Underwhelming

What we have here is a van hogging the middle lane being overtaken by another van going about 2mph faster.

I'd have been going at about the speed limit.

The Golf driver was in a hurry.

So who's fault is this dodgy manoeuvre?

Excuse the cheesy music - that's Simon Mayo's fault.

The Undertakers

 This is one of several versions of my favourite anti-drink-drive adverts:

The caption is usually something like, "Who is going to drive you home tonight?"

Most excellent.

This morning, my dash-cam caught a couple of candidates for the undertakers undertaking undertaking manoeuvres.

The first one is an impatient van driver who doesn't appreciate driving at 25mph in the 20mph zone I highlighted the other week.

I have no sympathy for him - he is a tosser.

The second one though, I may have to admit doing myself - I hate middle-lane hogs.

And will someone please remind me to shift that flyer from my dashboard?

Bad Driving Caught on Video

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.

Motorway Astronomy

On Monday, I helpfully pointed out the problem of ladders on motorways.

Today, the BBC are helpfully pointing out the problem of lads on motorways.

A couple of lads were caught lying down on the M1 in Yorkshire in the early hours of the morning doing a bit of astronomy.

OK, they were on the Central Reservation - but even so, one sleepy driver, or perhaps too much excitement over spotting a meteor, and they would have been seeing stars.

I wonder what this guy would have made of it all?

And do we think the boys were hoping to see a Ford Galaxy?

Red Light District

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.

Why Not To Post Snapchat Videos From The M25

 Headline:

Woman falls from car on M25 filming Snapchat video

BBC story:

Click Here.

Picture of where it happened:

Woman:

Dozy Mare.

But what I want to know is, Where's the bloody video?

Dead Fast

I like black cars.

I have a black car.

My two previous cars were estates.  I didn't want a black estate in case it looked a bit hearse-ish.

So now I can have a black car.

Anyway , I was driving my black saloon car up the motorway at approximately 80mph this afternoon when this happened:

If you are wondering why I am in the overtaking lane, I had just performed an overtaking manoeuvre and saw the truck in the inside lane ahead so calculated I was better off staying there as nothing was behind me.

 

I suppose if my job involved spending a lot of time driving around at 10mph, then I would go for it given the opportunity.

 

Plus it probably did the engine a bit of good.

 

I suppose the ideal engine for a hearse would be an electric motor.

 

But it has already been done:

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)

Animal Wrongs

Tricky one this.

An animal has died.

Here is the BBC story of a couple of zebras which escaped from a circus in Germany and got onto a motorway causing a crash.

I'm not an edgy comedian so have to resist the temptation to use the phrase "zebra crossing" although the phrase in the story that stands out is, "The animal was going in the wrong direction on the autobahn from Tessin to Rostock"

 

Is there really a correct direction for a zebra on the autobahn from Tessin to Rostock?

 

Or are they implying that the zebra wanted to go to Tessin?

 

In either case, as any edgy, right-on person (or any reasonably intelligent person) will tell you, animals shouldn't be in circuses.

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.

Eccles Kayak

OK - it's not happened in Eccles.

But it's nearer to Eccles than to Dundee or Genoa or Madeira or other places famous for cake.

It's a bit of a non-story really - a motorway obstruction for half-an-hour early on a Sunday morning.

But I'm a bit surprised at the BBC headline - "Canoe in M1 fast lane stops traffic flow"

Firstly, I don't believe flow was stopped (apart from briefly when they physically moved the boat)

- but calling it "The Fast Lane"!?

There is no such thing as "The Fast Lane"

May I suggest, "Canoe in M1 third overtaking lane causes minor disruption to traffic flow".

Told you it was a non-story.

Story Time

ITV News got very upset by this picture today:

The story is here.  They claim it shows a parent driving along the M62 Motorway whilst reading to his children.

An un-named female passenger (passenger, yeh right!) in the car in front said,

"It was ridiculous. He hadn’t been looking at the road for a good five minutes. “My partner was driving, he looked out of the rear window mirrors and I glanced over then saw him. There were three kids. There was a child seat so they were quite young. “I couldn’t believe it. He was right behind us, his attention was on the book not the road. We were worried he would go into us.”

I would have put quotation marks around that lot but there are already too many in there - and not where they should be either.

The picture is credited as "MEN SYNDICATION "  which is nothing to do with gay porn.  Those of us in the North-West of England know that the MEN referred to here is the Manchester Evening News.  Their version of the story is here.  You can clearly see here where ITV News cut-and-pasted their story from - including the excess quotation marks.

The MEN highlight the word "driving" by putting it in capital letters.

I don't think they should.

I think that if the woman was genuinely concerned about the DRIVING going on there, she would be even more concerned by the TAILGATING going on there - both by the story-reading parent and by the lorry-driver behind him.

I think they are stuck in a traffic jam.

I think they are not moving.

and I think she is jealous of his Range-Rover.

Sign of The Times

Correction, make that The BBC, not The Times.

I read this non-story today about people complaining about some new LED advertising signs put up near the Liverpool end of the M62 motorway:

 

I say "people".  It is actually the ABD, the Alliance of British Drivers, an organisation I was unimpressed by three years ago. They are probably upset because one of them missed the speed camera on the motorway in that area because they were busy reading whatever it was displaying an advert for.

The Liverpool Echo covered the plans for the signs back in June although the location was a bit different and the main objection then was "due their size, elevated location and that they will be illuminated, which we consider would have a significant detrimental impact on the local community – both to local residents and local amenities.”:

 

The picture looked good though.

I'm not seeing any real dangers myself - they are not moving pictures (like I saw in November '14 when both the adverts AND the pictures were moving) and it is claimed that lighting levels are controlled.

At least no real dangers unless Wonderbra revisit a certain advertising campaign from 1994.  Hello Boys.