Dom Davis (The Blog)

It turns out that motorway driving at night is, in my opinion, easier than during the day. You’re separated from oncoming traffic enough that their headlights don’t cause the same issues as on a single carriageway and, when moving between lanes it’s easy to spot where everyone else is, especially if their in your blond spot because their lights just give them away.

I also discovered that in third at about 4,500 revs there is a tiny bit of grunt in Po’s 1104cc engine which meant I could risk overtaking some of the slower moving vehicles on the drive.

About 90 minutes into our journey we stopped at a pub for food. It was here that I discovered Po had a massive scratch along her passenger door. Some bastard had either keyed her, or run a shopping trolley into her or otherwise injured her while she was parked. Since were not sure when it happened we can’t be sure. There’s me thrashing the nuts off her and she’s injured, albeit just winged.

Despite her wound Po performed admirably over the weekend, if a little thirstily (for her size of engine) as squeezing out that last little drop of performance rather wrecks the fuel economy. Unfortunately the biggest challenge was about to come.

25 minutes from home, entering a little village called Letheringset (fantastic pub there if you ever fancy a meal by the way), we had slowed to just under 30 when a big four wheel drive pulls out of a side road to our right. He’s already made one abortive attempt at pulling out and we’re that close to him that I assumed he was going to pull half way out, wait for us and the car behind to pass and slot in behind. After all, Po is bright red, he’s surely seen us and isn’t going to pull out in front….

…yes, yes he is. Brakes were firmly applied and I wondered if I’d stopped in time or if Po was now sporting a new accessory off her offside front wing.

Now, to give you an idea of the final speed of the incident imagine, if you will, you’ve turned off a roundabout that has two lanes that instantly merge into one. Some tosser has gone round you and is bullying their way in front. You have to slow and they try squeeze in front of you. Eventually both cars stop at close to hitting and the car that can proceed without causing a crash wins. It was like that only in our case there weren’t two lanes going into one, just one small lane that our new appendage had tried to merge into and they weren’t slowing, or indeed doing anything to avoid us. Not going to work.

Anyway, he pulls off into the next little turning on the left and we followed. Not sure what to do, or how to react (he wasn’t the first person to drive at me that weekend, just the most successful) I opened the door to be met by a very apologetic man which rather diffused the situation. The Zozo, being infinitely more practical than I, proceeded to take charge of the situation and organise things like insurance details and the noting down of the number plate.

During the discussion the damage was assessed. Remember that I wasn’t even sure if we’d hit. I’d stalled the car and been a little surprised but during the whole thing hadn’t heard any bangs. The Zozo, on the other hand, tells a tale of hearing the tortured screams of metal upon metal. The reality was somewhere in between. We had hit, but barely. Po was sporting less red paint and more silver paint than before and the other car was slightly scuffed if you knew where to look. I believe the term is traded paint.

As accidents go it was almost pleasant. It’s not something I’d like to repeat, but if you absolutely, positively have to crash then that’s how you want it to happen. Meanwhile we’ll get a quote for buffing Pos front wing and see if we can’t get her scratch sorted at the same time.