Paranoia

Are you scared of someone stealing your car when you leave it unattended?

Or a bit of it?

Or vandalising it?

You need Ford's new Scaredy-Car.

 

No - CAR not CAT!

Car+Driver have been checking out new patent applications and found this one.

Although I believe that parking on an incline has already been invented.

Apparently, unattended autonomous vehicles that detect danger of being the victims of auto-crime would be able to move themselves away from the danger.

For example, if somebody who looked like a wheel thief entered the car park, they would go and find a nice slope to park on.  Apparently it is very difficult to jack up a vehicle parked on a slope.

However, I have thought of a way that I could take advantage of this technology.

If I was having problems finding a space in a busy car park, I would get my stripey jumper, black hat and crow-bar out of the boot of my car, don the jumper and hat then wander menacingly around where I needed to park. Any Fords in the vicinity would leg it and I would be able to park in their space.

A patently good idea.

A Nice Little Hatch

 I love seeing the old-fashioned roadsigns that still remain in parts of Britain.

This one is close to my house. It is near a junction with a tight turn.  You can see the road marking is a bit faded.

So they re-did the road markings a month or two ago.

Notice the hatching on the left.

It is because there is a very narrow pavement there that doesn't give people wandering around the corner much room.

Now, according to the UK Government,

"Hatched markings with a single, broken boundary line may be used at the edge of the road or next to the central reservation of a dual carriageway: the diagonal lines always slope towards the direction of travel. You should not enter any hatched area bounded by a broken line unless it is safe to do so."

I always give that area a wide berth when I'm turning left there.

I would be just keeping quiet and not writing this post if it wasn't the case.

But I see lots of others just driving right over the hatches.

Despite them being fresh and bright. 

So I decided to just stand at that junction for a bit and see how many observed the hatching and how many didn't. I stood there for 5 minutes recording every vehicle that made that left turn.

All 18 of them.

What did I learn?

Both Ford Kugas that passed were driven right over the hatching.

But then that is a crossover SUV so I would expect nothing less.

Seven of the vehicles were crossover SUVs. Of these, four were over the line, two were fine and this one is borderline:

There were eight proper cars. So proper cars are still outnumbering cross-overs but only just.

Anyway 5 out of the 8 were over the line so it looks like I can't single out SUV drivers here like I was hoping I'd be able to.

So what does that leave?

Vans.

I wasn't hopeful.

Normally, I find vans being driven very badly on the M53.

But the first two around this junction executed it perfectly.

I was astonished. 

Then this one came round:

So, roadsigns may have changed.

And vehicle types are changing.

But you can still rely on a van driver to be a tit.

Hell on Wheels

I've never really got Halloween.

The rest of my household love it though.

As do other households.

Like the St.Helens family in this BBC News story.

Every year, they decorate their house to excess and use it to collect money for charity.  In previous years, they have done a Beetlejuice themed display, a Wednesday themed one and a Stranger Things one.

This year, they've gone with Ghostbusters.

So why is this in a car blog?

Because they bought a Vauxhall Astra estate for £400 and turned it into an Ecto-1 clone.

Well maybe not a clone - but a very decent effort.

Given they were starting from an Astra estate. 

They've probably spent a lot more than that on wrapping and decorating it.

Scary.

Who do the AA use when they break down?

The AA of course.

Although wouldn't you have thought he'd be able to fix it at the roadside?

So who do Amazon use for their deliveries?

Woodside MotorFreight it would appear...

That video was from the same bit of the M53 that I got the AA photo a few years back wondering when I would ever use it.

There were three electric 76 registered vans on that transporter.

I've hardly seen any 76 reg vehicles this year so was surprised that Google AI reckons it's been a record year.

The first two I saw were not SUVs - they were REAL CARS!

This meant I was lulled into a false sense of security thinking the popularity was waning.

They are as popular as ever - including this stupid one also on the same bit of the M53:

 So here's my fourth link to the same Blog Post today.

Welsh Sport

Four days is a long time in football.

One minute I'm ecstatic about a Welsh win.

Next they lose at home to another Scandinavian team.

Never mind, Gerwyn Price took a three set lead against Luke Humphries in the World Darts Grand Prix.

Bugger.

 

But wait a minute!  What's this?

Elfyn Evans is the new World Rally Champion!

In the last year it will be a proper competition.

And he's done it in a Toyota Yaris...

 ...not a stupid SUV!