Drove down to Surry yesterday – wasn’t the best trip.
As I approached the M50 a lorry drove past fairly slowly having left a rest area. About 1/3 of the way past the lorry something fairly big and hard hit my windscreen… my lovely new windscreen that has only been on the car 6 months.
There are now some marks right in the drivers line of sight. Not really chips as they only affect the surface layer. Very annoying 🙁
The journey went fine – A417, M4, through Bracknell to M3 and was almost at the M25 when I hit traffic.
We finally passed the laccident scene 2 hours and 40 minutes later during which time we had driven 6 miles.
A lorry had lost control, hit the central reservation very hard and ended up on its side – quite impressive.
The lane discipline of other drivers annoyed me – I am sure you see this all the time though. As we approached the accident signs said the outside 2 lanes were closed so everybody filtered into the inside 2 lanes and slowly shuffled forwards. Seemed to be working, for minutes nothing came past on the right. Then many cars appeared all piling down the outside 2 lanes until they hit the coned area and pushed their way in.
Police snipers would be good here – take out one in every 5 cars trying that and people would soon improve their road manners 🙂
Hopefully the drive back won’t have traffic jams or damage to the car…
God this is dull!
Nobody is forcing you to read it apart from your own fascination about the world of Saabs you so miss – the fascinating tales of the exciting life of my car seem to keep tens, yes tens of people interested each month. Only yesterday I found someone interested in the mysterious working of the APC solenoid valve…
Could be worse – imagine if it was written about a Honda Prelude for example, then it really would be dull 😉
Quoting:
The lane discipline of other drivers annoyed me – I am sure you see this all the time though. As we approached the accident signs said the outside 2 lanes were closed so everybody filtered into the inside 2 lanes and slowly shuffled forwards. Seemed to be working, for minutes nothing came past on the right. Then many cars appeared all piling down the outside 2 lanes until they hit the coned area and pushed their way in.
The problem is that they tell you which lanes are closed far too early. If they left it until the last minute then everyone would just merge when they needed to any everything would be fine, rather than driving along using half of the available lanes. Plus people like you wouldn’t get all offended when someone comes along using a lane *which is still open*.
What’s especially quality is when people get all pissed off about people using the open lanes and start driving half in their own lane and half in the open lane in order to try and block them from passing. If I’m behind one of these people I try to sneak in along side them and shut them out of the lane they were in 🙂
I have enjoyed your blog.
….and here is something that I can comment on with authority, as I drive about 60,000 miles a year in a white van. There would not be a problem if drivers merged using the zip protocol, left car then right car then left etc just like a zipper; result, traffic moves smoothly and no tempers lost. But the norm is, everyone defends ‘their’ space on the ‘if he gets in front of me I lose’ principle.