Well, it was going to happen at some point in my life, but I ended up getting a speeding ticket after registering an average speed over 5mph above the speed limit for an average speed zone.
Instead of points, I've been offered a driver education course, which I of course am going to have to take. I opted for the classroom rather than virtual.
Not how I wanted to spend my Saturday morning, but I can combine it with some shopping.
I’ve been finding the same driver driving at 10-20mph on 30-40mph roads on the way into work in the morning, and it is driving me (and a lot of other drivers) nuts. Sure, I can overtake him (and I do, just like lots of other people), but he just doesn’t seem to get the hint. Dangerous overtaking? No, there’s pretty much no-one on the road at 6am in the morning where I am.
Sure wish I could report this guy somewhere…
Links to related new stories:
www.eprfinancialnews.com/2011/07/2…
www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/…
http://news.sky.com/story/1343501/video-vigilantes-chasing-down-dangerous-drivers
Whilst I’m no vigilante, I do strongly believe bad drivers should not be on the road. There was a website mentioned on the article and on the report Police Witness. It sells, and offers dashcams for sale. Some appear to be pretty good , albeit pricey - maybe even better than mine (which is a DOD LS300W)
Which reminds me, I must report a littering Merc and a crazy female BMW driver.
People tell me I should use public transport to save on money, so I decided to check cost differences.
To use buses only, would take me 2 hours on a good day, and on a bad day, possibly 3 hours to get from one end to the other. A single bus fare would cost me £2.40 (2 buses), costing £24 a week.
To use underground only, would take me 1.5 hours to 2 hours on an average day. I have to travel from Zone 5 to Zone 1. I travel during the peak so that costs me £4.60 each way, total of £9.20 per day, or £46 per week.
If I wanted the flexibility of using both, a monthly season ticket between Zones 1 and 5 costs me £205.10 or £51.28 per week.
Buses, so far are the cheapest option, but they are the slowest (at 2-3 hours) and are most prone to have disruptive commuters (school kids, drunks, smokers)
But what about if I use a car? In a car it takes me 30-45 minutes to get to work in the morning, and about the same to get home. If I hit a peak of traffic, it maybe, at worse, 1.5 hours. Compare that to a 1.5 hours BEST case on the underground and 3 hours WORST case on the buses.
Here’s my breakdown of costs:
Diesel: Approx £16 pw – I fill up every 3 or so weeks, and on everage, it is about £16 per week of fuel
Road Tax: £0.39 pw (£20 per year)
MOT: £1.05 pw (£54.85 py)
Service (Full): £6.05 pw (£314.36 py) – including work done. If no work actually needs to be done, then this is much lower.
Tyres (4): £4.58 pw (£238 py) – assuming I have to change all tyres at least once a year. Not likely as I don’t do too much mileage, and I have only had to change the tyres once since buying the car.
Insurance: £8.65 pw (£450 py)
Total Cost Per Week: £36.72
So, even with the worst case scenario (lots of work to do on the service and yearly replacing of the tyres), my weekly running cost is STILL less than a season ticket on the Public Transport (and I also get to and from work a HELL of a lot faster).
The impatience of one driver nearly causes an accident…
I bought a dashboard camera a few years ago, and have since upgraded to a better one. I’ve caught a few things during that time, but never thought I would catch this….
All of these photos took place in one second, and were taken driving down Whetstone High Road, North London. Photos were extracted using VLC and by slowing down the video to about 0.03x-0.06x speed then taking snapshots. I would have used mencoder or ffmpeg, but I’m not running Linux, and have no admin rights to install new programs on my box at work.
[gallery type=“slideshow” link=“file” ids=“3883,3884,3885,3886,3887,3888,3889”]
Shocking moment two women crash their car while filming themselves singing and dancing | Metro News.
I bet this guy didn’t expect me to be behind him with a dashcam…
(Reported to Crimestoppers today)
Some chronic speeders were, and found the result very difficult to handle.
Turn on captions for other languages.
I can’t figure out what this guy was thinking. Was he on the phone? Was he texting? Going too fast? All of these? Who knows. What I do know is that if this guy was travelling fast enough to knock down a traffic light, drag it 20 metres, and wreck his engine, then someone standing at the crossing (which is exactly where the van has come to rest), wouldn’t stand a chance….
Just because you have a “Baby on Board” stuck to your rear windscreen does NOT mean you can get away with doing stupid driving manoeuvres. Remember, it’s “mirror-signal-manoeuvre”, and NOT “manoeuvre-signal-mirror”
Be careful out there this morning, it's really foggy. Visibility is down to a few hundred metres in places...
Two days this week I’ve driven to work in the early hours (~6am) and both days I’ve encountered some really dangerous behaviour.
On Monday, outside Wembley Central station (http://goo.gl/maps/AFHp0), a cyclist cycled along the pavement, then dives into the road without looking back or signalling. I’ve said it before, and I’ve said it again. Road users on two wheels complain about not getting respect on the road. If you behave like this, how can you expect respect from other road users? I have more gripes with motorcyclists than pedal cyclists, but the majority of my complains about the two-wheeled road users are the same: lack of signalling, darting in and out of traffic, jumping red lights, riding too close to car users then complaining when they are hit by wing mirrors.
On Tuesday, I’m at the junction between the A504 Finchley Lane and the A1 Great North Way (http://goo.gl/maps/2HFBT). The A504 is a black spot for queue jumping, and I had a VW queue jump me at the junction - violating road markings in the lane which indicate it is right-turn only. Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, further along, at the junction with the A504 Church Road/B552 Parson Street/A502 Brent Street (http://goo.gl/maps/MYemg), this same car then jumps the red lights.
Oh, and both were caught on my dashcam. Will be passing these onto the police. Whereas there’s little they can do about the cyclist, they can at least take the VW off the road, or at least put some points on his/her license (I hope)
An early morning drive into work, and almost getting hit by a car jumping a red light.
No matter what the time, or road. Don’t speed. This is what happens afterwards – someone has to clean up after you.
A selection of three clips showing a really dangerous BMW driver.
First clip, the driver cut in front of me at high speed with no signal and with not much space between myself and the car in the lane next to me. Then jumps from the fast lane, to the slow lane, then back to the fast lane in order to over take cars. I caught up to the driver and you can see their number plate.
Second clip, the driver almost causes an accident by undertaking the car in front whilst a car is change from the slow lane to the middle lane.
Third clip, the driver again undertakes (in the distance), then does exactly the same manoeuvre as in the first clip. The irony? Even with all their moves, I still overtook them. :-)