...dangerous driving.

This afternoon I saw a large van pull away from kerbside and pass me at about 50-60mph in front of a school (20mph zone). Drove directly at a crowd of 10-15 kids who had just come out of school and were crossing the road - held his horn down. I thought he was going to plough into them but he swerved at the last minute to miss them (they ran out the way as fast as they could). Made me feel a bit ill to be honest.
I got his reg. no.
Is it worth reporting this to the police or will I be wasting my breath? I must admit I have a rather cynical view of the police. Read more

On Sunday I was driving to Gatwick Airport at about 11am. Using the M25 and M23. There were lots of motorbikes on the road, probably no exaggeration to say hundreds.

The result was close to chaos. There were motorbikes undertaking, overtaking, riding illegally. Many bikes were stopped on the hard shoulder - in some cases for the rider to relieve himself in the bushes; some riders and passengers were doing stretching exercises; some bikes seem to be broken down, which required another 10 or 20 bikes to stop as well.

Doesn't this all tend to indicate that a motor-cycle is an impractical vehicle for a journey of any length?

Where the slip road on to the M23 narrows to a single lane, the traffic was stopped, because of the antics of the mororcyclists.

I write as a former motorcyclist, both in my youth and born-again more recently.

A motorbike is not the solution to traffic congestion. Read more

As previously promised, now that my Accord has hit 20,000 miles I'm going to post an update on how it's all been going. This follows on from a 14k update at: tinyurl.com/jpm6v .

Generally, apart from one fairly minor technical hiccup that escalated because of poor customer service unrelated to Honda UK, I'm still an extremely pleased customer. If you want to know more about the problem, there's already a long thread at tinyurl.com/jx4mq . As the electrical failure was minor (and these things can and do happen), and the main problem was caused by inept handling by agents other than Honda UK, for the purposes of this note I'm ignoring the problem.

My most major niggle about the car last time I wrote about it was the fuel consumption. If I'm honest, it has improved a bit, but not as much as I hoped. I'm probably averaging about 44 mpg now as opposed to the 40 previously. I suspect this may be down to my using the climate control permanently, and to relatively fast cruising on the motorways; it's not a disaster, but it's certainly not as good as I'd hoped. Having said that it does still seem to be improving. The engine has probably used about a litre of oil in the last 8000 miles; I'm not too unhappy about this.

Other than a mild thirst, the engine remains a delight. There's plenty of power to overtake, and even fully loaded with a 350 L roof box and four people, it pulled hard on the mountain roads in France. Cruising at 90 with a box on top it still did 38 miles per gallon over 500 miles, so I guess the thirst cuts both ways. It was a shame the voltage regulator failed on that trip, but therse things happen (to me). The car has remained squeak and rattle free, although the leather on the driver seat has begun to creak a little. I'm going to have a go at it with some leather conditioner to try and get rid of this.

I had to change the front tires at 18,000 miles; they weren't completely worn out, but as I was going on holiday, I couldn't leave it any further. Anyway, I don't really like them getting below 3 mm. I've replaced them with Pirelli P6000 Powergy?s, and the new tires have completely cured the mild tramlining that I was experiencing with the 17 inch alloys. I never found it annoying, but now it's simply not there. It's also marginally reduced the road noise, which is nice. The handling remains positive and sure, and I still think the gearing is absolutely perfect for the car and the gearshift is a delight. Given the handling, the ride is near miraculous - very comfortable.

So what isn't positive?

Well, my girlfriend continues to have problems with the seats. Essentially, she finds the seats a little bit too large, and the bolsters too deep. Because she is only about 5 foot six, she sits down in the seat and the bolsters force her shoulders to be a rounded. This gives her chronic backache, and she now uses a thin pillow behind her whenever she is in the car to get rid of the problem. Not exactly ideal! She also continues to dislike the climate control, although I found it absolutely fantastic especially in the extremely hot weather, it is extremely powerful. One other minor problem is that both front door speakers have developed a rattle. I believe this is a known problem, and I'm going to get Honda to sort it out.

So, overall, I still love the car. It's big, fast, very comfortable, and lovely to drive. The British dealers have been good, and if you read the thread referenced above, Honda UK appear to take any problems seriously. The fuel consumption appears to be slowly improving, and the change of tires has removed the only minor niggle with handling. So overall, 9/10. Of course, if my minor problems are not resolved, I will seriously review that figure.

As an aside, I've had the new 6 speed model as a courtesy car for the last week. I'll do a brief review on my thoughts on the differences on a new thread. I'm not sure it's an improvement. Read more

Do new cars need to be run in these days? Read more

Hi there!
Most of you reading the following will no doubt think that I'm barking mad - and you could be right! However, i am one of minority of people who 'cannot' drive modern vehicles. The reasons for this are complex, but they essentially relate to a problem with the overly-engineered electrical circuitry of cars. When driving I'm quickly affected by nausea and blinding headaches. I managed to persuade a VW garage to give me my ££££ back on this basis after having bought a new car. I am not alone - indeed, there are some high-profile folk out there in a similar situation. However, I CAN drive old, basic diesels - MK1 mondeos are a firm favourite. However, as these are now hard to come by I'm wondering what the least complicated new-ish car might be - no ECU ETC. To be like this is very debilitating .... so, I thought it was worth a stab to pose the question on here. The condition for this is generally termed as ELECTROSENSITIVITY - loads about this online. Anyway, MAD request, I know. I'm probably barking!
Thanks for reading this!
Andrew Read more