Here's some dimensions for you according to Google's AI thingy:
The 1988 Ford Sierra Estate (station wagon) had a length of 4,531 mm (178.4 in), a width of 1,727 mm (68.0 in), and a height of 1,367 mm (53.8 in).
The Mazda 6 saloon has a length of 4,870 mm, a width of 1,840 mm, and a height of 1,450 mm. The wheelbase is 2.83 meters.
Meanwhile my car...
The 2020 Volvo S60 has a length of 4761 mm, a width of 1850 mm (excluding mirrors), and a height of 1437 mm.
Perhaps the more relevant ones though are the supposedly smaller Fords of today...
The Ford Focus Estate has a length of approximately 4,668mm (183.8 inches) and a width of 1,979mm with mirrors, or 1,844mm without mirrors. The wheelbase is 2,700mm. In terms of boot space, it offers 575 litres with the rear seats up and 1,650 litres with the rear seats folded down.
You get a lot more info on the Focus and it's bigger than the Sierra - while the Fiesta...
The 2025 Ford Fiesta is approximately 4040mm long, 1735mm wide, and 1476mm high.
Wider - and not a lot shorter.
And Google AI uses American spellings so obviously isn't intelligent enough to realise I'm sat in England.
But a 2025 Fiesta definitely wouldn't stand out on the M53 in 2025 - here's a closer look.
They were all out this morning. Several were driving white vans. I caught a lot on my dash-cam.
To start with, I had someone decide that he was coming off at Junction 3.
Nothing wrong with coming off at Junction 3 - I've done it myself on many occasions - it's handy for The Asda, And Tranmere Rovers.
But this guy was in the outside lane when he decided it and had to cut in front of two other lanes of traffic - one of which included me. I didn't bother including the footage because, rather annoyingly, it looks less dramatic when you play it back.
Or maybe I'm just a drama queen.
But then look at this other twerp joining at the same junction:
This morning saw the usual collection of tailgaters and middle-lane hogs.
But this lane hogger in particular annoyed me because, not only was he driving a white van, he didn't have his lights on.
Then you get the white van man who does have his lights on but doesn't use the handy orange flashing ones that give other drivers a clue as to your intentions. It's a good job BMW don't make white vans.
But that wasn't his worst crime. Note that the other two white van drivers knew which lane they needed to be in and how to position yourself going around a roundabout.
Because, let's face it, Zippy was pretty annoying.
Not wet like George.
But if Donald Trump were a pre-school TV personality, he would be Zippy.
(or am I being unkind to Zippy?)
Anyway, zipping into traffic is the non-annoying thing to do.
Look at this story from Auto Express today explaining how we should be using what lots of countries call "The Zipper Manoeuvre" when two lanes merge into one.
Even The Highway Code tells us to do it.
The trouble is, while out in their cars, our continental cousins view themselves as "the traffic", whereas us Brits see ourselves as individuals battling against all of the other inferior drivers. That is why Smart Motorways were never going to work in Britain.
Not me, of course - although I do witness a huge number of inferior drivers every day on the M53.
Strange that.
At Junction 5 heading South, the M53 goes from three lanes down to two. It is well signposted that it is going to happen but there is no signage about how to deal with it.
So, a fair distance before it actually happens, everyone gets into the two left hand lanes apart from a very small number of drivers who tear down lane 3 until the last minute. Sometimes they are allowed to merge in and sometimes they encounter a stubborn group of people staring straight ahead while attempting to keep 5cm from the rear bumper of the vehicle ahead.
This means that the ones getting most annoyed are actually those driving in the most annoying way.
Probably not - I own a bike (that I extremely rarely ride) - I've never driven an SUV nor do I have an inkling to.
But I have been known to point out cyclists' shortcomings now and again.
Anyway, this one gave me a shock yesterday morning.
I didn't even know there was a cycle lane there. There is also one similarly located at the junction that I usually leave the M53 at and that one is signposted - but the signs are hidden in overgrown bushery.
There aren't even signs at this junction (I checked) so you would have thought that this idiot might have actually looked before crossing at speed.
It might have helped if he was travelling a bit slower and was a bit higher up...
Really, though, I think this post is just an excuse to use this picture again:
The BBC today have a story about an impatient van driver killing another driver by causing a head-on collision. The incident was caught on a dash-cam (is it called a dash-cam if it is rear-facing?) and the dead man's family wanted the footage releasing - presumably as a warning to other impatient tossers.
This particular impatient tosser was jailed for three years and four months.
Good.
I've not included a link as I would be uncomfortable doing so. So instead, here is a link to another BBC story about a miscreant caught on dash-cam (is it called a dash-cam if it attached to a cyclist?)
In this case, an Audi Q8 driver has been ordered to pay more than £1,800 after passing a cyclist too closely. Now to be fair, the Q8 driver's seat was probably so far away from the cyclist that he didn't realise that the other side of the car was within 1.5m of him.
I don't like Audi Q8s - I don't see the point of them.
I also don't like this particular Audi Q8 driver - he was initially offered a driver awareness course or a fixed penalty notice so he only has himself to blame.
He said, "The fine is absolutely appalling. I am 77 years of age and the last fine I had was 35 to 40 years ago."
All that proves is that he hasn't be caught very often. And what has his age got to do with it? I'd be keeping quiet about that if I was him or people may be questioning whether or not he should be retaking his test.
Now, if you've got five minutes to spare, you can watch MY dash-cam footage (from a real dash-cam). The car to watch is the car in front of the car in front of me. It is a black Mercedes A-Class being driven by, I'm guessing here, someone very much of the age of the Audi Q8 driver.
He insists on driving in the outside overtaking lane at approximately 10mph under the speed limit UNTIL he comes out of the 50mph roadworks section.
I have had to split that into two to get it uploaded to Blogger and it is during the second half in which you get the high-pitched expletives from me.
I think he only stopped messing about at the end because he saw the two Traffic Womble cars and thought that they were Police.
Meanwhile, to finish off on a lighter note, here is yet another BBC story with footage of an example (like this one from February) of a fork-lift driver getting the better of a low-life.
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.
I believe that when temporary traffic lights at roadworks fail, they are set to default to red rather than green.
It makes sense - it is better for people to get fed up waiting and cautiously proceed rather than to confidently hurtle towards somebody doing the same in the opposite direction.
I must admit, I felt reasonably safe going past this one today:
It can't be often that you have to chase and catch up with a traffic light.
And it can't be often that Junction 5 of the M53 is a Red Light District.
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.
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.
Now, obviously I'm quite jealous of him - he is just 21 and he can afford to buy and wreck a new G-Wagen - that is why I've deliberately picked a photo of him looking gormless.
Here he is wrecking a new G-Wagen:
He was supposedly on the way to training so must be familiar with that roundabout.
So why be in completely the wrong lane and driving so fast?
What a pillock!
Talking of pillocks, this motorbikist on the M53 this week seems to think that the hard shoulder is a narrow lane for motorbikists.
Talking of that stretch of the M53, Here is me overtaking an emergency vehicle on blues and twos:
And finally, somebody going through a red light when it's harder not to:
I am a non-believer. Have been since I think I worked it out in an RE Lesson when I was in the Sixth Form.
But this Coronavirus has had me questioning my lack of faith.
Only a bit though.
The World is in a mess. We have morons in charge of the US and Brazil. We have evil people in charge of China and Russia. We have a habitual liar in charge of the UK. We have pollution. We have plastics in the food chain. We have climate change - ice-caps melting. We have chaos in The Middle East. The Amazon Rainforest is being destroyed - that's the lungs of the Earth!
Nobody in power has taken any notice of Greta.
Even the supposedly good guys like Justin Trudeau have disappointed us:
So what would God do?
Invent something to shut down industry and get people to stop using their cars. Invent something that Trump and Bolsonaro will badly mishandle in a vain attempt to protect their economies.
Here is what my exit from the motorway on my way home looks a bit like now:
Except there are more traffic cones and less Hillman Avengers today than in that 1977 photo I found on Google Images. Thanks to whoever added that credit to it - I feel slightly less guilty about using it when there are credits. Is that a motorbike in the exit lane? - I guess it must be but it's very hard to work out.
Anyway, I've digressed. This whole Blog-Post is inspired by this BBC story about how the AA say "Coronavirus will transform UK work and travel."
They predict "a permanent reduction in the demand for travel because people have learned during the crisis to use home-working technology."
Don't forget videoconferencing. I would travel to the local hospital for a specific meeting once a month. For me, it was a 10 to 15 minute drive which isn't a biggie - other attendees had to come in from all over the county - but the parking was a nightmare and as our employers would recompense us for fuel - that recompense would come from NHS budgets. We used Zoom this time - the only disadvantage was no chocolate hobnobs - we'll probably continue doing it this way.
"The chancellor currently plans to spend £27bn to curb congestion on roads and £100bn on HS2 – but if demand falls, that may not be needed."
Indeed, especially as his magic money trees will have other priorities. AA President Edmund King agrees, "anecdotal evidence from people lucky enough to be working during the coronavirus-enforced lockdown suggests that infrastructure funds might be better spent on broadband to support home working."
AND - IT ALL HELPS TO SLOW DOWN ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE!
"Other experts are calling for the roads programme and HS2 rail project to be put on hold for a decade so ministers can be sure they’re not wasting money.
They say if commuters spend just one day a week working from home after the crisis - or commuting later - the roads will be as empty as they are in the school holidays."
Now, I know Michael Gove believes we have had enough of experts, but our government does seem to have started quoting them so maybe that's another effect of the virus.
As for HS2, this Jonathan Pie video is an excellent argument for cancelling it - maybe a postponement for a decade would be a step in the right direction - don't watch it if you're easily offended by sweary language:
And the effect that Coronavirus and the associated lockdowns are having on it.
For instance, average speeds in Los Angeles are 48 percent higher because there's so much less traffic on the roads while up in Seattle,
"on the key I-5 corridor, heading north-south into and out of downtown, traffic on March 18 was moving at speeds 100 percent faster than typical during the morning and afternoon commutes."
I've noticed a small but significant decrease in traffic on my commute. On the key M53 corridor, heading north-south into and out of Chester, traffic on March 24 was moving at speeds 1 percent faster than typical during the morning and afternoon commutes.
The C+D piece also comments on air travel and subway travel. Apparently,
"New York City, which features the nation’s lowest incidence of car ownership and the current highest number of COVID-19 cases, has (as of March 12) seen subway, commuter train, and bus ridership decline massively, with double-digit drops."
The two things I take from that are:
I feel sorry for New-Yorkers for two reasons in the first sentence.
