Did they mistake Bonnie Tyler on the radio for their sat-nav?

Turn around bright eyes.

Although bright isn't really a word you could use about this Audi driver in the Birkenhead Tunnel.

The story (and dashcam footage) is here in The Wirral Globe.

They were heading toward Birkenhead when they turned around so maybe they didn't fancy paying the toll.  If they had been travelling in the opposite direction, they would have had to pay twice.

I did wonder if it was an April Fools story but the story was out yesterday and the incident happened on March 25th so the Tunnels Police can't be too bright either.  They only just seem to have acknowledged that it happened.

It's a heartache.

That's Handy

Here's a burnt out mini-bus I passed twice today:

It looks like the owner of the Renault in front of it was lucky not to have their car damaged.

Here's my dashcam footage of earlier in the day, just after the fire:

Couple of things to notice:

1. The drivers of the Aygo and the Audi were the sort of people who just stare ahead pretending that they haven't seen you wanting to pull out into a long stream of traffic being held up by a Fire Engine blocking the road.
2. The entrance opposite the junction that you can see a wheelie bin in...is the fire station.

Am I Boring?

Well, I have just bought a grey Volvo.

And maybe even Volvo think they are boring...

...because I've bought mine on the same day that Volvo have said, "We're continually re-evaluating our product portfolio and as part of this process have temporarily removed the S60 from sale in the UK.”

More bloody management-speak - Autocar have the story here.

So I've said farewell to my BMW.

And one of the last things I caught on the dashcam en route to the Volvo dealer was this tit.

Is he typical of cyclists?  Am I typical of Volvo drivers?  Is Jerry from Lowestoft typical of Tory Party members?

Maybe. Nah. Probably.

The High Road

So high you need a ladder.

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.

 

Meanwhile, somebody else lost a ladder in 2020 - the comments under the post on the Motorway Police Facebook Page are brilliant.

Not Fine

Back in May, I posted about the story of a Tesla Driver's close call with death when a load of concrete slabs fell off an HGV and crushed his car.

The case came to Court today.  The BBC reported it thusly.

Lorry driver David Terry pleaded guilty to "using a motor vehicle where the weight, position or distribution of its load involved a danger of injury to any person"

I'd have thought "endangering life" would have been a better description.

His punishment was miniscule - a fine of £267, a victim surcharge of £34 and £85 in costs and three points on his driving licence.  I'm sure that the £34 will help with the loss of a £50,000 car.

I'm normally a softy lefty Liberal.  All words that right-wingers think are insults because they don't know the meanings of them - like "Socialist".

But come on!

His speed wasn't safe - his load wasn't safe - MULTIPLE PEOPLE COULD HAVE DIED!

It shouldn't need a death to match the punishment to a crime like this.

At least the morons in this other BBC video today did actually get banned:

Flight of Fancy

 Caught this twerp on my Dashcam yesterday morning:

I assumed, going by the fact that it was a small Fiesta with a big exhaust pipe that it would be a young lad - a boy-racer if you will.

I was right.

When I pulled alongside him at the next set of traffic lights, he was replete with hoodie and vaping cigarette.

So why have I got a grudging respect for the one driving the car in this next video?

Is it because he achieves air IN A HYUNDAI SANTA FE!?

It's probably because I'd quite like to have a go at that myself.

Given the damage, I think I would also wish to be using somebody else's Hyundai Santa Fe:

This article by Car+Driver writer Ezra Dyer covers the story in an entertaining manner.

Although, if you want an even more impressive jump, you need to check out the Tower Bridge Website.

Van Morrison River Dance

We are in middle of Storm Christophe.

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.

They could have got into an accident - like the Morrisons van driver in this other story from BBC News today.

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.

So I'll finish this post now without any of my usual comedic comments or puns despite the list of Van Morrison albums with very relevant titles.

 

Pot a Willock

 I mean "What a Pillock!"

This is Joe Willock:

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:

What a pillock!

What's The Difference Between a BMW and a Hedgehog?

With a hedgehog, the pricks are on the OUTside.

 

Hey, that's not nice, I'M a BMW Driver!

 

I'd rather be a roadhog than a hedgehog.

 

While on the outside this morning we had this guy (there was a gap behind me and plenty of warning about the lane being shut off):

Then, just before lunchtime, this guy on a motorbike - the Dashcam makes it look calmer than it actually happened.

Meanwhile, over in Greater Manchester, some twerp has been using a Fiesta to transport a greenhouse.  Not sure of the legality of this one, it looks securely affixed and would have weighed in at bugger all.

Now, what's the difference between a JCB and a male giraffe?

 

One's got hy-draulics.

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)

Signal Failure

I saw a bloke driving a Nissan Juke today.

Not sure I've ever seen one driven by a man before.

It's certainly not something you see every day.

I also saw a pink and mint coloured traffic cone on the M53:

Again, not something you see every day.

 

Or maybe it will be now that I know it's there.

 

What I do tend to see every day, especially on the M53 is people who don't understand Mirror-Signal-Manoeuvre.

 

This one doesn't bother with the "signal" bit at all:

I think I was miffed because I'm the BMW driver and I'd been signalling since the second exit marker.

 

Now I think this one has gone for Manoeuvre-Mirror-Signal which is quite a popular combination on the M53:

It doesn't look quite as dramatic on Dash-Cam as real life but I had figured out what was about to happen so wasn't too bothered.

 

Now, back to that Juke.

 

Maybe it was his wife's car.

Motorway Madness

I saw a story on the BBC News Website this lunchtime concerning a car and caravan being driven the wrong way down a motorway.  There was  a still from some Dashcam footage showing a van avoiding them.

The story said that there had been a collision and an air ambulance had been called but there was no news of injuries.

I thought it might make a good story to do an item on.  Especially since I got a Dashcam for my birthday a few weeks ago.  And also because the BBC had this story at the weekend about Norfolk and Suffolk Police releasing Dashcam footage of bad driving.  Including one example I wrote about last month.

Then, unfortunately, tragically in fact, news emerged that three people had been killed including the elderly couple in the Subaru Forrester that was towing the caravan.

Motorways are supposedly the safest type of road to drive on.

But you still get bad driving.

Like this divvy blonde woman in an A-Class.

It doesn't look that bad on the video but I was travelling at 80mph with NOTHING behind me when she noticed Junction 4 was coming up:

Now, the Norfolk and Suffolk Police have been inviting people to send in Dashcam footage so I wonder if Merseyside Police do?

 

Well, returning to the BBC, we find this story from July.

 

It's about a Website which allows visitors to upload videos before sending footage to the right police force.

 

It's here and was set up by Nextbase - the Dashcam manufacturer.

 

I won't be using it for that footage though.

 

But I thought about it for this two junctions later:

Although I've not got a clear view of his number plate.

 

He was very fortunate that the rest of us had our wits about us and that there wasn't a car coming along the outside lane.

 

I'm assuming it was a "he"

 

And he probably thinks that he is a very good driver when in reality, it is the other motorists who are preventing his accidents.

 

And he has been very lucky.  So far.