What a Privilege

This mildly intriguing headline caught my eye on the Telegraph Motoring site:

Beware the silver Honda – the new menace of our time

Wow.  So I read on.  I mean, what could be so menacing about a car favoured by the more elderly driver?

Here's the story.  The gist is that a recent survey has found that British people find the type of car that commits the most offences is a silver Honda.  That is their wording by the way - I know that the drivers commit the offences - not usually the cars.

I suppose that there could just be one very prolific bad driver out there who lives near to where the survey was conducted and who happens to have a silver Honda.

Apparently, Audi drivers – who I would have put top – came top in just two areas: tailgating, and pulling out too slowly from junctions.  Tailgating most definitely and replace the word "slowly" with "quickly" and I'll agree the second point too.

So I decided to try and find out a bit more about the survey, described in the story as being "compiled by Privilege car insurance".

I couldn't find that survey but I did find a link to this Mirror story from July.  This stated that Lincoln and Portsmouth were the worst British cities for road-rage and that "Men aged 69, 79 and 50 are the top three worst offenders while women aged 39 are fourth most likely"  I turn 50 next year and my in-laws live in Manchester which came 10th in the city category so I'll need to be extra careful when visiting them for Christmas 2016.  This is all "according to a study by insurance firm Privilege."

I also found a link to a Huffington Post story from May declaring that "Women Are Better Drivers Than Men, According To A New Survey."  Clearly wrong, but that's beside the point - guess who the survey was by.  If you just guessed Aviva, re-read this post and try again.

I guess it must be cheaper to conduct a quick survey and send it as a story to a media outlet than to do good old-fashioned advertising.

But is it as effective?

Our survey says "NO".

Motoring Royalty

Literally.

I saw a rather tatty L-reg Reliant Scimitar in a Tesco Car Park yesterday.  I explained to my son that every time you see one of these, you have to say, "Princess Anne had one of those."

Bacause she did.  In fact, she probably had more than one in her time.  Prince Charles might have had one too - I can't remember or be bothered to look it up.

However, their mother's tastes are more in line with my own.

It looks a bit younger than mine but basically it is the same car as featured in my green car political rant from March.

Anyway, from now on, whenever you see my car, or one like it, you have to say, "The Queen drives one of those."

2 Scary

I quite like the various incarnations of the BBC2 logo:

Although this one is probably the only one with even a remote relevance to a car blog:

But this one is just plain weird: 

It is actually a robotised charging unit that Tesla have created to remove the need for drivers to plug in their cars.  This gif is speeded up quite a bit, the Youtube video in this Car+Driver story shows it taking about 30 seconds - and not quite so nightmare-inducing - but I still wouldn't stand too close to it.

No-Lympic Games

Formula e could join the Olympics in 2020.  So says Autoguide.

No it couldn't.

And no it shouldn't.

Jean Todt, a man I have quite a bit of time for and current head of the FIA has suggested it.

I like formula e - I watched and enjoyed many of the races in this inaugural season.

I can't say I'm a fan of The Olympics but I did enjoy the London ones in 2012 despite the Mail wanting to put a downer on them.  Then again, if ever I'm not sure about something - I find out The Mail's view and safely know that the opposing view is the correct one.

The logistics of this suggestion make it a non-starter - would they all use the same car? would it be the car's nationality or the driver's that would get the medals?  Are these drivers athletes in the true Olympic tradition?  Would the orginal marathon in Ancient Greece have been as impressive if a Vauxhall Ampera was involved?

Actually, it probably would given how few and far between the charging points are.

Why?

Two completely different and completely unrelated stories caught my eye this morning.

The first is from Autoguide.  It revolves around a Texan couple who own 79 Dodge Vipers:

 

Although this picture looks like a load of Matchbox cars - they are real.  Whats the point?  Some of them even look identical - there are at least four white ones with blue Shelby Stripes.  The couple are asked the question in the video that accompanies the story but it was filmed in the Dodge factory so you can't actually hear the responses.

The second story is from Australian site caradvice.com.au and centres around a decision that police in the State of Victoria (ie Victorian Police) should no longer get involved in car chases unless there are special circumstances.  You may ask why - I know I did, especially when I read the first half of the article, a viewpoint by their correspondent Paul Maric interestingly titled, "Drunk and drug affected drivers given green light thanks to Victoria Police."  The second part of the article does give the opposing view though and I can now see where they are coming from.  The comments section at the end is very good too - I dread to think what sort of comments would have been appearing if the Mail ran the story.

Now a picture of Victorian Police: