Driving standards, or lack of, in the UK today

Morning,

not one of my usual topics (don't worry the adult nature of my blog will return .....) but every time I think it can't get worse, it does.

The standards of people's driving in the UK is getting worse, quickly. It is heading to being as bad as driving in some places in Europe - I have driven in France, Germany, Italy, Cyprus and other places, and I would say Cyprus and Italy are the worst. But we are catching up!

Just yesterday, I was driving home in the rain - soaking wet roads and rain falling, with a van sitting so close behind me I couldn't see its grill or even all of its headlights, and we were travelling at 70mph down a dual carriageway. If I had had to break hard, he would have been on my back seat.

then, driving through a housing estate, go over the brow of a blind hill, to go down the hill to find a car half over the central white line (yes there is a clear and recently re painted  central line for a change) so had to break and swerve as he had no intention of either slowing down or getting back onto his own side of the road. 5 mins later going round a corner, another car crossing the central line - at least he did swerve back.

And lastly, bearing in mind I only travelled about 15 miles, a car comes out of his driveway, looks left AWAY from the traffic that would hit him first and then pulls out without even looking the other way - so horn blaring and swerving round him, as did the car behind me. Lucky the other lane was clear wasn't it.

Now, all of these vehicles were British registered, so can't jump to the foreign driver blame game - some of them are atrocious and I am guessing have yet to take a UK driving test, but many of ours are just as bad..

No licence? Don't car? Arrogant? Badly taught? (they can't all have had bad instructors!)

Yes, our roads aren't in a good shape and in many places the lines have worn away. But we all know the rules of the road, and to stick to our own side and look before we do anything... doesn't seem o happen anymore

Anyway, rant over (not even mentioned that funny orange flashing thing) and must ehad out to face the traffic again

laters xx

Fantastic Grand Prix

Did you watch the Bahrain F1 GP today?

It was fantastic, some great racing, fantastic skill and brave over taking

Probably the best grand prix i have seen in a long time.

the drivers kept going right to the end, having a go at gaining places.

the actual racing, the driving and skill kept it gripping from start to finish.

i loved it, apart from vettel winning again.

felt sorry for rosberg, but hammilton and the rest enjoyed it

pirelli tyres were crap, they need to get away from the idea of tire degradation improving the race, as the pit stops now have influence, which was what i thought they were getting away from? so the race was won on teh track, not from the best stops and pit lane strategy

rally death

much as it is sad that someone has died whilst watching a rally, i really don't see how the sport or anyone connected can be blaimed.

it was just one of those things, a racing incident!

there is no way that you could plan / predict what could happen at any point, of what is at times a very unpredictable sport. I mean, can you guess how any particular driver will react with any part of a rough circuit and a specific car, with unknown weather conditions?

No, so lets hope common sense prevails and no stupid H&S rules are put in place that restrict a great sport

Petrol Prices

The price just keeps going up - petrol and diesel are getting more and more expensive, yet the price of a barrel of crude oil HASN'T risen by the same %!

Why, coz the oil companies can charge what they like! Libya may have reduced production, but Saudi and the other producers ahve increased their's to compensate.

And surely this is a perect chance to get some money into the Iraqi economy - they have oil wells, so get their production up, get more money into the area and country and maybe that will help stabalise that area as the people see the results of the upheaval

But the price will still go up, as greed takes over - last week i read an article where a independant petrol station / company blamed the high price on the competition from the supermarkets! How can competition keep the price HIGH?

Competition lowers prices, by definition it makes it more competative not expensive!

And of course this rise has a knock on effect on everything, as transport costs etc rise, so do retail prices

the only thing not going up is wages

Great weekend

Weather was a bit sad yesterday, overcast n wet. But, as it rained over night last night today has turned out to be a wonderful day. Been out in the garden, now sitting with a cold beer watching the German Grand Prix. And to make it better the Maclaren car's are finally racing! Hamilton got off to a fantastic start, then lost it due to a rear puncture! Still, all good and the race isn't over yet!

Fantastic weather

I for one am totally loving this superb sunny weather that we are experiencing in the UK at the moment. It's hotter and sunnier than many of the popular holiday destinations - eat your heart out Spain, Portugal etc etc!!!!! And, to make it even better we are getting it for FREE! LOL No air fares, airport parking, hire car's, hotel / villa charges etc. Getting all this fantastic sun and relaxation for no cost, and it's better for the environment (no pollution from travelling by plane etc etc) What more could we ask for? Well apart from air conditioning at night! Stop moaning, slip on a hat, slap on some sun block and enjoy it while it lasts

road safety or cash income?

the latest 'safety' initiative is to reduce the speed limits on some of our nation's roads. The government is proposing reducing urban A roads from 60 to 50mph, and imposing a 20mph speed limit in towns / around schools. Around schools, yes that's great during school hour's / term time. But all the time? at 10pm? 2am? all through the summer holidays? And, they want to put the average speed camera's at all roads into n out of towns, timing every motorist and issuing speeding tickets! Surely this isn't safety more a way of making yet more money out of the hard pressed working population, without appearing to put taxes up? They say it's to reduce road deaths, but how many deaths are just caused by idiots who don't pay any attention when walking? we have all seen it, and nearly hit someone because of it - when they cross in stupid places, between parked car's, on blind bends etc, or just cross a side road without checking for turning traffic first! Educate these idiots instead of always blaming the poor person in the car!

Waste of police time

What is it with wasting the time, and resources, of our police force nowadays. Not only do they waste time prosecuting a couple that FOUND a lottery ticket on the floor. Yes, it was a winning ticket, yes they cashed it in. But my view is the original owner lost it, they FOUND it. They didn't steal it, mug her for it or anything like that, they found it on the floor. They get an 11 month suspended sentence, yet real thieves, burglars, shop lifters, mugger's and worse get away with much less, or even just a caution... if they even get taken to court, how many get off as there is no CCTV so the good old police and CPS drop it as lack of evidence? Add to this the investigation into the fatal crash resulting from a police chase. Yes, I feel sorry that a 16 year old died, it's a waste when anyone dies. But he did steal a car, he did try and drag race a Subaru in his Mercedes, he did make off from the police after initially stopping. And he had been bailed for car theft just 24 hours earlier - bit of a pattern? So what did the police do wrong in this instance? Nothing. They did their job, and yet still get investigated for doing it. The youth that dies sped off at up to 130mph, so who is to blame here?