:: Driving me Crazy... ::

:: Sunday, December 22, 2002 ::

Well, I never brought you up to date on the Wales trip and I've seen a couple more lunatics so I guess it's time to post again.

Wales- I started from Nottingham, Ruddington to be precise. Got out to the A50 without much incident, apart from the large saloon on the rear bumper that was itching to get past. A50, no problem all the way to Stoke on Trent, but after that I'm off territory that I know. This will always make me nervous, particularly when I'm on a deadline. The A53 is one of the longest, most tortuous roads I think I've ever seen. I know A50/A53 isn't the most efficient route to mid-Wales but would you tackle the M42/M6 junction on a Friday night if you saw a route that avoided it? Word of warning. Microsoft's Autoroute has a serious flaw, in that it knows nothing about local speed limits. Which is probably why it assumed it would only take a little under two hours to make this trip. Actually, it was closer to three hours. I've never seen so many hesitant drivers in one place! I know it was foggy, and that will naturally bring speeds down with good reason. But not that far...

Coming back was a little more interesting. I didn't do my usual trick and fill up as soon as I left to come home. There was easily enough fuel to reach Shrewsbury and probably enough to make Telford if I didn't push the acceleration too hard, so I didn't. Got to Shrewsbury, fuel situation looks good. So I head off towards Telford. As I'm getting close to the start of the M54, I start looking for a station. I can see one, but can I figure out how to get into it? Not a chance. OK, so, on to the Motorway. Bound to be services, right?

Wrong.

There are NO services on the M54. It seems everyone knows this but me... First sign I see says "Services M5 32 miles, M6 45 miles." It's not desperate at this point, but I know I can't make that so I have to get off the motorway and stop at local services. By the time it got desperate, I was on the M6 and past the M5 interchange. Thankfully, the junction I picked was the main A34 into Birmingham, so it didn't take long to find a fuel stop. As soon as I got back on the motorway, there's another sign for the M42 services, 18 miles, which I'd probably have managed... But no instances of really crazy driving which was a pleasant surprise.

Enough about that. I've had no fun whatsoever driving a different car for a few days. I'm used to a rather nice, low-slung Toyota with lots of leg room and a stretched-out driving position. So when it goes in to be repaired (it's a long story, but basically my next-door-neighbour reversed into the car and snapped the headlight mountings) and I'm given a Fiat Punto diesel I'm less than impressed. It's noisy, it's spongy, the driving position is very sit-up-and-beg so my legs ached and the thing handles like a less-than-set blancmange. In its defence, it accelerated quite well. I have my car back now, and I certainly appreciate it a little more.

So what about the lunatics I mentioned? Well, I'm not sure that they weren't the same person because they both did pretty much the same thing. Overtaking a long line of traffic with nowhere to go if another vehicle came the other way. The first was a Volvo estate, heading up towards the Wheatcroft Island on the A52. We were all stuck behind this lorry that was lumbering its way up to the roundabout. In the right mirror, I suddenly see this silver Volvo pop out from about three cars behind me, and proceed to drive past us all. In fact, instead of being stuck behind one truck, the driver almost ended up stuck between two- the one they were trying to get past, and the one they nearly had a head-on collision with. I was convinced there would be an accident, and I'm amazed the driver didn't suddenly have a two-seater instead of an Estate car.

The Lexus that passed me this evening did the same thing on the A614 into Nottingham. About three miles from the Police HQ. If you're familiar with the road, it was on the long, straight stretch with a petrol station on it. This car overtook I think seven vehicles, running down the hatched area in the middle of the road- had one of those been going into the petrol station, there would have been a nasty accident. Had someone come the other way, there could have been a nastier one. As it is, neither of these things happened and the driver got away with it.

I just remembered another one. I mentioned in the last post about the RAF Newton run, and the Roadworks on it. The traffic lights for those roadworks were just on the wrong side of the hairpin bend, if you're heading towards Ratcliffe on Trent. They're gone now, thankfully. Anyway, I got round the bend, and saw that the light was turning red so I stopped. The white transit following on the bumper either didn't spot this, or was too close to stop without taking the back end off the car. Or they just didn't give a damn about traffic lights- they hauled the van to the right, and went straight through.

I'll be in Cornwall at some point over the holiday season. Six hundred miles of motorways and A-roads. The odds on that passing without incident? I'll let you know...

Merry Christmas, Happy new Year and all that. If you're out on the beers, fine- have a great night. Just leave the keys at home.
:: Gary 22.12.02 [+] ::
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