Horse Jam

I don't really like horror films.  Especially ones that are not advertised as horror films.  I started watching a film once - it started with a group of motorists stuck in a traffic jam.  If that wasn't bad enough, a large number of vandals suddenly appeared and started to damage the bonnets and roof panels of the stranded cars.  And to make it worse, there was plinky, jolly music being played over it all.

I switched channels and vowed never to watch any of La La Land again.

This photo reminded me of that:

It is from this BBC story about a traffic jam in North Wales caused by a horse on the carriageway.

It is a bit misleading in that it makes it look like a major incident with an escaped horse although in reality, the traffic was stopped briefly by the Police so that the horse could be moved from a broken-down horsebox to a non-broken-down horsebox.  Even if the horseboxes had rear doors, (which they don't appear to) getting a horse that is already nervous about vandals on the roof safely along the roadside would be a nightmare - ha "mare" - geddit!?

What are you supposed to do when your horsebox breaks down anyway?

I've just renewed my breakdown recovery.  I was with AutoAid - not one of the big four - AA/RAC/National Breakdown/Green Flag but good value and they are big enough to sponsor BTCC cars:

So I was surprised to see I could be with Green Flag for 40p less.  I signed up for Green Flag and it's a good job there is a cooling off period because my wife spotted a bit about Excesses on the Policy Document - they wanted to charge me £40 for every call-out!  Bloody cheek!

I'm back with AutoAid.

I don't know if AutoAid cover horseboxes - if not, they may get saddled with a Green Flag policy.

Not Coming Home

It's been about two weeks since my last post.

Partly because there hasn't been much car news.

And partly because I've been engrossed in the Football.

I have dual-nationality - I'm mostly Welsh but when there is a major football tournament going on I tend to be English.

And this major tournament has been better than most from an English perspective.

We did play in Samara last week so it is an excuse to mention the Lada Samara:

But today The BBC gave us a story combining traffic AND The World Cup.

Apparently, according to The RAC, traffic was going to peak between 4pm and 6pm this afternoon/evening due to us England fans commuting home in time for our semi-final against Croatia.

I was one of those commuters and didn't notice any extra traffic on the bit of motorway I was using.

I did notice us lose to Croatia though - this makes me mostly Welsh again.

The English boys have done their country proud though - they are only young and they got a lot further than most would have thought possible which bodes well for future competitions.

Meanwhile, Croatia is the home of Rimac - manufacturer of electric supercars like the Concept One:

Which looks a lot better before an Englishman crashes it: 

Love Me, Love My Car.

Is having your photo taken caressing your car a thing?

 There seem to be loads of these on the 'Net.

 

 And it's not just men...

 

Can't explain why, but this guy is my favourite:

 

And yet, according to the BBC Business Section today, we seem to have fallen out of love with the car. Possibly permanently?

It's an interesting piece that tells us that, at some point in the '90s, the ever-increasing total number of miles being driven every year bottomed out.

It goes on to say "In 2012, the RAC Foundation got together with a group of academics. They analysed Britain's stats between 1995 and 2007, stopping there to leave out the impact of the subsequent recession.

And this is what they found. About 70% of us were driving more. But the average mileage was being dragged down because young men, company car drivers and Londoners were driving less."

The key findings were:

• Men in their twenties drive 1,912 miles a year less than they did in the mid-1990s

• The number of men in their twenties holding a full driving licence also dropped by 11% between the mid-1990s and 2005-07

• Company car mileage dropped by nearly 40% between 1995-97 and 2005-07

• Driving mileage across London fell by 20% in the decade leading up to the recession

OK, we'll ignore the first one because they would have been in their mid-teens in the '90s.

Number 2 is the surprising one - I know wanted to get a licence as soon as I was old enough.

Number 3 has to be a good thing. I remember the bad old days when it was normal for petrol companies to give away free gifts to Company Car Drivers to get them in while charging too much for the petrol because "the Company was paying for it."  Video-conferencing and tele-commuting and the decline of British industry would have played a part in this of course.

Number 4.  Two words.  Congestion Charge.

Another interesting statement in the story:

"If car use has peaked, this will radically change transport policy - and in particular should lead to a complete reassessment of the government's £15bn road-building plans."

Wonder if anyone would notice if a 31 mile stretch went AWOL?  The BBC beat me to the headline - Highway Robbery.

Now, just time to give the Jag a wash and a cuddle.

Independent Suspension (of Belief)

After my recent rants about Telegraph & Mail readers, I think I've found another group who are worse - Independent readers. Now the Independent isn't a right-wing rag - it's relatively neutral with Liberal overtones so you'd expect its readers to be calmer and more rational.

No such luck!

Maybe its middle-of-the-roadness means that supporters of both ends of the political spectrum will read it - and then end up arguing with each other.

This week's topic for discussion is 20mph zones. They started with this story backed up by a survey commissioned by The Independent about how people agree with these zones. Unfortunately, any survey that has been commissioned by an organisation will generally ask questions in a way to back up whatever results that organisation wants to hear so I suspect The Independent want more of these 20mph zones.

Anyway, whatever the case, the readers arguments soon break down to nothing constructive with anti-zoners coming up with "Perhaps we should bring back the original 4mph limit? Complete with the man holding a flag, walking ahead of the car?" followed by pro-zoners coming up with "Or maybe we should all drive flat-out with no limits whatsoever?" Look, if you can't add anything constructive to an argument, don't add anything at all - I wonder if that's why nobody ever comments on my postings? :)

That was Monday, and also on Monday we were given a bit more evidence of The Independent's view when this appeared. It is a very short "comment" article by someone who I presume is an Independent writer called Jonathan Brown. It has the title "The 20mph limit makes streets safer, so why not enforce it?" which may be debatable (ask the ABD - I'm coming to them shortly) followed by the subtitle "As a cyclist and father of two young children I am all in favour of putting people above cars" which implies that anyone not in favour of these zones puts cars above people - a ludicrous statement that makes me not want to bother with the rest of his article - and I speak as a cyclist and father of two youngish children - aren't all children "young" anyway? - that's the definition of being a child?

Well I did read it - it didn't take long and what I learned was that he'd been driving past "signs every few hundred yards" while "driving through the area at least three or four times a week" without being aware of them! No wonder he's in favour of slowing down, what chance to pedestrians have when he's behind the wheel?

The article also told me that "compliance is entirely optional" - I was always taught that a red circle sign was compulsorially to be obeyed - this is good news that I don't need to worry about these pesky 20 zones - makes you wonder why they're there really, doesn't it?

Tuesday saw another article, this time giving the other side of the story. It was entitled "Drivers predicted to lash out at 20mph slowdown zones" It leads with the statement "Motoring organisations hit back at the spread of 20mph speed zones which they claim could make exasperated motorists drive badly." Note the use of the plural there - motoring organisations. So which motoring organisations are we talking about here? - The AA and RAC are the obvious ones - or the IAM?

No, the ABD.

Who?

The ABD - I told you I'd get to them. Keith Peat, spokesman for Alliance of British Drivers and former traffic policeman said: “20mph zones will be counterproductive and create more accidents. What you’ll get is drivers driving to the speedometer. It’s safer that drivers drive to what they’re seeing outside the car and not to what their speed needle is saying.”

Sounds fair enough - and he is a former traffic policeman so he ought to know what he's on about?

Until you actually think about it - we've already been told that these zones are not being enforced - and it's not that difficult to knock it down a gear or two and drive slower while still judging your speed reasonably accurately.

Then look further at the ABD. If you look at the IAM's news page, you get a series of sensible, campaigning, safety-related articles. If you look at the ABD's news page, you get a list of Twitter links to articles where people are angry about parking abuses or that the Russians can clear a road quicker than us or just gloating that the Scottish Police didn't sell any seized cars. This seems to be a bad link on their site, they need to re-point their news index - but it does indicate that the ABD are the Daily Mail readers of the car world. Their Press Releases section is a mixture of the sensible and the scaremongering.

So where does that leave us in the 20mph Zone debate?

Where I live was designated a 20mph Zone a couple of years back. There were signs put up but they were not the red circle type and they were put up too high to be easily noticeable to your average motorist travelling at 30. There was also no publicity that I saw in the local press. I went out to take a photo of one of these signs today and it was gone - as were all of the others in the vicinity. They must have been removed as quietly as they were put up - and nobody seems to have noticed.

20mph Zones do not seem to be the answer to anything but the debate does need to happen - between sensible and informed people - and not in The Independent.