November 2003
An American company that assesses driver risk for insurance companies has published the results of a survey covering 1 million drivers over an 18 month period.
The worst category was Students followed by Medical doctors, Lawyers, Architects and Real Estate Agents. For interest the best were Farmers followed by Firemen, Pilots and Politicians.
In surmising the reasons why Students easily topped the poll it stated that "They're inexperienced and lack a healthy dose of fear." nothing surprising there I suggest.
However interestingly one reason given for categories 2 to 5 was:
"Lots of cell phone use, a common factor among doctors, lawyers and real estate agents, may also contribute, said the spokesperson. There's plenty of evidence that shows that cell phone use is a big contributor to accidents"
Food for thought!
I wonder is if a similar survey has been carried out in UK.
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speedo does not work were do i start??cheers
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I would try what has been suggested by Dynamic Dave worth a go could save a bit of time
Anyone driving around in a Mazda 6. I'd be interested to know anyones experiences with it, particularly road noise on long motorway journeys and opinions on legroom and headroom.
Thanks
Marty Read more
Am I right in thinking that if your car fails the MOT and expiry date is, like, tomorrow, then somehow you can still legally drive around for a few days? e.g. (I'm guessing) if you can show you've booked the car in to have the work done in a few days time. Read more
I think you might be right Carrick in a blatant case like loading the car up with family and luggage and taking in a holiday on the way to the tester. But in the example I gave, my friend was buying a car a long way away, and genuinely wanted to take it to his usual tester/repair man to have it looked over. That seems to me to be in the spirit of the rules, and was indeed readily accepted by the police.
Clearly there will be marginal or dubious cases, as in every regulation. Likewise the exemption for taking the car to be repaired in preparation for the test would presumably also be subject to some kind of reasonableness test. Taking a rare classic to the only specialist in some obsolete kind of steering gear would be one thing, driving a Sierra to a mate to have some dodgy welding done would be another.
Folks,
There have been a few posts lately regarding pop-ups. The revenue from these and other ads is what pays for the Back Room. The servers and bandwidth don\'t grow on trees and this isn\'t some form of community service penance that has been visited on HJ. The Back Room has to pay for itself, as you will see if you go to \"Announcements\" where HJ has made this point. www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=17444
Please please refrain from posting comments negative comments about these ads. If it weren\'t for the ads, you wouldn\'t have this place to make other comment and enjoy the varied and valuable resource that the Back Room has become. They are, after all, a minor inconvenience in the overall scheme of things. If you can\'t cope with the odd pop-up, how on earth do you react when things don\'t go your way on the road?
Any further posts on the subject will go the same way as the others. HJ, Mark, Dave and I have .357 delete buttons, the most powerful delete buttons in the Back Room (and the only ones, come to think of it). Now.... Do you feel lucky?
No Dosh Read more
For the last 4 days or so my temperature gauge which normally sits about 92 is suddenly starting to shoot up to just over 100 on slowing down/stopping in traffic. As soon as I pull off it returns to normal and whilst I've not had a chance to pop the bonnet up it doesn't appear to be overheating.
Am I right in thinking that the temp gauge sender unit needs replacing?
Daz Read more
Thanks, yes I meant I was going to drain some water out via the bottom hose then top up from expansion tank. As I've lost somewhere in the region of 2-3 litres of water over the last few weeks I felt putting a litre of anti-freeze back would be a good move?
Not too long ago I was driving on a local country road, many very steep hills and bad bends. Business drivers tend to think that they are at Brands Hatch and invulnerable. The morning was misty.
I'm not a fast driver, and very unsettled by tailgating. At one bend I had to stop to let through a Land Rover, causing a bit of a queue to form behind me. As we left the corner a green car was too close to me, and a black car was much too close to him. How do I know in the mist? They were that close.
On a straight stretch I accelerated to open up a gap, to perhaps 40 mph, the limit of my vision. Then I saw about eight or ten Mallard ducks walking accross the road in single file. I did a quick deceleration to avoid having ducks through the windscreen. Fortunately they started running and I just missed them. I accelerated again to avoid being shunted. Looking back I saw the two following cars had stopped at an angle to the road.
Comments please, would you have gone back and lectured them, or do what I did? Read more
Tailgating can be intimidating, sounds like the two folloing you weren't really invincible!
Worth reporting it to the police as you were a witness, even though you didn't stop. They might need a statement for traffic conditions etc.
Gareth
Please can someone help me!!! i have a p reg rover 620sldi. lately it has lost power between 2800 and 3000 revs while trying to accelerate. Had the turbo tested and it is supposed to be fine. plenty of pulling up to the points when it loses power. any possibilities??? Read more
am not getting any warning lights at all.. i went an brought an air mass meter (160 quid) and it wasnt this???? it is so annoying now.. i think its gonna be a back to rover job!! apart from this the car is as new and i dont want to get rid id sooner sort this out!!
Hello all,
Just reading on the BBC website about the regulations for using mobile phones in the car - does anyone know if an iPaq based GPS system will still be legal?
Thanks,
--
Lee
MINI adventure in progress Read more
I've just upgraded from TomTom 2 to TomTom 3 and as I do most of my driving in the sticks, I was only too aware of v2's inclination for sending you down dirt tracks. Fortunately v3 is far less inclined to do so, and is IMO a worthwhile upgrade.
On the TomTom 3 CD there is a folder called Voices, and you can select Jane, which is the female voice as per V2, or Tom who is male and speaks to you in a stern upper class tone. The male voice is also more bassy and I've found its much easier to hear on my PDA, especially with the radio on the car at the same time.
Over time, there have been a number of threads about airport parking, and I hope I can add something useful here.
Having been let down at the eleventh hour with our travel arrangements to LHR tomorrow, my wife and I will instead drive to the airport, so I needed to find some parking info, pronto.
I started off by going to www.BAA.com simply to find details of car park operators away from the airport perimeter to try and save some dosh, and found that in fact not only can you pre-book parking with the main operators at any BAA operated airport via this web site, but you save a real wad in the process. If you're uneasy with booking over the web, simply telephone 0870 0001 0001 instead.
We booked at Pink Elephant LHR, which being the closest is the most expensive, but I know where it is having used it countless times before, and if we get caught in traffic en route, it has the shortest onwards transit time. Cost? £68 for seven and a half days instead of £144 if we just turned up. The cheapest was £56 for the penalty of a longer bus transit.
How does it work?
You pay via credit card in advance, so on return, simply quote your name and booking reference number to the attendant instead of swiping the ticket. They will check that the name matches that on the reservation, and that your car has the same registration mark as that booked, and away you go.
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I have used bishop stortford fc parking.It was fine, and a good price linked through GEM website.about £5.50/day ,cheaper than pink elephant and not much further.
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I guess that explains why insurance for an 18 year old on a 3.2 Jaguar XJ is a tad high :-) Then again, I was expecting that...