Morris Minor Owners Club

stuffedpike20 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 26, 2020 8:39 pm My inner chimp keeps making me challenge everybody.
Maybe i should get it drunk.

Your not managing him properly

Obviously he manages me. Maybe he will grow out of it as he gets older.

My 'psychiatrist' (wife) often talks to me about circles of influence and circles of control. Obviously I do not have any control over certain things such as cyclists on the pavement, or drivers that don't indicate; but the agents that DO have influence over such things (police, council, parking officers) are under funded, and therefore under staffed or just can't be bothered with what they see as trivial problems.
2 More observations...

My elderly neighbour was parking his car in a multi storey car park. He is a good driver, and had a couple of goes reversing his golf into the parking space and getting it evenly between the white lines of the bay.
A younger man came up to him as he got out of his car and claimed that my neighbour had just dented his vehicle. He took my neighbour to a different part of the car park and showed him a deep dent on the front wing of a car. He told my neighbour that if he gave him £200 cash, the matter would be dropped. My neighbour looked closely at the dent, and saw that it was rusty. As an ex Rolls Royce engineer, he realised that the dent had occurred a long time ago. He walked off without saying a word, with the young man shouting abuse behind him.

On another occasion, an elderly driver driving a 1990s Rover through my town centre suddenly stopped when his engine cut out. Within seconds, the driver behind him had his hand on the horn , as did a couple of drivers behind him. Some shoppers eventually pushed the car half onto the pavement out of the way, but the driver was badly shaken up by the experience.

Is this Darwinism in practice? Is the Universe telling these elderly drivers to stop driving because they are past it. Are we heading for a Mad Max world? So many people have been speeding during lockdown; I would suggest a higher percentage than the usual percentage that will habitually break the rules.
What does the future hold?

"Are we heading for a Mad Max world?" Possibly.
"What does the future hold?" Who knows, but it doesn't look great

It annoys me when going uphill on a narrow road that is just able for two cars side by side when the person going down doesn't give way or reduce speed to uphill traffic causing you to squeeze to the side to pass safely.
Also on dual carriageway , outside lane hogged by driver well under speed limit when inner lane has no one in it.
In the countryside tractors allowing large build up of held up cars and passing numerous areas where they could pull in to allow cars to pass by safely

I don't think people generally know about the downhill uphill thing; ie that in a 50 50 situation, the driver going uphill has the priority.

I wonder how many people know that cycling on the pavement is unlawful, and how many people genuinely don't know.

What is needed is the public information films on the television that we used to have. Remember 'Clunk click every trip'. and 'Don't dazzle, dip your headlights'. and 'The outside lane of the motorway is for overtaking only'. ?

Always taught to ‘ give way to a pulling horse ‘.

We have a new neighbour who moved in about 4 weeks ago. (House with Blue X)
He's in his mid 70s.
This is a Google Earth of were we live, a small cul-de-sac area just set back from our actual road.
I'll park nose in and to leave do a quick 'changing direction using forward and reverse gears' or as it used to be called, the 3 point turn.
As illustrated by the yellow line.
if the driveways opposite are 'full' it just means doing a 5 point turn (it's a little annoying as the tops of the drives are supposed to be public rights of way to allow people to turn easier). But live and let live etc, to keep the peace.

However, the new neighbour insists on reversing out the entire way (blue line). I've seen him scrape his wheel arch on the lamppost (Red X) at least 3 times and he has to go back and forward several times at the curve because he keeps going up the kerb at that point.
When he introduced himself, he mentioned that he had a bit of Dementia, but I can only assume he thinks reversing out all the way is preferable to hitting a car while turning. probably doesn't help he drives an Astra Estate, so a bit on the long side.! I think it could be entertaining living here over the next few months. The only time he's put a Bin out since he's arrived has been after they'd already been. He didn't even bother putting one out today....

Might be worth getting to know him, these people are getting hard to find. I knew an old boy once, now sadly gone, wouldn’t throw anything away and was very resourceful, he was a one off and I learnt a lot from him.

les wrote: ↑Thu Jul 02, 2020 10:25 pm Might be worth getting to know him, these people are getting hard to find. I knew an old boy once, now sadly gone, wouldn’t throw anything away and was very resourceful, he was a one off and I learnt a lot from him.

I've spoken to him a few times. It was about the 4th or 5th time we spoke that he basically apologised if he got my name wrong, 'because I have a bit of dementia'.
That immediately explained why we were going over much of the same things every conversation. Things like, 'What goes in the recycling bin?' because he's moved authorities, so very different recycling systems.
His big problem is he's moved from a much larger house and really had no idea how much he needed to downsize. When the Removal van first arrived, they had to take about 1/4 of the stuff back to storage, as the house and garage were full. He's now had the rest delivered, but I can only assume all the packaging is piled up in the back garden...

I think a lot of the drivers and indeed the general public have let standards in general slip over the years.

I was once a Tutor constable and responsible for new recruits or at least a small portion of their training and one of the things I used to say was deal with the small incidents, that way the public will thank you and the Police will be seen to be doing their job.

Litter is a case in point, I was once held at a red traffic signal in a liveried traffic vehicle and the driver of the vehicle at pole position in the queue decided to throw his empty cigarette packet out of the window.

As we had just stopped, I walked up and spoke to him, at which point the light sequence began to change so I held all the traffic at this particular junction and requested the driver to go pick his litter up.

Advice was given and he went on his way, now I would like to hope he learnt a small lesson and maybe, just maybe he will throw the litter in a bin.

The other drivers nodded in approval but that little incident will probably stick with all concerned for a while, and it cost nothing but a small amount of time.

As for driving standards well you only have to travel on a motorway to see how some people cannot drive in a straight line without getting it wrong.

Yesterday I was in a line of traffic in lane 1 of 2 when a VW Golf began to overtake, no problem I was travelling at the posted 50mph she was going slightly faster and inching herself past me, then a battered Toyota came steaming up behind her almost within 3 feet of her bumper and began weaving behind her.
This caused her to panic and immediately pull into lane 1, I had at this point already dropped back to allow her some room but even so once in lane 1 she braked quite hard whilst trying to see the other driver.

Needless to say the Toyota was already accelerating to well above the national speed limit, in what was still a 50mph zone.

I captured the whole incident on my dash-cam, which has been downloaded and is en-route to our prosecutions dept for a summons for careless and inconsiderate driving on behalf of the Toyota driver.

The full advanced driving course is held over 5 weeks with two pass or fail tests within that, so after three weeks an examiner takes you out and if deemed to have enough skill you are allowed to enter the final weeks where the pursuit and commentary are again tested, the last Friday is nerve wracking waiting for your turn to take the car out with two examiners, one watching your every move, the other making sure everything you say is correct and given in plenty of time (no point saying we have just passed the spotted cow pub) they want to hear we are approaching a pub on the nearside/offside and a brief description of the building and surrounding features so air support are aware of the subject vehicles location.

All this is whilst driving the pursuit vehicle if in a pursuit training test.

To say its stressful is an understatement and to pass it is elation, so getting back to the point, on the road you not only have to driver for yourself, but drive for others as well.

Stay safe.

And don't even get me started on lane discipline on motorways.

Question;
“When would you overtake a vehicle on the left?”

Answer;
“WHEN THE [Don't swear or you will be banned - Admin] IN FRONT WONT MOVE OVER.....“

Tempting with these lane hoggers but in the circumstances you quote, if you were spotted, you could be prosecuted. The exceptions being if you were in a road congestion and the lanes to your right were travelling slower than you.
No swear words were used in this reply.