Grumpy Old Motorist

DRLs, driving to disaster?

2011-03-04T13:06:00.000Z

As we approach 2012 and the introduction of daytime running lights (DRLs) for all new cars it’s interesting to note that, unlike older Volvos, the latest models have lights at the front only. Of cars I’ve seen lately Citroens Audis and Toyotas all only have DRLs at the front.

The problem is that I’ve seen several drivers at dusk relying on DRLs only, thus leaving the back of the car completely unlit. The more I see of DRL use the more convinced I become that this is an ill-conceived scheme that’s going to lead to more accidents rather than fewer.

Let’s hope it falls by the wayside like other strange EU lighting ideas – dim-dip, anyone? Sign the petition at Lightmare to protest against DRLs.

GOM

Box not clever

2010-09-07T11:04:00.000+01:00

Do not enter the box unless your exit is clear. What's difficult to understand about that?

So there I am this morning, sitting in my highly-trained Korean hatchback at the head of a red light queue waiting to turn right. When the lights change, traffic tailing back from temporary lights further down the road I want to turn into means that half a blue van is already in the box and my exit is blocked.

I sit tight. Someone behind sounds a horn, having nowhere to go I ignore it. A few seconds later it sounds again, then a young woman in a silver Clio - personalised reg of course - pulls out from about 3 cars back, overtakes the queue and drives into the middle of a blocked junction. Unbelievable.

What are some people thinking? Why do they believe they're more important than anyone else? And who did they get to take their driving test for them?

GOM

The first fatal car accident

2010-08-17T13:00:00.003+01:00

At 4mph! How it happened.

More think tank idiocy

2010-01-25T12:28:00.000Z

Here we go again. According to the Telegraph something called the Sustainable Development Commission thinks that all motorways should be monitored by average speed cameras to keep people to 70mph and save the planet.

There are so many wrong-headed things about this it's hard to know where to start, but lets just look at a few. First that 52% of drivers exceed the 70mph limit. Doesn't that tell you the limit is too low? Unsurprising when it was set in the 60s and your Ford Anglia or Austin Cambridge would have struggled to go much faster.

And notice the other spectre here, "pay-as-you-go road charging". Haven't we already said in no uncertain terms and en masse that we don't want this?

Isn't it time politicians started to listen to us, the people, instead of these half-baked, half-wit think tanks?

GOM

The iceman cometh

2010-01-12T08:55:00.000Z

Having learned to drive in the 1970s, when winters were winters and cars were mainly rear-wheel drive, the last few weeks haven't presented too many motoring problems to me.

Not so many of the younger generation. Witness the young chap in the Fiesta attempting to drive past the Grumpy Motorist household this morning. Okay, so it's a mild uphill slope and a bit icy, but there's no excuse for coming to a halt with masses of wheelspin. He then backed off and tried again with even more revs.

Needless to say with a little deft footwork I drove away with no drama at all. gentleness is the key.

The youth of today, eh? I blame the parents.

GOM

Sigh...

2009-12-21T20:16:00.001Z

Why can't anybody drive in bad weather any more? Watching people struggling to get up the slope out of our office car park was like watching the Keystone Cops. Far too many revs and bags of wheelspin, culminating in getting out to push each other's cars. Then they look astonished when I chug past in the highly trained Korean hatchback with no drama at all.

I blame global warming.

GOM

20mph and disjointed government

2009-12-16T08:37:00.000Z

Another day another piece of government idiocy. Local authorities are to be encouraged to introduce 20mph zones in all residential areas. Quite apart from the dubious safety benefits, where's the joined-up government?

We're being told that cutting emissions to save the planet is the most important thing ever. Yet, on the very day that Gordon Brown flies to Copenhagen to take part in the climate change shindig, we get a policy announcement that will raise vehicle emissions at a stroke.

Is it too much to ask for someone to think these things through? Is there any wonder we've lost faith in politicians?

GOM

Footbrake frustration

2009-11-03T12:34:00.000Z

Now that the darker evenings and mornings are upon us we once again start to suffer the curse of drivers who hold the car on the footbrake in traffic. Not only is this lazy and a cause of more frequent bulb replacement, it's very annoying for the driver behind - which quite often seems to be me.

Modern high-level brake lights are very bright and right on the eye line of the following driver. Great for safety if you need to stop in a hurry, but not so good when you have to suffer them when stationary in traffic. They have a detrimental effect on your night vision if you have to look at them for more than a few seconds.

It's sheer laziness to hold the car in this way. Applying the handbrake and putting the car in neutral takes only a second. Not only will you cause less frustration you'll be safer too. If you're holding the car on the footbrake and someone hits you from behind you're likely to get shunted into the car in front as your foot slips off the pedal.

So, use the handbrake when stopped in traffic. You're making yourself safer, saving money on bulb replacements and the driver behind will tank you for it.

GOM

Save the planet - kill a road user

2009-10-12T20:25:00.000+01:00

What is it about politicians and road pricing? Despite 1.8 million people signing a petition against it and Greater Manchester delivering a resounding no on its referendum, the idea won't go away.

The latest wheeze comes from a government think tank, The Committee on Climate Change, that wants to use road pricing to reduce our carbon emissions - reported in The Times here.

We already have a very effective road pricing scheme in the form of fuel duty - it's easy to collect, hard to avoid and it automatically adjusts for mileage and vehicle economy. So why do politicians and think tanks want to lumber us with complex, expensive technological schemes? Is it because they like the idea of tracking our journeys? Is it to justify the Gallileo satellite project? And while we're on the subject of emissions have they thought about the carbon cost of manufacturing all that technology? It's been estimated that a typical computer server has an equivalent carbon footprint to a Range Rover Sport doing 10,000 miles a year (source).

And it gets worse, because the Committee on Climate Change also wants to use speed limiting technology (Gallileo again?) to further beat us with the carbon stick. Where's the joined up thinking here? There's plenty of evidence - not least from the HGV accident statistics - that using speed limiters and making drivers travel unrealistically slowly for the road they're on leads to inattention and a rise in accidents.

Have they simply not thought this through? Or are they really saying that it's worth killing and injuring a few extra road users in order to save the planet?

GOM

Road Closed

2009-10-07T13:10:00.000+01:00

With the party conference season in full swing it's interesting to see politicians vying for a share of the motoring vote. Among the things that caught my eye during the Conservative conference this week were the comments by the AA President, Edwin King on motorway closures.

The police and the Highway's Agency now seem to close roads when someone so much as loses a wheel nut. I appreciate that if there's a serious accident the police have to treat it as a crime scene, but King's comments struck a chord when it comes to getting roads re-opened more quickly.

The figure of 208 days of closures in the first eight months of this year is scarily high. Moreover it represents time and money lost to the economy as well as having an impact on the environment.

I really hope some of these suggestions to get things moving get implemented. I might even be tempted to vote for a party that commits to doing it.

GOM

Called to the bar

2009-09-24T20:52:00.000+01:00

Practically every car I've owned since the late '80s has had its tyre pressure - both in the handbook and on the sticker on the door pillar/fuel flap - quoted in the metric 'bar' measurement.

So it puzzles me that every time I use the air line at my local filling station the readout has always been switched to the PSI scale. Why? Are people so wedded to the imperial measurement that they painstakingly convert the metric measure? Or do they just stick 30PSI in because that's what their dad used to do?

I switch it to bar each time and leave it that way, but I've never yet found it on metric. It's only a matter of pressing a button so it's no big deal, but I really would like to know why people do it.

GOM

They've got your number

2009-09-20T14:25:00.000+01:00

Has anyone else noticed the number of organisations that seem to have access to your car's registration details nowadays? Obviously the DVLA has always had it, as have the insurance companies to be able to give you online quotes.

But now it's all over the place. Sell a car on eBay and you can enter the registration to bring in the vehicle details. There's even a Castrol site where you can enter your number to find out what kind of oil to buy.

Now, I'm guessing these companies pay for access to the data, so it's making the government money. But isn't it a bit sinister? After all your registration is the only means used to identify your vehicle for enforcement purposes, fines, etc. Shouldn't the details of what type of car belongs to which plate be rather more closely guarded? Doesn't this help the people who clone registrations to avoid congestion charges and the like? Am I being paranoid? You bet!

GOM

Tyred and emotional

2009-09-17T19:00:00.000+01:00

Two new tyres needed to get the highly-trained Korean hatchback through its first MOT today. Have got Nexen - not a brand I've ever heard of - but they seem quieter than the OEM Bridgestones on the motorway. Plus at £51 a tyre pretty good value.

A bit of Googling (other search engines are available) reveals that Nexen is South Korea's oldest tyre company and has a joint venture with Michelin. Isn't the Internet wonderful?

If there's anything more to report I'll keep you posted.

Classic diversion

2009-09-06T14:56:00.008+01:00

By way of a little light relief here's a photo from the Grumpy Old Motorist's trip to the Silverstone Classic at the end of July.

It is, of course a Morris J-van dating from the late 1950s. I used to have a Dinky Toy version as a kid, in Capstan cigarettes livery as I recall -- you'd have social services round for giving kids tobacco branded toys today, how times change!

Click the photo for a higher res version and some other snaps from the event on Flickr.

GOM

Driver aids

2009-09-05T18:25:00.001+01:00

Reading a recent issue of Octane magazine (when you get to my age the classic mags always hold more appeal) I was struck by Rowan Atkinson's column in which he said that he never allows friends under the age of 35 to drive his older cars any more.

He argues that modern cars with their plethora of driver aids have meant we now have a generation of drivers who don't know what a car actually feels like. It's an interesting thought. If like the Grumpy Old Motorist you passed your test in the mid 1970s your first car was likely to be something basic and rear-wheel drive, like a Ford Escort -- or in my case a Vauxhall Viva. No power steering, no ABS, no traction control, not even all-round disc brakes.

Crude you might think, but you got to know the feel of the car. You knew that lightening of the steering on a slippery surface or that slither when you braked too hard and locked the wheels. Then when you graduated to your first front-drive hot hatchback in the 1980s you found out about torque steer.

Now it seems our legislators don't trust us to know how to drive so they insist on more and more nannying gizmos to make our cars "safer". The problem is that it can have the opposite effect, if you don't know what the car feels like when it's about to let go you're going to end up having a much bigger accident.

What's the solution? A couple of weeks in a Caterham for every new driver, perhaps?

More seriously we should be worried about where this is taking us in the future. The technology already exists to remotely control a car's speed based on satellite information. That's a horrifying thought. Controlling speed is a key part of the driving task, take that away and people are more likely to lose the full concentration that safe driving demands. Scarier still, knowing that they can't speed drivers are likely to keep their foot to the boards at all times, regardless of weather and traffic conditions. And let's not even think about the circumstances where a burst of extra speed might just save your life. As an interesting aside here, the government's own figures show that since mandatory speed limiters were introduced on lorries deaths of HGV drivers in accidents have increased -- go figure.

Currently our political masters don't have the will to implement this degree of control -- and would lose too much revenue in speeding fines if they did. Let's hope the day never comes when they're persuaded otherwise.

GOM

School's out

2009-09-01T20:04:00.000+01:00

With the school holidays coming to an end it seems appropriate to talk about the effect they have on traffic.

Anyone who commutes by road will know that you can knock at least 10% off the journey when the schools are off. I'm not quite sure why this should be - presumably because parents are on the road at different times when they don't have to ferry kids around.

So what's the answer? Compulsory US-style school buses perhaps? Or maybe just change the timings so that schools start earlier or later. I don't know the answer, but given the effect the holidays always have you'd have thought someone would have addressed the issue by now.

GOM

DABbing it here, DABbing it there

2009-08-31T11:19:00.001+01:00

Not strictly motoring related, though it will affect car owners and so is just cause for grumpiness. The government is to switch off analogue radio and force everyone on to DAB by 2015. The FM frequencies being sold off for "ultra local" stations.

This seems to be an incredibly wasteful idea. A quick survey of the Grumpy Old Motorist's household revealed three analogue radios, plus the car stereo - all of which would need to be replaced. Multiply this across the country and you have a vast mountain of surplus kit to be expensively recycled, or worse thrown into landfill. then you've got to import replacements - which won't do the economy much good.

And why? So the treasury can raise a few bob by selling off frequencies - that will then be used for content hardly anyone will listen to.

There's a petition against the analogue switch off on the Downing Street website. I urge you to sign it.

GOM

Call of Duty 2(p)

2009-08-31T11:00:00.001+01:00

From midnight tonight fuel duty rises by another 2p. This despite the fact that we're still in recession. The problem is that fuel duty isn't just a tax on the motorist, it's a tax on everyone. It affects the road transport that delivers goods to the shops and the public transport for people who don't want to drive.

It's also a tax that has a disproportionate effect on the less well off, since they spend a greater proportion of their income on transport.

Of course ministers with cars provided by the state and generous expenses are isolated from all this... roll on the election.

GOM

Call of duty

2009-08-26T13:38:00.000+01:00

Remember the government cutting VAT to stimulate the economy during the recession? At the same time they increased fuel duty by 2p a litre to prevent petrol and diesel from getting cheaper. Presumably they were worried about us all rushing out to fill our baths with the stuff.

Now of course we all know that in 2010 VAT goes back up to 17.5%. Do you suppose nice Mr Darling (the man with the strangest eyebrows in politics since Denis Healey) will be knocking 2p off fuel duty to compensate the hard pressed motorist for this? I'm not holding my breath.

And this in the face of evidence that fuel tax increases are starting to have a negative effect. People don't buy as much and the treasury collects less tax.

Sometime soon governments need to realise that road users aren't a bottomless source of revenue.

GOM

Quick, quick, slow

2009-08-25T22:32:00.003+01:00

Why do some people slow down when they see a speed camera? People who are not speeding, that is.

On my commute to work I pass a camera in a 50mph limit. It's on a dual-carriageway, clearly visible and there are plenty of lamppost repeater signs to remind you what the limit is. Yet almost everyday someone spots the camera and slows down to 40mph - sometimes by standing on the brakes at the last minute.

Why? Are they so unaware that they missed all the signs? Do they not know the road? The fact that they're there in the peak suggests they probably use it regularly. Or do they think their speedometer is so wildly inaccurate that anything approaching an indicated 50 will get them zapped with a fixed penalty? Trust me on that last one, car speedometers are generally inaccurate the other way. At an indicated 50 you'll be doing about 47. That's why you get lorry drivers - who have super-accurate tachographs - glued to your boot lid through contra-flows, because you're not going as fast as you think you are.

This slowing for the camera behaviour isn't just an irritation. It's also dangerous. If someone not paying attention to the signs slows down they could get hit by someone not paying attention to the road (see my previous post). Not only that, it's wasteful. My highly-trained Korean hatchback will do 50mph in fifth gear, barely sipping diesel. Slow to 40 and I have to drop to fourth - higher engine revs, more fuel used, more pollution.

So please, unless you're actually speeding, don't slow down for cameras.

GOM

The boy Button talks sense

2009-08-25T20:03:00.000+01:00

Jenson Button - currently leading the F1 driver's championship - has always struck me as that fairly rare breed amongst racing drivers, a relatively normal bloke.

That's an impression reinforced by the boy Button's comments at a recent road safety event. You can read the full article on the ROSPA website, but the gist of what he's saying is that too many people are driving around not actually concentrating on what they're doing.

How true that is. How often do you see people pootling in the middle lane, or joining from a sliproad completely unaware of what's going on around them?

Driving isn't that hard a task, most people can manage it, but it does require concentration and consideration for everybody else on the road. If you can't manage that then maybe you should think about taking the bus and making the roads safer for the rest of us.

GOM