Ladies and gentlemen, I feel an attack of whitewash coming up:
From our local newspaper....

A director in the Western Cape Department of Community Safety responsible for the Arrive Alive road safety campaign has been arrested for allegedly driving at 205km/h on the "death stretch" of the N1 highway near Beaufort West.

It was a case of traffic cops catching their boss, as Greg Duncan is director of traffic management in the department which controls the provincial traffic department.

Duncan, who was on official department business, was allegedly driving in his turbo-charged Volkswagen Passat at 205km/h in the 120km/h zone between Laingsburg and Beaufort West on Friday evening.

Provincial traffic chief Pat Curran would not name Duncan but confirmed that a high-ranking official in the provincial government had been arrested and released on bail.

"He will appear in court in Beaufort West on Friday, March 15," Curran said.

The section of road on which Duncan was caught is notorious for its high death rate and every holiday season his department runs a provincial Arrive Alive promotion on that stretch of the N1 warning motorists and pedestrians of its dangers.

Just last month, as holiday season road deaths soared, an exasperated Arrive Alive spokesperson, Inspector Kenny Africa, told Weekend Argus: "I don't know what else we can do to discipline motorists. Today we even went on radio to warn drivers that we would have speed traps across the province and yet we are still catching people doing 150 to 170km/h. They don't seem to want to listen."

Now one of his superiors has allegedly failed to listen but Douw Steyn, acting head of the Department of Community Safety, said: "We all make mistakes from time to time. The important thing is that although a senior person in the department has been caught, I have spoken to all the relevant people and can tell you that he received no special treatment. This will all be done by the book."

Steyn, who declined to identify Duncan by name until he had appeared in court in March, said the director had been driving his private car but had been on official business.

"He was driving a private vehicle like all high-ranking officials in the department. None of us drive provincial government vehicles," he said.

Steyn said Duncan would not be suspended. "We view this allegation of speeding very seriously but we would suspend someone only if what they did affected their work and it does not affect his normal work in this case," Steyn said.

"Nobody is above the law, but we must not overstep the line. He must get fair treatment in court. This is not the time for public lynchings."

Duncan said he could not comment on the matter as it was sub judice.

Leonard Ramatlakane, provincial Minister of Community Safety, said Duncan would be treated like any other alleged offender and would receive no special treatment.

"It is unacceptable if he exceeded the speed limit, but the rule of law must be applied. He has the same rights as anyone else. It is not appropriate to run a trial by newspaper." Read more

Was interested (ref: recent Xantia thread) to again check consumption of my HDi (110) saloon at a steady 70. Topped up before and after a 96 mile journey of mostly A14 dual carriageway. Strange thing was that at the end, I could only fit about 3 litres in the tank. So this worked out to, errr, 138mpg! Have I created some sort of record, or is this just a load of airlocks? Read more

Thanks Adam for replying to my query on 07 Feb regarding a Toyota Carina with a fuel mixture that was getting weaker on its own.

I took it to Beadles in the end, they deserved another crack at the job as they had diagnosed the weak fuel mixture to start with and they had well exceeded the quoted half hour for a diagnostic but only charged me the quoted price when I took it there in December.

The problem was a very slight air leak, as you'd suggested. It was the exhuast manifold gasket which had deteriorated and was causing an almost imperceptible blow. But the system wasn't airtight as a result. Once new gasket was on, the CO% came straight back to where it should be so we assume that's what the problem was.

Thanks

Danny Read more

Recently, in the last couple of days, I have been having problems with my girlfriend's Pug 106 1998 1.5 diesel, it has taken 3 or 4 attempts to get it started. The glow plugs have been checked, and they are not damaged and have the correct resistance.

This is accompanied by a lot of white smoke and "kangarooing" driving down the road when the throttle is half open. This happens until the engine has warmed up.

The engine has done about 27000 miles and has been regularly serviced (every 6 months which happens to correspond to the 6000 mile interval).

I have read about problems with the bores getting worn due to dirty or worn injectors on this forum.

Any ideas?
Steve Read more

My Rover 214i intermitently and espantaneously revs up to about 3000 rpm after 5 min. into a journey after switching off it becomes normal,any idea? Read more