Opinionated

Yesterday, The BBC on its news site, asked the question, Should you pay more for parking if you have a big car?

The outcome seemed to be that if you have a big car, you don't agree with the idea while if you don't have a big car, then you don't have anything against the idea.

Although the article also mentions Haringey in London, where the council proposed adding a 5% surcharge for medium sized vehicles (4-4.49m long), and a 10% surcharge for large vehicles which are allegedly over 4.5m long.

I wholeheartedly disagree with this idea.

It doesn't affect me in the slightest as I never park anywhere inside the M25 but my car is 4.761m long so it's the principle that counts.

Now if it were up to me, it wouldn't be the length of the vehicle that was used - it would be the height.

But then I've always had it in for cross-over SUVs.

Meanwhile, have you seen Jaguar's new concept car?

The opinions that has elicited seem to have fallen into three main categories:

• It's woke
• It's gay
• It looks like Lady Penelope's car

I do have some sympathy for that third one.

The first two seem to have also been influenced by the recent Jaguar advert which was just too surreal and pretentious for my liking - like every single perfume ad - I really hate the Johnny Depp Sausage one.

(Not familiar with the work of PIG but I like their style)

People who think that car is "woke" need to invest in a dictionary - IT'S A CAR!  I'm proud to be woke given that the alternative is being ignorant.

And those complaining about the gayness seem to be trying too hard - maybe a bit of insecurity about their own sexuality?

And there will only ever be one Jaguar advert for me, the one that appeared while I was a Jag owner.

At least I dislike the new ad for woke reasons.  I dislike the car because it just looks wrong.  It looks considerably better in a sensible colour.

But, much as I dislike cross-overs, I do think it helps to able to sit in a car without having to tilt your head.

But that's just my opinion.

Parking Made Complicated

This story took a bit of getting my head around.

Here in the UK, you can rent out the driveway of your home to someone who needs a parking space in the vicinity.  Martin Lewis has an article about it here.

Similar schemes seem to run in Australia.

One of them is called "Parking Made Easy" and it is them who feature in the story above.  The story is headlined...

Wish someone would pay your parking fine? Now they can.

If you sign up to their service, they will pay off your parking fines or help with putting together appeal letters if you want to challenge your fine.

So what is to stop you parking wherever you like and then getting them to pay your fines?

Herein lies the catch.

They will only pay off the fine of one lucky winner of a draw performed every month.  Bad news for the motorists of Queensland at least...

Queensland motorists owe $42.3 million in unpaid parking fines

So the initial headline is misleading.

Maybe not surprising since the author, Kathryn Fisk admits to having worked for The Sun - a paper aimed at the hard of thinking.  She has also apparently worked on two "renowned" UK regional publications although I can't find anything by her outside of Australia.  Google does come up with the message, "Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe." which means that someone has stated that they don't want irrelevant stuff they've done searchable.  So I tried Bing.  Someone in Silicon Valley must have been briefly excited that somebody outside of Microsoft had just used Bing but they also couldn't find anything by her.

You'd probably have more luck finding an article by me.

Parisian Walkway

At the rate the current mayor is going, that'll be the only way to get around Paris.

First she banned electric scooters.

Now she's making it very expensive to park SUVs in the city.

She's had a vote and 3.11% of the the Paris population said it was a good idea.  How pathetic!  After all, a whole 7.2% wanted to see the back of the scooters.

Needless to say, lot's of people didn't vote.

But how are they defining an SUV?  After all, Volvo define a Polestar 2 as an SUV - and it's very similar in size (including ride-height) to my S60.

So not an SUV.

Apparently, they are going on weight.

But then electric cars are REALLY heavy, what about them?

Well, they are exempt.

As are taxi drivers, tradespeople, health-workers and people with disabilities.

So probably most people in Paris then.

Or, perhaps Mme.Hidalgo is a petrol-head.

Could you imagine if it did actually have an effect?  Imagine a city with no scooters and SUVs!  Just proper cars!

And imagine an end to this sort of thing:

Not Fine Parking

May must be motoring offences month with two more stories from the BBC today.

The first one involves lots of people in High Wycombe parking where they shouldn't.

In a car park.

And they weren't told that they shouldn't park there.

And in reality, it was only a small corner of the car park that they shouldn't have parked in.

So some sad traffic warden has wasted a few hours doing this:

All tickets were rescinded - the story is here.

While up in Scotland - on a roundabout clearly marked with Police "No Waiting" cones, somebody has parked there anyway - on top of a steel drum:

That story is here - it was a stolen car.

Can't tell if the car was damaged or not - I would suspect it has been.

But if it hasn't been then that is a bit of very impressive parking.

And they have avoided getting a ticket.

Do 28% of Car Owners own BMWs?

Maybe.

Or maybe 28% of people who read articles about BMWs on motoring news sites own BMWs.

 

That survey appears at the bottom of this Car+Driver story about how, when firefighters have to break car windows to run their hoses along the shortest distance from hydrant to fire - it is usually a BMW that is illegally parked in their way.

 

They supply the latest example - this happened in The Bronx this week: 

However, a Google Images search reveals quite a different story.

 

So, speaking as a participant in that survey, and as part of that 28%, DO SOME RESEARCH BEFORE YOU VOTE!*

 

In fact, that is true every time you vote in anything - otherwise you end up with idiots in charge.

 

 

 

 

 

*I didn't, I just voted that way because I drive a BMW.

Blatantly Wrong

It's not easy being a perfect driver.

I catch many errors and misdemeanours of others on my Dashcam.

Here is someone who thinks Mirror/Signal/Manoeuvre should be Mirror?/Manoueuvre/Signal:

Also from last year, we have this incredibly stupid, and lazy, woman attempting to cross a dark, busy and wet road with two small children just yards from a zebra crossing:

Her attempt at crossing made me cross.

 

Yesterday, I was doing an airport run and got stuck behind this person who didn't seem to understand that we drive on the left in Britain:

I wouldn't bother watching the whole lot, it's just footage of the back of a car driving along the overtaking lane.  I also had to cut the footage in half to get it small enough for Blogger to publish it. 

 

He (or she I suppose) may argue that he (or she) was driving above the speed limit but I'm not sure how breaking one law gives him (or her) the moral high-ground to try to stop me breaking a different one.

 

Or they could have just been oblivious to what they were doing.

 

Now, talking of breaking laws, the guy in the van in the next photo is actually enforcing them:

He is therefore doing absolutely nothing wrong.

 

So why does it feel like he is?

 

Also, why does it look at first glance like the billboard in the photo is actually showing my photo?

 

Every time I visit that airport, there is somebody sat there in a van, with the engine running, trying to catch people dropping off other people without using the official drop-off places that you have to pay to use unless you know about Drop-Off 2 which is free to use but no use if you can't walk very far.

 

I use Drop-off 2.

 

Finally, on the outskirts of the airport, if I hadn't accidentally switched off the audio on my Dashcam at some point recently, you would hear me state how blatant this guy going through a red light was:

Only trouble is, watching it again, IT'S NOT THAT BLATANT!

 

He does go through on red.

 

But only just.  On re-watching it, I realised that the traffic light on the left was still amber up until the last second before he (or she I suppose) goes through.  The red traffic light on the right is for traffic turning in that direction so not relevant for those of us going straight ahead.

 

That's enough footage for now.  Remember to be careful out there, you never know who is watching you.

 

Must dash.(cam)

It's An Illness Stopping People Visiting Wales

 

The motorway bridge crossing the River Severn has been shut Westbound all morning.

No not that one.

 

That one is the M4 Crossing, also known as the Second Severn Crossing, also known as The Prince of Wales Bridge.  It seems to have more names than Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.  But, unlike Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the bridge isn't a pathological liar and convicted football hooligan followed by morons.

 

In the background, you can see the bridge with the closure.  That is the M48 Crossing, also known as the original crossing.  Not named after any member of the royal family as far as I am aware.

 

Unprecedented levels of staff sickness meant that they didn't have enough people to collect toll money.  This meant that anyone travelling into Wales had to use the M4 bridge but anyone travelling out of Wales was OK because you only pay the tolls in one direction.

 

Maybe they should have just made it free in both directions for the duration.  But I guess that wouldn't have brought in the revenue that forcing motorists to detour would have done.  Not very environmentally friendly when you consider the wasted miles.

 

The scheduled closure was from 5am until 2pm - it doesn't say how they knew everyone would be well again by 2pm.

 

The BBC version of the story is here.  It is on their Gloucestershire bit not their Welsh bit.  I suppose that is logical as it is the people in Gloucestershire not the people in Wales who will have been inconvenienced.

 

Meanwhile, over on the Wales bit of the BBC News site, they have this story.

 

Wrexham Council are going to have to fork out £7100 to replace parking signs after someone went out with a black marker pen correcting errors in the Welsh translations on them:

Bet they wish they had a bridge they could charge people to cross.

Talking of Donald Trump...

I've never posted twice on the same day before but Donnie's favourite news channel covered a car story about his favourite activity.  (That's Fox News and Tweeting, by the way - Meryl Streep overrated? - what a childish prat he is!)

Anyway, I'll not post the link to Fox because they have taken it word-for-word (albeit correctly crediting the item) from this Newser story.

The gist is that a Twitter user complained to Tesla founder Elon Musk about people leaving their cars at charging stations after they had charged up which prevented other electric car drivers from using the stations to charge up their own cars.  Within minutes, Musk replied: "You're right, this is becoming an issue. Supercharger spots are meant for charging, not parking. Will take action."

Six days later he had introduced a 40-cents-a-minute charge if the car is left there once charged up (with a five-minute grace period). This doesn't sound a lot but works out at about £10 for half-an-hour which I most certainly wouldn't pay for car-parking.

Hopefully enough to stop the selfish twits.

Barnacle Bill...

...is what you have to pay to get one of these off your car:

The L.A.Times seem to have got this story first.  They use the word "scofflaws" which is excellent.  The scofflaws in question are people who park their cars illegally and would previously have experienced a Denver Boot (or wheel-clamp as we tend to call them on this side of the Pond)

The new device is being trialled in a couple of U.S. cities and basically uses a strong suction force to obscure enough of the the windscreen to prevent driving.

It is safer for the enforcement officers because they aren't spending a long time kneeling at the side of the road and it is less hassle for the victim because it can be released wirelessly as soon as they pay.

Philly.com got the story next and also used the word "scofflaws" proving how good that word actually is.

New York Post came next.  They quoted the first two articles but dropped the word "scofflaws" in favour of calling the device "a yellow monstrosity."  Fox News then came along and just republished the NY Post story.  I guess the NY Post is another Murdoch mouthpiece.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Britain, and sorry if you don't like the language - I think it's funny:

Sign Here...



I'm not really a fan of the UK MSN Cars page.

 

There will be some interesting articles in there but any with a series of photos, like the one I'm about to mention, always tend to crash out after you've seen three or four.  Then you have to start reloading the page or trying to be clever by editting the URL to up the frame number by one.

 

This is probably my own fault for still having a laptop with Windows Vista and therefore IE9.  I don't like Chrome, do have Firefox but prefer IE so there.

 

Given that the article I'm about to mention has 77 photos, I thought I was very persistant in getting to 41 before giving up.

 

And given that the article I'm about to mention was completely mis-titled - definitely deserve praise for getting to picture 41.

 

Here is the article I'm about to mention.  It is entitled "Funny road signs from around the world" but doesn't feature funny road signs from around the world.

 

Well, there is one:

but the rest mostly feature animal warning signs that aren't funny but are slightly unusual if you don't live where they are out in the wild.  I suppose this one of a stag tickling a man is OK: 

but there's nothing funny about a roadsign warning of possums.

 

Another about 10 of the "funny signs" are not really signs at all - or funny - they are suggestions for signs by London taxi drivers.

 

The first sign in the article I have just mentioned is also not funny.

It is quite interesting though. It is meant to be very simplified sign telling Americans when they can park in a certain area:

It doesn't look particularly simple but when compared with what the authorities had, it is amazingly straightforward:

The improved version is the work of New York designer Nikki Sylianteng and her Website "To Park or Not to Park" - it's worth a click.

 

Meanwhile, over in Ireland: 

Doncaster Rovers

...and other cars badly parked appear a lot in this Facebook site.  The Mail pointed me at it.

For those of you who don't know where Doncaster is, it's about 15 miles from Pontefract.

For those of you who haven't joined the Facebook revolution yet, here are the sort of pictures that appear:

...or a  not very smartly parked
Smart car.










I'm a little uneasy about pictures of Police Cars though - whoever parked this may be extremely lazy & selfish - or they may be on serious police business - or, in these modern day times maybe even disabled?

As ever, The Mail want to put their slant on things.  They start by asking "Are these Britain's worst drivers?"

No, although they may score badly as Britain's worst parkers.

They then have the following list:

• Facebook page shames dreadful parking in Doncaster
• It invites users to send in pictures of shoddily-placed cars
• Irate drivers often go on site to defend their parking
• Site also has a serious message about the dangers of blocked pavements

to which I say:

• True
• Yes, also true
• Not that I noticed
• Definitely not that I noticed

The Facebook page (entitled "Parking Like A Twat In Doncaster") has about 8500 likes including one from Metro's Car Blog - not bad considering it was only started this April.  It shouldn't be confused with, "Spotted :Parking Like a Twat" which seems to do the same job but more nationally and with added car crashes which is not the point of the exercise.  That site has over 55000 likes and only started last month.  Impressive but I think I'll stick with the original and best.  It does give you the option of having your badly-parked car removed from the site though - which Doncaster's doesn't seem to do.

Parking on the pavement seems to the current issue where I live where we have been treated to this story with this picture:

It comes with the caption, "Cllr Harry Smith ‘ticketing’ a car which is obstructing the pavement, forcing a young mum to push her buggy and child into the road."  Don't know the significance of it being a "young" mum - maybe older mothers have narrower pushchairs.  Cllr Harry Smith is clearly not a Tory councillor or he would be stood pointing at the gap between the car and the wall - or maybe the front of the car and the kerb.

 

Instead, he is placing a leaflet on the car that is designed to look like a parking ticket.

 

It was very fortunate for his argument that a badly-parked car was at the same place as a young mum and a photographer while he had some of those leaflets with him - and I bet the owner of that Mitsubishi is glad this didn't happen in Doncaster - he'd have looked a right twat.

Parking Space Sex

The Telegraph had this story today, but not in its motoring section. It's about how the mayor of the German town of Triberg has "courted controversy by allocating so-called easy parking spaces to women"

Controversial!

It is probably a publicicty stunt - he does try to imply this when interviewed - but it will bring back once more the old arguments about who makes the best driver.

Their motoring section does cover this woman driver though:
Although it is the bloke who was in the passenger seat who is an idiot - albeit a lucky one.

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.

Size isn't Everything - Although 18" Sounds Quite Good

Metro (no relation - and I've been using the name longer anyway) published this story today.

This means restricted parking for something much shorter than a Peel P50 in the Tower Hamlets area of London. There should also be a post next to it with a little yellow plate detailing exactly what those restrictions actually are.

I suspect there isn't.

The Mirror also had the story and they got the Council to comment that the line "highlighted the gap between resident and business parking bays."

No it doesn't.

Nobody's going to look down there to see where one area you can't park is separated from another area you can't park.

Anyway - it could have been worse.

This is also from The Mirror...and involves a dead hedgehog.

BBC News had this one...whereby a road was resurfaced and yellow lines were painted around a parked car.

Those examples and a few other entertaining ones can be found by searching Google Images for "yellow lines" where you will also see the excellent work of Banksy: