Comments (1)

By Gareth, November 13, 2009 23:40

On the way home from work the other night I had a near miss.

The evening was dark and wet, as you’d expect from a cold November night. For the majority of the journey things had been fairly uneventful. The moment happened just after the halfway point. After passing a fairly busy junction on the motorway, I noticed that the traffic was beginning to slow. I was travelling in the outside-lane of the carriageway and I decided it would be prudent to move to the inside-lane as that tends to be the place that idiot drivers avoid.

It turns out that it was a fantastic decision!

About five or ten seconds after moving from the outside lane, and with all the traffic in front of me practically stopped with warning lights flashing, I looked across to the outside lane as something caught my eye.

It was a car who appeared to be travelling way too fast, and I thought to myself, “he’s not going to stop in time, he’s not going to stop…”. He – I say he, it could have been a she – just carried on, and then there was that moment when they’ve realised that they are running out of road!

The car, which may have been a Ford Focus, or similar, dipped violently at the front as the driver hit the brakes hoping that they were brakes that are fitted to F1 cars. It was to no avail, as the car skidded straight into the back of the poor car who had the misfortune to be at the back of the queue.

The stationary car, which I think was a Nissan Micra, was hit with an almighty force, and it was sent off at speed through the traffic in front, playing pinball with four or five other cars. Bits of cars were flying off in all directions. It eventually rolled to a stop on the hard shoulder.

Who knows what might have happened ten seconds earlier when I was in the outside lane!

I made my way past the scene of the accident, there would have been little that I could have done, and having more cars parked up on the hard shoulder than was necessary would have been more dangerous. From what I saw in my rear-view mirror there were already the other four or five cars involved pulling over.

Driving past the scene yesterday, there was no sign that anything had happened. I can only presume that no-one was seriously hurt in the accident because there were no signs up asking for any witnesses to come forward.

It just makes you realise that you have to have your wits about when driving on the motorways. I think I was lucky this time!

Comments (2)

By Gareth, December 2, 2008 22:15

Cars in the Snow

…causes so much chaos!

This morning was the journey from hell to work. Not that I got there!

It all started when we were woken at around 5am by Liam who was asking for a feed. As I got up to see to him, I had a quick look out of the window to see how bad the overnight frost had been. It didn’t seem too bad. I went into Liam’s room and changed his nappy, while Gemma went downstairs to prepare his bottle. Continue reading 'A Little Bit of Snow…'»

Comments (4)

By Gareth, November 13, 2008 23:01

I’ll say it again!

“PUT YOUR DAMN* LIGHTS ON”

*Language toned down for public consumption

This time of year really shows how many idiots there are on the roads. I don’t know about you but it has been driving me mad lately as the days are getting shorter, that some drivers are being so dense that they don’t turn their headlights on.

It really annoys me! (Could you tell?)

This is really stupid and just plain dangerous. Especially with the speeds on the motorways. It is hard enough to see cars approaching behind you in the dark, without these idiots driving without their headlights on.

Just because they can see everyone else with their lights on, it doesn’t mean that we can see them. I don’t understand why seeing other cars with lights on doesn’t serve as a reminder for them to do the same.

You can imagine the thought processes going through these drivers minds:

Oh, look at all those drivers with their lights on.

That’s really good of them. It helps me to see them.

And, because they’ve got their lights on that must mean that they can see me!

No, it doesn’t quite work like that.

In fact, its not just driving at night that drivers “forget” to put their lights on. Even when its raining they should be putting their lights on so that other road users can see them through all the spray.

Another point, sidelights do not qualify as having your lights on when visibility is at a premium. You might as well not have any on, for all the good they do! It is very hard to see the dim glow of sidelights in amongst bright headlights, or mountains of spray being thrown up from the road surface.

I think that it should be made compulsory for all cars to have their lights on at all times. It won’t cost you anything and it will save these brain dead idiots from having to bother to turn their lights on.

Comments (0)

By Gareth, April 25, 2008 09:21

Gemma had a bit of an exciting day on Monday. Having been out in the morning with Ellie they were on their way home when they were stopped by the police.

The police were out in force doing their usual vehicle checks. Gemma was spotted by the lead police car, who radioed his mate to stop her to check the tinted windows in the car.

Gemma stopped as requested and the nice policeman (he was genuinely nice according to Gemma!) He checked the windows to see how much light was being let in, and it was found that the windows were letting in a lot less than they should be.

The policeman was quite surprised that we’d not been stopped about it before. We’ve had the car for 3 years now and its never been an issue before.

The limit for the front side windows is min 70% light, but they were actually only letting in 40% light. He also checked the windscreen which has a limit of 75%, and it scraped in at 77%.

Because of that he had to issue Gemma with a ticket. Luckily it was only a non-endorsable fixed penalty, which meant no points for Gemma, but a £30 fine. We’ve got 28 days to cough up.

There was a little bit of humour from Ellie as the policeman gave Gemma the ticket:

“Look Mum, a ticket” said Ellie.

“Yes darling it is a ticket,” replied Gemma. “But not one that we want!”

So when I got home I had the job of taking the film off the inside of the windows. This was not an easy job. Getting the film to start peeling off was the hardest part, but once it got started it pretty much came off in one go. Once the film was off, the next job was to get all of the adhesive off.

A lot of elbow grease and white spirit was required, but eventually most of it has come off.

So all we’ve got to do now is to send off a cheque

Comments (5)

By Gareth, January 16, 2008 20:35

You don’t see it very often but when you do, its something that makes my blood boil!

What I saw today is still making me angry, even now, a few hours later as I am writing this.

As I came out of work this afternoon, and was waiting to cross the road to get into my car, my attention was caught by a car waiting at the junction. The first thing that caught my eye was the colour. It was a bright orange Ford Fiesta ST, not a subtle colour by any means.

The next thing I saw has made me angry. Sitting in the front passenger seat was a small boy, who I would guess was probably about 5 years old. Nothing too bad in that you might think. But if I tell you that the boy was perched on the edge of the seat, and not even wearing any sort of seatbelt or in a car seat, you can understand my anger.

What the hell was his mother thinking? Why would someone be so stupid, and reckless? Doesn’t this woman care about her son?

So many questions for her to answer. It’s times like that, that you wish that a police car was passing at the time.

Why would a parent let their child sit in the front seat, without restraints? I just don’t understand.

I really hope that she never does that again. Next time could be bad!

Comments (0)

By Gareth, October 29, 2007 12:02

Why do people insist on only driving in the middle lane on the motorway?

The worst type of middle lane drivers are the ones who stay in the middle lane for the entire duration of their journey. They get onto the motorway and head straight to the middle lane, even if there is nothing in the “slow” lane! And there they stay until they want to get leave the motorway.

The thing that annoys me about these drivers is that if they come up behind some traffic in the middle lane, they won’t overtake by going into the outside lane if it is clear, they’ll slow down behind the traffic and wait for it to pull back into the inside lane. They will then put their foot back down and accelerate.

This was the case on Saturday, when we all went to Wrexham, as it was Gemma’s dad’s 50th birthday. Gemma was driving and she is not a driver that will speed, but the amount of times we passed the same few cars was unbelievable! We would overtake these cars that were sat in the middle lane, usually stuck behind some traffic, and then pull back into the inside lane. Then as the traffic moved back to the inside lane you could see them putting their foot down, overtaking us again and then when they came up behind some more traffic they’d slow down yet again, and the whole cycle would start again.

There have also been a lot of occasions recently when we’ve been travelling at 70mph in the inside lane with nothing in front of us for miles, and we are actually travelling faster the the”fast” lane. The cars are all bunched up trying to overtake a couple of middle lane hoggers.

The reason that many people do this, is that they lack the concentration for driving on a motorway. Yes, we all know that driving on a motorway is boring, but that is no excuse for you to switch off and sit in the middle lane. In fact, people should be even more alert as to the dangers of driving at high speed.

I think that this is one of the reasons that the government is sanctioning using the hard shoulder in places to cut down the congestion. There is no need to do this, just make everyone move back to the left hand lane after they have made their overtaking manoeuvre. That would then keep a 3-lane motorway a 3-lane motorway, not reducing it to a 2-lane motorway.

While I’ve been writing this I looked “middle lane drivers” on Google and did you know that there is a website dedicated to these people, and their misdemeanours! It’s called Middle Lane Morons. I also came across another website, How Motorways Work, that covers even more indiscretions on the subject of motorway driving.

I feel so much better knowing that there are other people out there who think the same as me. Glad I’ve got it off my chest!