Was it in the sloe lane?"

Meanwhile, in a different bit of the North-West of England, also yesterday, this squirrel avoided getting smashed up against a van:

Aston Martin Enters a New Class of Vehicle.

Aston Martin has revealed the final design of the DBS GT Zagato:

Car+Driver have the story here.

 

It doesn't have a rear window.

And I'm guessing it's a two-seater.

So that makes it a van then.

Opportunity Knocks for Vauxhall

Here's a story for the Brexiteers to cling on to.

 

It involves the tranquil Mediterranean fishing village of Ellesmere Port (pronounced L.S.Meer Portay)

 

Actually it's pronounced as it's spelled - only with a Scouse accent.

 

I drive past it every day on my way to work.

It's where a lot of Vauxhall/Opel Astras are built.

 

And will hopefully continue to be built after Brexit.  The boss of PSA who own the Vauxhall and Opel brands is reported as stating in this Autocar article, that Brexit may be a good opportunity for Vauxhall.

 

He may be right.

 

A British-badged vehicle built on this side of any tariffs that may be imposed could be a winner.

 

He is quoted thusly, "I am not facing Brexit always on the dark side of this outcome: there may be for the Vauxhall brand an opportunity for us. We are managing our marketing communications in the UK in a way that is very supportive of a British brand in the UK."

If his English is a little stunted, it is infinitely better than my Portuguese (his nationality) and my French which is presumably the language he spends a lot of time talking in.  This is him, Carlos Tavares:

He was almost certainly correct with,

"We prepare for the two outcomes and will deal with them when it comes up. Most probably there’s going to be a delay, which gives us a little more visibility for 2019."

Although the quote that I, as a devout Remoaner, mostly picked up on was,

"We can go on the dark side and say ‘perhaps we have to shut down plants’, and if we have to make difficult decisions we will."

Vauxhall/Opel only assemble Astras and Vivaro vans in the UK which they also assemble in Poland and France respectively so what about the Opel-badged vehicles?  And the rest of the Vauxhall range?

Nissan has already part-blamed Brexit from stopping the X-Trail in Sunderland while Honda is refusing to blame it for shutting it's Swindon factory but I think that has more to do with the fact that their customer-base is old people.

For the sake of the local economy and people I know who work there, I hope that Vauxhall Ellesmere Port goes on to thrive.

And I mean that most sincerely, folks, I really do.

Mini-Orgasm

Nice story from lots of West Country News websites today such as The Western Daily Press. Apparently, a "fit" woman in her 30s got a bit bored in a traffic jam and decided to "relieve the tension" with a little help from a "Rampant Rabbit-style sex toy."

She was in a Mini (car not skirt - she was wearing trousers)

Anyway, the Earth moved, or, more precisely, the car moved and she drove into the back of one of these:

That is an M&J Seafoods van.  There is no mention of seagulls in the story.

But there will have been a strong fish smell.

Driving Offence

Or driving through a fence.

 

Oops.

Bad enough this suspected drink-driver has crashed.

But what he crashed into was a Police Station.

Cheshire Police tweeted this morning, "Man arrested for drink-drive after losing control on a car park and crashing into Frodsham police station. #epicfail." Then "Male in Frodsham kindly handed himself in for drink driving #drivenintostationwall"

A few news sites including the BBC enjoyed telling the story.

They all call it a car though - it is actually a Fiesta van with an unusual paint job.  So I guess a few people in the Frodsham area will know exactly who the 49-year-old man is who has been arrested.

Hope he's more careful when he returns to show his documents.

Asda Priceless

I think I must have been breaking the law today.

Especially if what happened to this young Lancashire man is anything to go by.  He was fined after pleading guilty to driving while ‘able to see directly or by reflection a TV receiving apparatus used to display something other than information about the state of the vehicle or its equipment, or about the location of the vehicle and the road on which it was located, or to assist the driver to see the road adjacent to the vehicle or to assist the driver to reach his destination.’

I was watching Asda adverts as I drove past a Cheshire Constabulary building this morning.

These adverts were on what I thought was an Asda delivery van but then decided must have been one of these: 

A van with three big TV screens, one on each side and one on the back showing ads - in my case moving (literally moving pictures moving along the road) ads for Asda.

Not the first time it has been done though:

That is Top Gear's attempt at putting James Bond technology (cameras & TV screens) onto a van to make it appear invisible.  Richard Hammond is driving it but, of course, you can't see him.

Looking for those picture did lead me to several others that made we wonder about the drivers of actual Asda delivery vans.

This one trusted his sat-nav too much:

This one had to be rescued after going down a slipway to turn around:

But this one is my favourite - getting stuck after attempting a three-point turn in a too-narrow road. 

So what about Adsa customers?

 

I can't decide if this is brilliant or stupid.  The car-park was full of cars belonging to people doing their Christmas shopping: 

Beer Wagon

It is SEMA Time!

 

What is SEMA?  Well, SEMA stands for "Speciality Equipment Market Association" and every year they hold a big motor show with lots of pimped up cars, vans and other vehicles.  I first heard of it through watching American Hot-Rod with Boyd Coddington regularly unveiling his creations there.

 

The big manufacturers are also interested with contributions this year from Honda, Mazda and Toyota to name but three and some nicely tricked out vans from Mercedes that I particularly liked.

 

The SEMA 2014 Website is pretty good but does point out something I hadn't realised before - this is a TRADE ONLY event, mere members of the public can't go along!  I don't think writing a semi-serious car blog would class me as being part of the trade - shame.

 

Obviously, the American car press is full of SEMA at the moment but also the Brits and Aussies are also seeming quite enthusiastic.  That was acouple of links to cars that stood out to those journos.  Here's the one I like:

It started out as a standard, boring Kia Sedona but has been converted into a mobile bar selling Ballast Point products.  Ballast Point are a brewery/distillery formed during the last Century (1996 to be precise).  Autoguide have the story of this beer wagon here.

 

I like it because it combines two of my favourite things - beer and cars.

 

I had a look on Google Images to see if anything combined three of my favourite things - beer, cars and football. Plenty of interesting images did come up but none that met my remit - so here is a picture of Loic Remy: 

- a footballer found guilty earlier this year of drink-driving.

Built From e-Bay

Far ahead in the most-clicked-upon stories chart for my Blog is my bit about the American Hot-Rod Reality TV Show that I discovered back in January 2011. I wish there had been more episodes of it.

I have discovered, though, a short Web series that is half-way through its run and captures the mood and modifications of American Hot-Rod.

It’s called “Built From e-Bay” and covers a competition between four Hot-Rod Builders to produce vehicles entirely from stuff bought on e-Bay. The four very different projects are a Chevy Van, a Chevy El Camino, a Porsche 911 and a Jeepster. The whole show is sponsored by e-Bay so look out for a mention in each episode about how they find it useful.

Already, different characters are emerging, especially in the Porsche-building team who have a guy with an English accent who seems to always be at odds with the rest of what his team want. Maybe there’s the basis for a reality TV show there?

This show utilises Web TV which is something I’m definitely warming to after watching Seinfeld’s new show with Larry David last week and I’m looking forward to a new episode with Ricky Gervais tomorrow – even if it does bear quite a similarity to Carpool which I discovered back in November 2010.

Now’s where’s that camcorder? It must be time for Metro TV.