Kickstart

Not sure. I have friends with mechanical engineering degrees who have never worked in it. I know people with automotive engineering degrees who do not work in it. That said, think the same applies in IT and probably a lot of other more technical areas. Katy

I saw this, and loved it. Looked really good and detailed. Quite a few little details hidden away which you can spot but which aren't highlighted. Katy

Hi We bought it on DVD. I quite enjoyed it. Yes a few bits stand out as wrong, but not as much as many other films. As an aside, watching Wonder Woman last year, they had Southern Railway carraiges in a scene there. But based in WW1 it pre dated the SR by a few years. Warlord Games make a "Hollywood Tiger" for the game Bolt Action . This is is the Kelly's Heroes tank. Bit small for O gauge unfortunately :- https://store.warlordgames.com/products/hollywood-tiger All the best Katy

Doesn't help a increasing number of signs seem to be around saying not to change lanes. Particularly annoying are the ones for road works saying which lane to use for different things, and to not change lanes! If you can't change lanes then what the lanes are for is pretty irrelevant Katy

I have a card which I don't think has any policy about a positive balance. But I have a standing order for the min payment, and with negligible balance that is £5. So it rapidly lands up in credit quite often. Adds up for 6 months to a year, then I buy something on it. Probably putting into debit again for a while. Katy

How many could be transferred usefully? And if you landed up with those lorries all descending onto a few transshipment yards then there would be a lot of extra traffic in a few areas which would really be clogged up. Time wise, from Southampton to Birmingham is going to take 2~3 hours for an HGV. Time which is probably less than the time taken to transship onto a suitable train (waiting for it, loading, waiting to depart, waiting to unload) at best, let alone the time taken to travel by rail. Katy

Probably true, but whether it would be regarded as a new aircraft might cause an issue with flying it. Katy

Are the channel tunnel lorry carrying rolling stock built to continental loading gauges, or so a larger loading gauge for the tunnel itself? Best I can see the tunnel itself is to standard continental loading gauge but not certain. Either way, the main trunk lines only cover a fraction of the national network (and as best I can see very very little of it is to Berne gauge). Could easily be several hours of travel by lorry either side of the rail journey getting to and from a trunk route, and possibly well out of the way of a direct route. Katy

Not sure it saves anything at all fuel wise. Read a comment a while back concerning a transport manager wanting a lower speed limiter setting on the batch of truck they were ordering, and being told this would use more fuel as they were greatly optimised for 56mph. Possibly more marketing related. And for companies selling to consumers, setting the speed limiter to (say) 52mph ensures that the lorry is unlikely to be the one in the overtaking lane and perceived by all their customers as being the problem. A 4mph difference (56mph vs 52mph) would result in them passing quite quickly (ie, the difference in speed is that of a fast walk). Probably about 10 seconds to overtake, rather than the several minutes that is often the case (before now I have been in a queue stuck behind am HGV taking the best part of 10 miles to overtake). The limiters will have a slight variation. Tyre wear, tyre pressure and load will like effect the limiter giving a small difference even for 2 lorries with nominally the same setting. And that will cause a problem if one decides to overtake the other. Some lorry drivers complain that they are under pressure of time so need to overtake. But the difference on a (say) 300 mile journey between sitting at 55 and sitting at 56 is going to be about 5 minutes. The journey is going to be delayed far more than that due to stop start traffic triggered by other lorries ahead pulling out to overtake. Katy

Suspect the cost of transferring from rail to road and back makes this uneconomical, and the extra time makes just in time deliveries would also be a problem. While possible to incentivise this I suspect to make it worthwhile the incentive would need to be pretty massive. Katy

Problem wasn't lack of design, rather lack of bottle to admit what was required. Friend worked for the department of transport in that area ~30 years ago. He said they have calculated it needed 9 lanes in each direction in some places but nobody would dare admit it. Hence it got built pathetically under spec Katy

I still have my FX85. Bought in 1984 I think (about a week or 2 before O level maths). Missing the battery cover though (might be around somewhere but no idea where). Katy

M25 was built massively under what was known to be required. Not surprising that it has congestion issues. Katy

Hi Slaters have put on their web site that they are not attending:- https://slatersplastikard.com/ Katy

Exactly my point. If it were ring fenced then there is an excuse for basing it on size of vehicle / road damage, etc. As that is only a minor element of it then no reason why similar taxes shouldn't be applied to other classes. CO2 can easily be directly taxed via fuel duties, so also taxing it at a fairly random level (as it does not relate to mileage) on VED is pretty pointless. Yes it is a very simple concept. All the best Katy

No, point was that the only excuse for the high taxation really is hypothecation. If there is no hypothecation then it is just a general tax, and no reason at all for there to be the same taxes on other forms of transport. Daft is expecting a tax that is applied to one group with no longer any justification shouldn't be applied to other groups. All the best Katy

If ved and fuel duty have nothing to do with the roads then it is just a general form of taxation. It would probably be best to just equalise it with other forms of transport, so £160 a year ved on bicycles, and full fuel duty and vat on public transport. After all, just taxation and no excuse to bias it. All the best Katy

Hi Doesn't help that cycle lanes (along with quite a few bus lanes) seem to have been used as part of the war on car drivers. Many should just be removed All the best Katy

I thought indicators were used by some to lull those who want to cut them off into a false sense of security, so they would block the wrong side. All the best Katy

Hi ABS is an odd one. One thing it does manage is to brake each side of the car depending on the available grip on that side. Something a driver can't do, and useful on back lanes where mud on one side only of the riad is common. Brake use does seem to be getting excessive. Not sure if i actyally react to brake lights now as them flashing on is so common it has become just a visual white noise. But then various driving and riding groups now seem to encourage lightly using the brakes when just using engine braking just to illuminate the brake lights to let people know you are slowubg. Personally think this is counter productive All the best Katy

If they are not worried about insurance then they probably wouldn't care about licenses. A changed test is hardly going to stop them getting a Hayabusa. The tests seem to have hammered the 17 year old (pretty much zero point in anyone 17 doing a motorcycle test), while doing nothing about 40 year olds who can just wobble around for a week on a large bike doing some training and a test. All the best Katy

Yet many Americans these days seem to think a 6k oil change interval is bordering on engine destroying, an 3k is about acceptable All the best Katy

That would have been at least 20 years ago, given after that would require direct access to ride a full power bike, or 2 years riding a bike of under 25kW before being able to ride an unrestricted bike. The rules now are really hideous to get an unrestricted licence. All the best Katy

Visible pulsing on some. Buses tend to be the most noticable All the best Katy

Think part of this (you are just a touch younger than me, so at school at about the same time) is that when we were at school anything less than rain man levels of autism were not recognised in the slightest, nor something that would be seen as something to be helped. Kids were there to be hammered into a role. All the best Katy