Not Very Smart

This story made me laugh when I read it in my local free-paper, The Wirral Globe.






It follows on from my 2010 post about the spy-cars that Wirral Borough Council are using to bring in revenue/stop illegal and dangerous parking*

*delete as applicable

My opinion of parking enforcement operatives isn't that high - despite eco-friendly ones getting in the papers. The guy in charge of this car managed to open his door as a bus was coming along with the result as seen in these pictures.

The Council were keen to play down the incident - a spokesperson said: "A CCTV vehicle operated by NSL was involved in a minor road traffic collision with a bus whilst carrying out parking enforcement activity on behalf of Wirral Council. Nobody was injured, although both vehicles were damaged and were taken off the road for repair.

A replacement CCTV vehicle has been deployed by NSL so there will be no gap in the provision of parking enforcement services."

The Council are obviously more concerned that they are still getting in revenue rather than looking at what caused this.

Surely, either the Spy-car was parked dangerously or the bus driver was driving too close to parked vehicles. In either case, the Spy-car driver should have looked in his mirror before opening the door - buses are quite big.

The article keeps referring to the Spy-car as a Smart. It is true that the first Spy-cars in use here were Smarts (I refer you back to my 2010 article) but this is a Toyota iQ (or possibly an Aston Martin Cygnet - but if it is a Cygnet then the Council have too much money and I want a refund of my Council Tax)

It doesn't make a lot of difference if it is a Smart or an iQ apart from the fact that I should rename this post to mention traffic wardens not having much in the way of IQ.

Baby Alarm

I feel dirty.

But then again, I always do when I visit the Fox News Website. An American bit of the grimy Murdoch empire that regularly spews right-wing bile and half-truths to the gullible.But their motoring section is usually quite good.

Today we have this story.

It's about a new car baby-seat available in the Autumn (sorry, "the Fall") which will automatically alert your Smartphone if there is a problem.

Problems can include leaving your kid in a hot car unattended!

I wonder if it works for dogs?And I wonder if it will stop you leaving a kid behind in the pub?

'Ullo John, Gotta New Motoring Correspondent?

The very right-wing Telegraph now has a very left-wing motoring correspondent. I commented a while back how James May's regular Telegraph column seemed to have fizzled out and I had noticed that Alexei Sayle's picture had been regularly appearing there.

I had figured that he had just done one interview for them (an item on the electric Citroën C-Zero - a car identical to the Mitsubishi i-Miev that I disliked so much earlier this month)

If I'd been a bit more observant, I'd have noticed that there has actually been a new piece from him every month since this March.

The Telegraph try and justify Alexei's presence to their readership with an interview rounding off the rough edges and headlined in a way to have a dig at Labour.

But they don't have to justify anything to me. I've been a fan of Alexei right back to The Young Ones days - I love his downright daft take on life and will be regularly checking in here for a comedic take on motoring.

Hang on a mo' though - if I want a comedic take on motoring - I need to be checking in here!

Evo Schtick

A story in Autoguide about how a Mitsubishi Mirage Evo Hatch is a possibility.

My initial reaction was "What is a Mitsubishi Mirage?" We don't have them in the UK.

My follow-up reaction after taking in this picture......was "Bloody Hell - that's bland!"

Apart from anything else, how can a car like that share it's name with a plane like this?...Anyway, an Evo version might be OK but I can't see it taking off.

Checking out the UK Mitsubishi range, it seems like there is a big hole in it. You've got the quite passable Colt and the quite ugly little electric i-Miev:...Tata Nano anyone? Sticking silly graphics on the side doesn't make it any prettier you know.

And then they do the big cars starting with the proper Evo - based on the Lancer - which itself doesn't seem that big until you add on all of the Evo gubbins.

So we could have the basic Lancer to fill that gap - except they tried that and it didn't sell.

So how about the Mirage?

Err, no thanks!

We'll take the hole please.

Pasta Their Best?

This week is a week of anniversaries.

It is 15 years to the day since myself and Mrs.Metro walked down the aisle.

It is 20 years +1 to the day since Former policeman Roger Reynolds turned on Britain’s first-ever speed camera on the westbound A316 on Twickenham Bridge in Surrey. The Gatso camera was in a 40mph zone but was set to 60mph and caught nearly 23,000 drivers exceeding 65mph in 22 days. Good. Alledgedly. MSN Cars have the story.

I'm not a fan of speed cameras but driving at 65 in a 40-zone is silly. Also, they are so well signposted now, and painted bright yellow, that you shouldn't really get caught by one.

When I looked for a good picture of a Gatso, this strange-looking car kept coming up:I'd forgotten that Gatso himself was a rally-driver who had invented the speed camera to measure his own racing speeds. I guess this Gatso 4000 Roadster was one of his inventions too. It might have looked OK without the Davros "third eye" thing going on.

I don't know if there are any speed cameras on Gravelly Hill Interchange but...

...it is 40 years to the day since Spaghetti Junction (as Gravelly Hill Interchange is better known) opened. Hence the pasta title and picture of the 1957 spaghetti harvest.For most of those 40 years, I have wrongly thought that spaghetti junction was where the M6 intersected with the M5. It is actually junction 6 of the M6. What a noodle! - all those times I've driven through Spaghetti Junction and thought I hadn't got there yet.

The BBC covered the anniversary quite thoroughly here and here.

Spaghetti Junction was useful for linking bits of Birmingham but not of much interest to New Yorkers who would be more interested about this day in 1883 when...

...The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City was opened to traffic after 14 years of construction. Can't really comment on it but I have driven over The Queens Bridge or, as it should be more correctly named, the Queensboro Bridge or the 59th Street Bridge. Groovy. (Some kudos for anyone who can see what I've done there)Not that anyone crossing Brooklyn Bridge would be too concerned that it was opened on the 53rd anniversary of...

...the publication of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" by Sarah Josepha Hale.

OK, I've officially run out of ways to end this now.