Driving standards

[Guest]

36 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

It might have been a fairly new car with DRLs some of them are so bright at night it looks like the old dim halogens of the 70’s, hence the reason they have to dim almost completely at night when headlamps are on, they are so bright you can actually see a fair bit at night but of course you’ll have no rear side lights on!

 

Certainly when I turn my headlights on the view outside actually gets dimmer.

[PhilJ W]

4 hours ago, AyJay said:

Did anyone in Oxfordshire catch sight of the Ninja-Motorist yesterday evening at going home time?

I had just passed Witney and heading south towards Kingston Bagpuise, when I joined the tail of a queue of vehicles going somewhat slugglishly.  As a bend came, I saw the reason why.  In front of the bus ahead was a saloon car doing about 35-40 with NO LIGHTS ON!  This was about 5pm, it was raining and absolutely black.  Nobody coming the other way flashed at him/her, which was suprising.  Eventually, the car turned left before Standlake, along a road that I have once ridden down, narrow, twisty, unlit.  The indicators and brake lights were working, so I doubt it was an electrical failure. Utter madness!  Surely everyone realises that you are taking your life in your hands if you drive at night with no lights.

 

4 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

It might have been a fairly new car with DRLs some of them are so bright at night it looks like the old dim halogens of the 70’s, hence the reason they have to dim almost completely at night when headlamps are on, they are so bright you can actually see a fair bit at night but of course you’ll have no rear side lights on!

 

The driver probably was so thick they thought their headlamps needed cleaning 😁

Or driving on his fog lights.

[96701]

16 hours ago, Nick C said:

The vast majority of them went in way too fast - the very last one shows how to do it, slow to stop a bow wave forming, with high revs to avoid stalling.

 

For any kind of tow, everyone should be standing well clear!

Oddly enough, when I joined the Eastern Region Plant and Machinery Department in 1978 the practice of using capstans with wire ropes had just been banned because the injuries brought about by flying broken wire ropes was deemed to be too prolific. This is one reason why I disagree with people who talk about Health & Safety gone mad and common sense prevailing. 

 

I also remember travelling between Carlisle and Preston on the secondman's seat of an 86 or an 87 and noticing that those staff who chose to wear minivests were much easier to see at 100 mph than those who weren't.

[Enterprisingwestern]

12 hours ago, 30801 said:

 

Certainly when I turn my headlights on the view outside actually gets dimmer.

 

Take your sunglasses off then, poser!

 

Mike.

[Reorte]

7 hours ago, 96701 said:

Oddly enough, when I joined the Eastern Region Plant and Machinery Department in 1978 the practice of using capstans with wire ropes had just been banned because the injuries brought about by flying broken wire ropes was deemed to be too prolific. This is one reason why I disagree with people who talk about Health & Safety gone mad and common sense prevailing.

 

That's a bit one extreme or the other isn't it? I don't think anyone's ever claimed every single thing done in the name of health and safety is mad.  Even the Victorians had some safety measures, and I doubt anyone's ever claimed that period was a bastion of safe working! And similarly the presence of entirely sensible measures doesn't automatically make everything done for those reasons sensible.

 

Don't automatically condemn or condone, or automatically attack anyone who disagrees is how I think it's best to look at these things.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

Even the Victorians had some safety measures,

 

I'm reminded of a Victorian study into the health risks of licking postage stamps.

[Reorte]

56 minutes ago, 30801 said:

 

I'm reminded of a Victorian study into the health risks of licking postage stamps.

Well rich people might do that, so that needed checking.

[boxbrownie]

14 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

 

Or driving on his fog lights.

Modern cars cannot use fog lights without going “through” the headlamp position on the light switch, of course if it were an old banger, yes.

[boxbrownie]

16 minutes ago, Reorte said:

Well rich people might do that, so that needed checking.

Rich people got their servants to lick stamps, have you no class man? 🧐

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, Reorte said:

Well rich people might do that, so that needed checking.

 

No doubt they made the glue out of arsenic and concluded it was perfectly safe.

[Lochgorm]

Rich people got their footmen to deliver their letters!

 

 Charlie 

[boxbrownie]

24 minutes ago, Lochgorm said:

Rich people got their footmen to deliver their letters!

 

 Charlie 

Bloomin’ long walk just to tell Papa you’ll be back from India on the 24th November steamer at Southampton though.

[big jim]

I’ve just been into town and saw a guy in a transit swipe the front corner of quite a new expensive looking BMW suv in the car park, I could see by the angle he was at wouldn’t be able to pass but sure enough scraped the side of his van along the front corner of bumper (by the fog lights) before piling into an adjacent ‘mother and child’ parking space (no kids with him)

 

I walked up and knocked on his window and asked if he realised he’d hit the other car ‘did I’, looking shocked, knowing full well be did as most of the car park heard the crunch too, he checked his van and said he’d put a note on the BMW, I walked off and when looking back could see him lingering and looking back toward me so I stood round the corner out of his view for about 5 minutes and sure enough he had no intention of putting a note on the car, just went in the shops, so I got a pen and paper from the nearest shop and wrote one out myself to put on the BMW but as I came out the owner returned and I explained what had happened, she said she’d wait for him to return and confront him 

 

we went off and did what we needed to do and as we came back about 20 mins later he was stood there taking pics of the BMW scratch and I noticed the owner had written down his details, he was quite a big fella and she was a foreign woman (broken English speaker) so I was a it worried he might be trying it on so lurked a bit out of sight just in case, we actually saw the woman afterward in Tesco and she said he was ok with her and she had his details but had I not questioned him there was no way he’d have put a note on the car! 
 

 

[stewartingram]

7 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

Modern cars cannot use fog lights without going “through” the headlamp position on the light switch, of course if it were an old banger, yes.

Do you mean sidelights rather than headlights? Traditional lighting (and I'm not up to date with modern cars - I keep well away from them) says headlamps are too bright/too high, not penetrating fog; so switch the headlights off and use low foglights to penetrate below the fog.

My Rover 75 (which is modern enough to me!) will allow foglights with sidelights; but you can add heads if you want.

[PhilJ W]

On 17/11/2022 at 00:35, PhilJ W said:

Lowered suspension.

And this one had a grinding noise for a couple of weeks.

[kevinlms]

That's nothing!

Customer states web site.

 

I would hope the tow truck drivers would ask the mechanics if they want to take these vehicles, before they drop them off? Most of these would have the scrap dealer reluctant to take them.

 

 

[boxbrownie]

12 hours ago, stewartingram said:

Do you mean sidelights rather than headlights? Traditional lighting (and I'm not up to date with modern cars - I keep well away from them) says headlamps are too bright/too high, not penetrating fog; so switch the headlights off and use low foglights to penetrate below the fog.

My Rover 75 (which is modern enough to me!) will allow foglights with sidelights; but you can add heads if you want.

Some do, but not so modern.

 

With the advent of electronic switches  it was easy to enable front fogs only with headlamps, same as putting the rear fog lamp switch in the “cancel when ign off” mode, thus preventing the rear Red Devil lamps left on for three weeks!

[Guest]

59 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

thus preventing the rear Red Devil lamps left on for three weeks!

 

On that subject I was passed by a Clio the other day with music blaring and what appeared to be a flashing F1 rain light on the back.

 

Seems to be a thing now 🤷‍♂️

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175446194732

[fulton]

Just driven back from Germany, took a different route via Venlo and Antwerp, all the roads I travelled in Holland had a 100kph limit, just over 60mph, everyone seemed to keep to it, did wonders to the fuel consumption, soon got used to it, maybe an idea for the UK, in Germany the roads I used had limits of 120kph or 130kph, many drivers were way over it.

[kevinlms]

This woman clearly should never have been given a Learners Permit in the first place, since she had zero awareness of what she was doing. Never mind that she broke the law by driving unsupervised.

 

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/erratic-and-illiterate-l-plater-who-killed-grandmother-had-iq-of-young-child-20221124-p5c0v2.html

Edited November 25, 2022 by kevinlms
Typo

[pirouets]

Having a nice stroll back from dropping a car off for MOT and service and watched a woman pull out straight in to the bus coming from her left as she turned out on to the road. Road to her right was clear and no one hurt, but how do you not see a purple double decker bus. 

 

i know buses round our was are notorious for their speed (not sure i have ever been on one that went above 20 when i used them to commute) so i can only think a simple case of not paying attention by the car driver

Edited November 25, 2022 by pirouets

[Reorte]

57 minutes ago, pirouets said:

Having a nice stroll back from dropping a car off for MOT and service and watched a woman pull out straight in to the bus coming from her left as she turned out on to the road. Road to her right was clear and no one hurt, but how do you not see a purple double decker bus.

Looked like exactly the same happened here earlier this week, I passed one on the way home with police standing around it, where it seemed that someone turning right out of a side road had somehow managed to crash in to the back of a bus heading in the same direction. I suppose it could've been one of those "pressed the wrong pedal" moments.

[duncan]

I think the acceleration of the electric buses might be catching a few people out.

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, duncan said:

I think the acceleration of the electric buses might be catching a few people out.

The old trolleybuses were quick off of the mark too.

[PhilJ W]

More mechanical horrors.