September 2008
www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/display.var.2449225.0....p
When I woke this morning about 7, the road reports were saying that part of the M8 was closed due to a couple of accidents. By the time I came to leave for work the M8 had been closed for 4 miles into Glasgow and several feeder roads were as well.
Turns out that there had been a vehicle (assuming a lorry or a tanker) has been leaking diesel the whole way. This resulted in several accidents and must have resembled an ice rink for motorcyclists especially.
Just heard on the news that the motorway is now reopened after the full length has been gritted and cleaned up and police are appealing for the owner of the leaking diesel vehicle to contact their local station!
Something tells me he won't and that there will now be lots of reviewing of CCTV tapes to establish the cause.!
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Hi,
I'm off to Ireland next week and I'm looking to hire a car for a week.
I'm getting some good quotes
carhire3000.com £79.25
easycar.com £67.97
but they both require a credit card, and i don't have one.
Hertz will accept a debit card but their best price is £92.47.
The booking call centre don't appear interested in price matching or discount.
Any ideas on way forward ?
If I book with easycar or carhire3000, i guess I'll end up with a Hertz car anyway.
Thanks Read more
Hello,
I have a 9 month old Citroen C4 Grand... sadly, now with a cigarette burn on the passenger seat (not from me I hasten to add - GRRRR). The car is a contract hire from Citroen Contract Motoring so I am liable for the damage. I considered replacing the bottom front passenger seat pad - but my dealer today informed me that it would cost just under £500 supplied and fitted - that does seem excessive for a seat pad, but there's nothing I can do about that of course.
I just wondered if anyone had any idea what sort of dehire charge would be applied to a cigarette burn? I'm kind of hoping it's not going to be 500 notes!
Thanks.
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Hertz were fined for charging retail but repairing at business rates in the States some years ago, viz:
In August 1988, Hertz was involved in a dispute involving charges for repairs that resulted from collisions with Hertz vehicles. It was charged that Hertz, in some instances, had claimed for damages when repairs were not made and, in other instances, paid discounted wholesale rates for car repairs, while charging the retail rates to the parties involved. Although it was noted that such rental car companies as Avis, Budget, and Alamo also followed the practice of charging retail repair costs, according to Business Week, Hertz failed to disclose to those concerned that they would be billed for repairs at 'prevailing retail rates.' Hertz agreed to pay $13.7 million in restitution and $6.35 million in fines, 'the largest fine ever imposed upon a corporation in a criminal consumer fraud case,' according to Andrew J. Maloney, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Having swapped a Mondeo for a Clio I notice that the demisters blow hot and the engine temp gets up to normal much quicker (about 2-3 mins as opposed to 6-7). Just a quirk of the model or true of all smaller engined cars? Read more
Diesels are definitely slower due to their greater thermal efficiency. My current Volvo (2.0 petrol turbo) has the fastest warm up of any car I've owned. The heater is blowing warm air after about half a mile, and hot after a mile. It's amazing.
A few years ago it was easy to work out where a particular model came in the model range, for example a vauxhall corsa L, LS, GLS, CDX the badge told you without any confusion where the car came in the range.
But nowadays some strange names have appeared which give no indication as either the car is near the bottom or top of the range. One example which stands out is the Seat Aleta Reference. Reference???? Who the hell thinks of these names?
What are averybodys elses thoughts on this subject?? Read more
At some point it occured to me that "Getz" ( with a vowel change ) would be a great name for a Lamborghini or similar..........
;-)
Just jealous !!
Are speed limits arbitrary?
Or are there some sort of objective criteria that can be put into a formula to tell our decision makers what a speed limit should be?
Or is it a matter of politics (or perhaps I should say 'personal preference')- the local people who shout the loudest get the speed limit they want?
Or are there speed limit experts, who will drive a certain bit of road and tell us, simply based on 'feel', what the correct speed limit for that road should be?
I ask because I have seen a number of speed limits changed and have wondered on what basis these decisions have been taken. Read more
Being a generally law-abiding motorist who tends to think all speed limits a bit on the low side, I have often complained about speed cameras which are a major distraction and in some places probably more dangerous than otherwise.
However there is a recently installed one near me that I actually approve of. It is aimed at the spot where a small minority of drivers in early evening traffic would sometimes come down the wide (to accommodate articulated third world Kenbuses) bus lane past a pub I go to, undertaking the ordinary traffic, at speeds even I thought too fast to be safe. It's a stretch of four or five hundred yards with no turnings on one side, few on the other, and good visibility round very slight curves, perfectly safe for say 50 in light traffic. A more enlightened LA would probably raise the limit to 40 along there, but it won't ever happen. Meanwhile the camera seems to have curbed the getaway driver element making the front of that pub safer (if slightly less entertaining) as a place to sit when it isn't freezing or pouring.
I've said much of this before. Sorry for being the pub bore.
I am due to take my wifes 2001 Peugeot 307 in for it's MOT.
Last year it passed no problems.
It has 42,000 miles on the clock and she only uses it for school run a pootling around town.
Just wanted to know if there is anything specific I should be checking for before I take it.
I am taking it to local garage - not dealer and they have always been straight with us before and never ripped us off. Read more
Thanks.
Like I said, it got through last year no problem.
It does rattle a little but I think that is common in this model at this age.
In the bottom of my tool box I have a screwdriver formed from around 18 inches of (perhaps 3/8th inch) steel bar. If you can imagine it looped on itself to form the handle.
There is a sort of, patina on it that tells you it`s been hanging around in toolboxes for over 50 years, just jostling gently about.
One of the few solid material links from 50 years ago. It`s either from one of my Father`s 1950`s Bedford vans or a Morris Minor.. I can remember deciding to keep it when aged around 16yrs.
As an aside,
I can remember peering into the oil filler aged 14yrs on one of those vans and seeing a bed of coal shale like substance with the rockers just visible. Yet it ran for years in that condition, perhaps aided by a bypass oil filter ( never changed) and a weekly pint or so of new oil flooding the rocker box.
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ive got a 13mm spanner that an old guy lent to me in Australia in 1969, he was German and had it from living in Germany, as happens it never got returned and it ended up in a T chest of stuff that i had sent back to the UK on my return , i now live in France and used it the other day to remove the ladder of my swimming pool, i wish it could speak i imagine it would be an interesting story.
I ask this question, since I have just remembered that the tin-opener, which I have been looking for, off and on, for some weeks, has just turned up in the car's cubby hole. It was accompanied by a pair of opera-glasses, some ears of wheat, a few car-park tickets, some old moorland sheep's bones, and some things that really shouldn'tve been there.
So, what's in yours? Read more
>...a small fish filled with soy sauce...
I can help with this one. If you buy one of those disappointing sushi-for-one pre-packs from a supermarket in the hope that it will make a change from a sandwich, part of the kit is a small plastic fish filled with soy sauce. I have yet to find an alternative use - motoring-related or otherwise - for it. Even the recycling people don't want it.
Today I used my last dry cleaners wire coat hanger. I used it to make a paint stir paddle, and in doing so, I looked at it's modern replacement, a plastic jobby.
Those wire hangers, an instant and everlasting repair for the vandalised radio antenna, had other endless uses but I must admit I could not think of anything for the plastic one.
What have you done with wire hangers and can anyone think of another use for the plastic ones, other than supporting clothes?
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or throw even!
> something like the Post Office's Visa Travelcard
This is just another example of lazy journalism from auntie beeb.
These are not credit cards.
Other examples :
Inflation has gone up......
growth has gone down ....
hotter temperatures .....
cheaper prices ......
20,000 volts going through it
due to legal reasons .....
I'm sure there are plenty more.