June 2007
I've just read an article in the Met Police newspaper, The Job (which can be found via a Google search, my tech skills not up to it, tried cutting and pasting).....which states that a 1,000 road deaths a year have speed as a contributory factor.......
now if you do a Google on UK road deaths i easily found 2005's figures for road deaths, which states there were 3201.......
this means that 31% of UK road deaths had speed as a contributory factor (fairly sure the 2006 figures weren't widely different and note the difference from 2004 to 2005 was only 20)
obviously this must also mean that 69% of road deaths did not have speed as a contributory factor
then when you factor in the word 'contributory' which could mean it was not the primary issue.......and then you consider such things as:
-drink driving with speed involved
-drug driving with speed involved
-vehicle defect with speed involved
-driving recklessly/carelessly with speed involved
I wonder how many of that 31% was a great deal to do with the speed. ( I do appreciate that if any of the above involves a pedestrian, than even a small amount of extra speed can mean the difference betwen life and death)
This means that the current 'speed kills' campaign is a tad too simplistic isn't it.
I'm not saying we should have a 'free for all' with speed, but am saying we should concentrate on the real issues and not pick up on one part of something, to the detriment of other issues....... particularly if it becomes a form of revenue collection and easily incriminates Joe Average
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Recently my Renault 5 1996 Campus has started to have what I may be heating problems. The problem seems to be around the radiator overflow container. On journeys where I do not have to idle such as motorways, the car is fine. However if there is heavy traffic and I am idling for a extended time, smoke comes out of the bonnet and there is a bubbling noise from the overflow container, which is very hot to touch. Refilling it with water works for a small period of time, however it comes back when I have to endure heavy traffic again. It also seems to cause the car to rev very highly when interchanging gears, and sometimes almost stalls it. My original thought was that the radiator fan was not functioning, however now I have eliminated this I'm not sure what it could be.
Any thought appreciated!
Chris
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sounds like w/pump to me,partial blocked rads usually cause overheating on runs rather than in town,just my thoughts
i have fiat brava,rear wiper not working.checked the fuse ,its alright because the rear washer is working with same fuse.I have checked the motor and is working.i need help? Read more
thankyou for ur advice bell boy,first thing today i checked the earth connection and it was corrodded.
about 2 years i had spark plug spat out on my vw polo...not sure why it did it , but it cleaned the thread bare
so i found a engineering shop to fit a helicoil repair kit to the plug hole and its been fine sinse, but now the time has come for a plug change . im in two minds if i should leave that plug and do the others in case i disturb the thread repair, then again if i leave the plug to get caked up in soot/carbon there's a even better chance it might get ruined
so... should i fear swapping the plug or are they really safe as houses
and would it be better to change the plug with a warm engine or stone cold
Slight subject re-vamp -PU
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And if it does wind out, if you're very, very careful you can put it on the plug and wind it back in... Had a VW 411 with one once.
On way down south, I am thinking of calling in to the Cars of The Stars Museum in Cumbria.
Has anyone been - is it any good, how long should I plan to visit? Read more
Lingholm Gardens, on the west bank of the lake are well worth a visit. At the right time of year (now?) there are sensational displays of rhodedendrons and azaleas - great for gardening types and a good walk thru a large wooded area full of these shrubs and bushes.
I now know I've spent too much time in the Back Room.
A couple of nights this week, Backroomers featured in my dreams. You will all be relieved to know that they occurred in perfectly respectable and non-embarrassing situations - but I'm still not going to name names!
Anyone else prepared to admit to signs that they have spent too much time in the Back Room?
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I know I spend too much time here! I can almost predict with a 100% success rate how the members of the BR will respond to every type of enquiry, it's just so predictable. However, I can't stop visiting :-)
I think the reason I stay is that I'm just waiting for a post from MichaelR (hopefully in 2 and a half years time when I will have saved enough money) that is titled "who wants to buy my 5 Series?" ;-)
Blue
This time is the claim to fame of what are considered to be the 50 ugliest conveyances to hit our roads:
tinyurl.com/2fx7d5
Some examples are less than five years old.....
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by Read more
Oh, OK. Same with AOL France, now belongs to Neuf Telecom but the service is still carp.
Just found this on Yahoo news, found it quite amusing....
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Two U.S. car thieves failed to make their getaway in a car they had just stolen because they couldn't figure out how to use its manual transmission, a witness said on Wednesday.
The teenagers armed with a gun approached a man outside a pizza restaurant in Marietta, Georgia, late on Monday. They stole his wallet and the keys to his Honda Accord, got into the car but couldn't make it start because it had stick shift, according to John Williamson, 18, a restaurant employee.
"The kid was just sitting in the car trying to start it but he had no idea what to do. He looked dumbfounded. The only thing he had going was the radio," said Williamson who witnessed the scene.
While the thief was trying to start the car, restaurant employees called the police who arrived and caught the teenagers as they tried to escape into nearby woods.
Unlike many parts of the world, the majority of cars in the United States are automatic and many drivers are unused to driving "stick shift" vehicles, in which a clutch pedal must be depressed to change gear. Read more
Yanks better be careful asking where they can find a "trannie" specialist while in the UK.
If you want to improve raod safety at a stroke, nail these scammers
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6231892.stm
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I mean if someone's taken 200 tests like some scammers are claimed to have done
they can't ALL have been at different test centres can they?
Think. If the criminal has taken 200 tests (and presumably passed), they must be the safest drivers in the world by now..!
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I bet they can do amazingly perfect 3-point turns and parallel parking..!
Can anyone please advise, Where is the switch which activates the boot light on a 98 Micra?
Thank yo4 Read more
Thanks again.
Browse
some years ago a roundabout outside Edinburgh (Newbridge) had an underpass built for traffic going from the M9 to the M8. It's not a tunnel, ie it's open to the air except where it passes under the carriageway above, it's motorway standard, ie full width, hard shoulder, central barriers etc yet from the day it was opened there's been cameras in the dip enforcing a very short 50 mph limit. So there were no accident statistics or history of speeding motorists to decide if a camera was needed then why, other than revenue collection, were cameras placed there? You end up with the ridiculous situation of driving at 70, braking for the camera at the bottom of the dip and then changing down and accelerating to climb back up to the 70 limit at the top again.