Dom Davis (The Blog)

Today The Zozo, Po and I are in Crew Green, Wales. It’s only just Wales, but it’s Wales nonetheless. Tomorrow we need to be in Thursford, Norfolk. That’s 200 miles away, or four and a quarter hours drive. Or at least it would be if it wasn’t for the fact that there’s going to be snow. Lots of it.

I have two weapons to deploy here. The first is simply setting off early. If we get back in good time we’ll just go home first. The second weapon is satnav with live traffic updates.

The live traffic updates is something I pay a subscription fee for but it is well worth it. It receives updates on the traffic conditions for your journey and plans alternative routes round problem areas. For example, yesterday the A14 was moving very slowly. The satnav informed us it could save 16 minutes taking an alternative route and off we went, skirting round the jam. I’m hoping that it will earn it’s money and stop us from bring stranded anywhere.

Just in case there’s also blankets in the car and we’ll stock up with provisions.

The M6 at rush hour is an interesting beast. Heading west you hit the old M6 first. Traffic. Delays. Signs saying there are queues. Stop, start, stop start. As you approach the toll road the marketing kicks in. It’s not obvious marketing, but it’s marketing nonetheless. There’s a sign. M6, it says, severe delays. Not just delays, oh no, severe delays. And if the stop start has just been delays then what are severe delays going to be like? The sign goes on to say M6 Toll, clear. Yes, no delays at all, all clear, and just a little toll to pay for the privilege. A little latter a further sign tells us that the toll is £5.

Five quid!

Shortly afterwards we’re reminded about the severe delays. We’re also reminded of the clear state of the toll road.

As the junction nears you can see the queues of traffic going down the old M6, and the clear entry to the new M6 toll. Needless to say we paid.

The traffic is a marketing ploy. It has to be. I wouldn’t be surprised if they paid people to drive really slowly, crash, breakdown and generally bugger up the M6 just to drive traffic down the new road. Regardless, it worked

The astute among you will have noticed no blog this morning. This was due, in the main, to me driving to work. I usually blog on my way into work, something that is not really compatible with driving, so you’ve had to wait until I was home.

Driving, especially when I’m alone in the car, is something I still find a little stressful. I only passed my test a little over a year ago so I’m still very much a new driver and I don’t drive every day so I’m still getting used to some things. It’s partly for this reason that most hire firms require 2 years on your license before they’ll let you hire a car. Quite right too, although, herein lies a small loophole.

At the age of 17 (or maybe 18, I can’t remember now) I failed my driving test for the second time in rather spectacular fashion which rather put me off driving. 17 years later I decided to learn how to drive again which required over 30 hours of lessons before I was ready to take my test. That’s pretty much the same amount of lessons a new driver would require.

Now, let us just assume, for one second, that I had passed my driving test all those years ago. Let us further assume that, for whatever reason, I never drove again until now. I would, technically, be allowed to hire a car despite the fact that I would be little better than a brand new learner driver.  It’s a situation that is a little bit ludicrous.

I had to drive into work yesterday, something I dislike doing intensely. Despite having passed my test nearly 2 years ago I still get nervous driving by myself (plonking someone else in the passenger seat, for some reason, allays many of these nerves) and having to do rush hour traffic and roadworks just exacerbates that.

Driving would be much easier, and I think most people would agree with me here, without other people on the roads. This isn’t going to happen but some people deserve special ire.

Cyclists are a pet hate, either forcing me into the Death Lane (oncoming lane), forcing me and the involving traffic to get much closer and/or forcing me to slow right down. In rush hour traffic I often have to overtake the same cyclist several times and that just makes it worse. Then there’s the ones that think they can out accelerate me at the lights so stay in the middle of the road frantically peddling away. Sorry to break it to them but, despite having a small engine, I can pull away much faster so just get out of the sodding way!

Then there’s people working in the roads with their closed roads, contraflows, traffic lights, queues and stop start traffic. Add the last category of people, who we will charitably call Tossers, who drive right up your arse and you’ve got me, on a hill having to do 20 odd hill starts with no room to roll because I’ll hit the wanker behind. It’s little wonder I stall.

The Tosser category includes a great many people and covers a great many sins. These include, but are not limited to: driving at me in order to force their way into traffic; not even thanking me when I let them in (not that I had any choice); not dimming headlights; overtaking recklessly because we don’t want to do 90 on a 60 road; driving up my arse; driving too slowly; putting fog lights on when it’s so clear you can see Holland from the beach; not indicating; adopting the manoeuvre, signal, mirror school of driving; incorrectly indicating; being unable to maintain a constant speed on a fast and clear road; being so unable to maintain a constant speed that you’re varying it by over 20mph; not driving on your side of the road on narrow roads.

That said it is very cold, wet and windy today and my walk into work may have me hankering for the warmth of the car.

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.

This weekend The Zozo and I are off to the northern part of the Republic of Yorkshire to visit my family and go to a zoo (the name of which escapes me, but it’s near Doncaster so we’re going Sunday and driving home afterwards).

The drive North will involve motorways. On a Friday. At night. I have done motorway driving before (twice, the last time we went to North Yorkshire so the drive there and the drive back) but this was during daylight hours at more sedate times of the day. Tonights journey will be advanced motorway driving which is why I’ve asked The Zozo if I can drive. Got to learn sometime

Anyway, if you see a little red Citroën C2 pootling along the A17 or A1(M) cut me some slack… and please don’t drive at 40.

Hopefully Mondays post will be about Zoo visits (due to an uneventful and therefore unblogworthy drive) and not the drive up :S

This weekend is the first time in 3 weeks that The Zozo and I have shared a day off so we decided to go out and do something. Being a bank holiday weekend there was lots of choice but we opted for village fête at one of the villages just down the road from us. It rained. But then it was a bank holiday.

Undeterred we went further along the coast road and visited a military vehicle museum. This post isn’t about that. Nope, this post is about the pointless ‘Please drive carefully’ signs all over the place, especially on the coast road.

Now don’t get me wrong here, the coast road going west from Cromer is windy¹, narrow and not something to be traversed at speed. By all means drop the limit from 60 to 40 well before the villages, and it’s eminently sensible to have a 30 limit in the villages themselves, or even 20 in some parts where it’s very narrow and has 90 degree corners. But do I really need “Welcome to Coastal Village, please drive carefully” on the 30 sign? No. And here’s why:

Firstly you should always drive carefully. It’s why we have the offence “Driving without due care and attention”.

Secondly you’ve slowed me from 60 to 40 to 30 and in 50 yards you’re going to drop me to 20. I’ve kind of worked out that some care is needed.

Thirdly at the 40 sign on the other side of the village you’re effectively saying “thankyou for driving carefully through our village, you may now drive like a moron”.

No, if they need reminding to drive carefully they shouldn’t be driving at all. What next: “Welcome to Coastal Village, please don’t rape, pillage and murder”?

¹As in bendy, but sometimes, depending on the weather, as in blowy too.

Dear visitor to Norfolk,

Welcome to our county. Please note that, just like the rest of the country, the speed limit is 60mph on single carriage way and 70mph on a dual carriage way unless otherwise indicated. Speed limits are always expressed in miles per hour, not kilometres per hour. With this in mind if you are thinking of visiting our fair county and plan to drive at a constant 20 miles per hour under the speed limit when driving conditions are fine We would kindly ask you to fuck right off. Seriously, piss off to Cornwall or something. We really don’t want you here. You’re annoying and your inability to drive at anything remotely like the speed limit is dangerous because the long queue of cars behind you (and it’s a very long queue now, you bastard) get more and more desperate to overtake and take more and more risks. And the risk taking is not just to get past you, we now so pissed off with you that we don’t care if our overtaking manoeuvre ends with us piling into an oncoming car because the resulting fiery ball of death with take you out as well and we will be heralded as heroes by those stuck behind us and you will be dead, which is an end that is too good for you.

Learn to drive before I’m forced to drop the C bomb.

Love and kisses,

Dom (currently a passenger with The Zozo who is currently stuck behind some prat with low profiles, tinted windows and an inability to drive over 45mph. My next car is having missile launchers)