Forgotten to shut your door?

Yesterday I was driving along and a car coming the other way had his drivers door open. It appeared to be that he was holding open with this foot!

Now - a few questions immediately sprung to mind.

1. What has happened in that car to make leaving the door open a good idea? someone with a serious gas problem in the car? has an egg just purchased from Makro just exploded? Was the air con broken? or was the driver of the car so outraged with the quality of his driving, that he was considering jumping from the car to save himself?

2. What foot was he powering the car with, if his right foot was holding the door open?

3. Can you imagine explaining to the police why a motorbike crashed into him? "well you see i had the door open..."  It's not going to end well!

4. What mental institute had this person just escaped from?

Scaring drunk drivers off the road!

Last night around midnight the roads were quiet apart from a fair few Police cars out and about and some blatantly drunk drivers. Presumably that's what the police were out looking for - and good. People to take to the wheel, having had too much alcohol will at some point ending up killing someone and/or themselves. Why do people risk it these days when the chance of getting caught is so high?

One driver in front of me last night was weaving all over the place, and was obviously well over the limit, and drunk at the wheel. At that point there were no police cars about (typically). So i decided to do a bit of policing myself.  I accelerated quickly to get up behind the car in close proximity and started flashing the headlights as an undercover police car would do.  The outcome was that the drunk driver freaked out, and started braking and looking behind as though he had just been caught, and was going to lose his licence!  Acknowledging my job was done, i turned off. however hopefully this was enough to make the driver think twice next time and not get behind the wheel drunk!  Am i being over hopeful?

DON'T Drink and DRIVE!!!

Headlight bulb - decided it wants a holiday

Why is it that Headlight bulbs decide to "do one" during the winter, when you really need the damn headlights on?  Mine has obviously decided that it is in need of a winter holiday to the sun, and left me on the shortest day of the year.

My Ford Focus is now short of one main beam bulb - meaning a trip to Halfords at some point over the next week.  But - there are a few choices to be made.

1. Do i upgrade to Xenon bulbs?
2. Do i try and fit them myself, or watch a pleb from Halfords do it and lose skin, blood and tears whilst i stand and try not to laugh?

Xenon bulbs would be much better - but would be more costly.

Fitting bulbs to a Ford Focus is much, much easier that on a Renault Megane (Click here for how hard that is!) but still not "that" easy - and i have the patience of a mouse in a room filled with cheese.

Whatever my decision, i need to get it sorted soon - having only one working headlight at the end of December in the UK, is pretty risky and will more likely get me pulled over by the police, who want an easy time over the Christmas period.

Raising the Motorway limit to 80mph

The government has announced today that they will be looking at reviewing the current speed limit on the UK Motorways of 70mph, and will consider raising it to 80mph.

Their reasons for doing so are due to improved car safety the risk to life at 80mph if a crash happens is now reduced. Also that millions will be saved every year because people get to where they want to go quicker.

Firstly, WELL DONE for thinking about this, and not before time!  However, its not going to make any difference.  People will still drive at 90 - 100mph, there will be no difference to journey times, all that will happen is that the number of people getting stopped for speeding on a motorway will be reduced, meaning the police forces in the UK will have to think of another way to catch people and make money, otherwise the government will need to either cut their budgets, or raise our taxes in some other way.  It will come back to bite us in the end!

The government has also said that its only able to think about this now because its got hot on uninsured and drunk drivers.  Yes, I am sure they have - They can now take their £50 cars off them -  but that's not to say they do not exist anymore. There is always going to be some monkey who will decide car insurance is too expensive, or they've just had a few pints and they've only got to drive a few miles.  If they got hot on people who cant drive, and should be off the roads - then they could open up the motorways to an "any speed you want to" policy!  Think about how much money that would save!  Winchester to Portsmouth in 10 minutes in a Lamborghini! Yes please !

Car Insurance doesn't need to be expensive!

My Car insurance renewal cane through this last week, and its gone up from £50 to £60 a month! Now, i know what you are thinking.  It serves me right for doing handbrake turns past police cars!  But.. surprisingly i have a clean license, with 8 years + NCB.  So why has it gone up so much!?

A quick investigate later, and I've managed to get it down from £60 per month to £27 a month.  That's a saving of £396!! 

The worrying thing is a lot of people don't bother switching insurance companies, thinking its too much hassle and they wont save much anyway.  Think again!!

I used quidco to make the above saving, and so i will actually get another £25 in cash-back on top of the above saving.  Take a look : http://www.quidco.com/user/1108075/   Its free to sign up, and you can definitely make savings, as shown above!

PS.  Hand brake turns past police cars are not recommended, unless you are certain they are asleep!

Dodgy drivers on mobile phones

A news story was published today regarding a driver who was caught talking on two mobiles, whilst doing 70 mph down a duel carriage way. He maintained that despite reports, he wasn't steering with his knees!  What was he driving with then?? He also said that he wasn't actively using two mobiles, he was searching for a number on one, and speaking it into the other.  Oh well - that's alright then!! 

No doubt he was on the phone to his local whore house, and was reading out the number for his favourite sex phone line whilst steering with his penis.  For that he got banned and £200 of fines. 

To be honest though, this isn't enough.  He has seriously risked the life of himself and thousands of road users and pedestrians around him by this act. Just for the sake of getting a good deal on a whore! Seriously though, mobile phones can destroy lives.  There is a well known police program that's repeated weekly showing the story of a girl who died when her car was crushed into a small cube, because the lorry driver behind was playing with his mobile and didn't see her brake.  That girl had a family, who has had their lives shaken, turned upside down and burnt to a crisp because of the lorry driver being stupid.

Using a mobile phone whilst driving is probably something we've all done at some point.  Just today i saw two people on the phone whilst driving and both of them nearly had accidents as i watched them.  One of them pulled out in front of me, the other was about to pull out on a police car with his blue lights on!  If these two drivers continue to do this they are likely to end up in prison on a death by driving charge.  I just hope they don't, and that honest road users don't end up injured or dead because of people like this.

Stop using your mobile whilst driving.  It's not worth the risk!

Link to news story of man steering with his man vegetables:

http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/driver-caught-using-two-mobiles