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Paul H

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43 minutes ago, Colin Lindsay said:

Last time I drove on the M6 I was too frightened to nod off.

Over here the best device for keeping you awake is called the East European Driver. The other half also screams her head off if another car comes within half a mile, so I need to adjust her settings to a more reasonable distance.

 

As well as making Moaning and Across the Country DIY Job Assigning an Olympic sport my GF also sits there like she's on a white knuckle ride. 

The rest of my family say I'm the safest driver they know but my GF though keeps me on my toes and awake with a good old brake press from the passenger seat and the classic seat foam throttle grip.

 

SP

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1 hour ago, s99sdp said:

As well as making Moaning and Across the Country DIY Job Assigning an Olympic sport my GF also sits there like she's on a white knuckle ride. 

The rest of my family say I'm the safest driver they know but my GF though keeps me on my toes and awake with a good old brake press from the passenger seat and the classic seat foam throttle grip.

 

SP

Does she make dimples in the floor with her imaginary brake pedals? Mine has two phrases, closely linked - 'WATCH OUT!' at full volume followed by another phrase which usually starts 'Well, I thought...' as in 'Well, I thought he was coming out in front of us' or 'Well, I thought you hadn't seen him...'

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M6 is fine. But then I’m a brummy so use it a fair amount. The motorway that puts the willies up plenty of none locals is the Aston express (distress) way.  The hard shoulder is in the middle of the running lanes and the number of running lanes in each direction depends on the time of day - so the hard shoulder moves as well 😂

The M25 can be a bit challenging- but normally is so busy that you have plenty of time to react. 
 

The worst motorway- is the ring road around Paris. They they are mad over there 😂

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14 minutes ago, Anglefire said:

ll 😂

The worst motorway- is the ring road around Paris. They they are mad over there 😂

After several years I've got the hang of it, the 'periph'. The nearside lane is for those leaving at the next junction, the rest for any vehicle that fits in the gap between two vehicles in line 😁. The knack is to work on the assumption that if there is a big enough gap a car will appear from out of nowhere ro fill it. When you understand this it works a treat. I even enjoy roundabouts such as the Arc de Triumphe where it is everyone for themselves, foot to the floor and see who wimps out first. I can now out bluff buses 😄Then of course there are the 2 wheelers that blast along between the lines of  traffic, i.e. to the left and right. 

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I have driven around the Brussels Ring Road a few times, that is always an interesting experience. Seems to be a permanent traffic jam or with vehicles coming at you from every direction to enforce the blockade, makes the M25 seem a country lane !!

Regards.

Richard.

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Colin how would your wife react over here in OZ where your permitted to overtake on the inside lane as well, my uncle visited from the UK several years ago and he never got used to it, but hey it works! Hey our trams people will try to do a right turn from the centre of the road in front of a tram makes a big mess of the car!

I don't want to be racist but the Chinese driver of either sex (we have a great Chinese DIL) how their minds work defeats me they want to be over there so just go there stuff the risk or traffic flow!

DIL was going for lunch with some friends to a Vineyard, her phone GPS said turn left as she passed the entrance driveway, so she DID straight into a ditch! New undershield needed on 4WD. Parked the Polo in a car park didn't realise there was a high kerb to stop going forward came back tried to drive out forwards felt the resistance so gunned up over the kerb, rather than backing out thought it would be easier to keep going ever seen a Polo's undertray after that!

We went to Taiwan for the Chinese wedding after the first here in Melb, after dinner out in Taichung the father had to stop to pick up some framed photos of the prelim wedding where they all get dressed in wedding attire in numerous outfits, at 12AM  he just stopped in the middle of a 3 lane road got out put emergency flashers on and went to pick photos up leaving the wife and I in the car for 10mins with the occasional car spinning past on either side. He picked us up from Taipei international airport for the 2hr drive to Taichung all the way along the excellent freeway he was watching real time TV game shows on the front monitor! Fortunately I don't speak Mandarin and he doesn't speak English, or I might have been tempted to say something, but he is a really nice guy & we love our DIL dearly.

Sorry if I've offended anyone,

Peter T

 

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A smart motorway is where they make the hard shoulder a running lane - the m42 was the first I think and that has the hard shoulder as a part time running lane but later ones are full time.  They added lay-bys off the hard shoulder at regular intervals so broken down vehicles could either get there if towed there as a safe place to stop. 
The M6 north of Birmingham is smart but a full time running hard shoulder. 
In all cases a smart motorway must have cameras and variable speed limits. With part time hard shoulder ones being restricted to a max of 60mph when active.  

The M1 is in the process of being upgraded as are several others, though the M1 is already smart north of Birmingham around Nottingham and Sheffield from memory  

I’m not a big fan. Not because I doesn’t work as there is evidence it does - but because now drivers are allowed to under take they think they can do it all the time and that is not the case. Though that has to be tempered with the fact that lane discipline is appalling and many drivers don’t keep to the left and sit in the middle or outside lanes.  In fact only the Aston expressway was it legal to undertake and that was because so many roads come in and out in such a short time it made it more dangerous to overtake in the usual manner. 

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11 hours ago, Peter Truman said:

Colin how would your wife react over here in OZ where your permitted to overtake on the inside lane as well

 

Last time we drove in Greece our local driver kept up a constant litany of 'Oh my God! Oh my God!"which really impressed her.

She also has a very bad habit on narrow country roads of coming to a complete stop everytime she meets an oncoming car, no matter how wide the road is, which means she gets an earful from me as well.

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Definition of Smart:-

Tidy

Quick witted

Tender or sore (after a slap etc)

Alert

Timely

 

Sadly this doesn't include motorways because they truly are not smart. 

They remove dedicated safe lanes for dead vehicles not because it is SMART but because it is CHEAP

These are CHEAP motorways.

You are relying on a gimp in a far off control room to flick a switch to put a cross over the 'smart' lane - and you believe that is smart.

They can't even control the above lane information boards half the time

However if you say any lie often enough then it becomes the truth - ask any politician.

 

Roger (cynic)

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Roger, I don't dispute much of what you say! 

I do know (I know at least two people that work for the highways agency - two in the control room in Birmingham and one on the roads) and that they can't reopen a closed lane without the sayso of those on the ground and I think in the control room. Much frustration on both sides often ensues!

And much of the speed control is automatic and not manual - the words on the signs though is largely manual. And I'm almost convinced that they use prediction algorithms because the same limits and lane openings happen during bank holidays and the like as normal days and I not convinced its bright enough to know when its a Sunday as regularly the limit is 50 or 60 and the hard shoulder open on the M42 and its not got enough traffic for 2 lanes let alone 4. Not that that stops cars being spread over the 4 lanes!

Cheap? Not so sure its that cheap. Expedient with the often lack of space to go wider - they have done that once on the M5 and that results in the hard shoulder disappearing quite often around bridges. The section at least from the M42/M5 junction to Worcester is permanent 4 lanes - not sure if a hard shoulder exists along all of it or not - I can't remember despite having driven it countless times!

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On 09/01/2020 at 17:37, dougbgt6 said:

Except.......

My modern has been into two garages costing £££ to diagnose the dread “limp home mode” They can’t find the problem.

Electronics, when it works, great, when it doesn’t “Dunno mate”

Cruise Control, yes I got it, but do I need it? So much stuff that we don’t really need!

Doug

 

Fear it says more about the quality of the garages than anything else....

My ‘96 Audi A6 has all the things mentioned in the film plus a few. Car check and bulb check, electronic engine management (diesel style) and ABS. Also luxuries such as climate control, electric windows and central locking.

If I had to choose one it would be the ABS.

Traction control would be nice..... but it doesn’t have it....... nor did the Triumph in the film

Nick

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Nick my daughter made that comment re traction control wasn’t included, she’s an aero space engineer and worked on driveline design at GM Holden as well as the development section.

interestingly my co cars esp Ford Ghia Fairmonts had it and it scared me trying to pull out to cross traffic it would bog down rather than spin it’s wheels and move it consequently I used to turn it off and light it up probably more that I felt in control.

nowerdays you don’t get the option of a button to turn it off

Anglefire thanks for the info on Smart Motorways we can do it anywhere there’s two lanes in one direction

regards

Peter T

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Doug. Given it was a report by the highways and not directly government I doubt anything will particularly change - they will at least finish the current ones and keep the existing in place.  Which doesn’t actually solve any of the issues. 
 

What I think is needed is there to be one type. Either all lanes open at all times with speed limits changing as needed - I also think it should be increased to a max of 80, but be more strict With its policing. Given the number of cars and indeed vans that fly past me on the motorways the 70 limit is universally ignored. It would probably reduce some of the bunching too if there were some variance in the speeds of vehicles. 

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1 hour ago, Anglefire said:

Given it was a report by the highways and not directly government I doubt anything will particularly change

Driver safety on smart motorways is under review with recommendations expected within weeks, according to the Transport Secretary Grant Shapps  (The Mail on line, so it must be true! :lol:)

Doug

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3 hours ago, Pete Lewis said:

soon to be solved  all electric  parked up in all lanes  with flat batteries awaiting the mobile charge wagon , hopefully diesel  powered 

pete

We had a local radio channel test driving an electric car on Thursday; they started off with 167 miles range and by the time they had finished a 12 mile journey they had 177 miles range, thanks to regenerative braking recharging the battery. This appears to indicate that if you drive with the handbrake on the car never requires recharging.

The biggest problem they had was arriving at a charging bay to find a car full of yobs eating burgers, who told them to f*** off when asked to move.

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