Drive at a speed that will allow you to stop well within the distance you can see to be clear. You should
leave enough space between you and the vehicle in front so that you can pull up safely if it suddenly slows down or stops. The safe rule is never to get closer than the overall stopping distance
allow at least a two-second gap between you and the vehicle in front on roads carrying faster-moving traffic and in tunnels where visibility is reduced. The gap should be at least doubled on wet roads and increased still further on icy roads
remember, large vehicles and motorcycles need a greater distance to stop. If driving a large vehicle in a tunnel, you should allow a four-second gap between you and the vehicle in front
If you have to stop in a tunnel, leave at least a 5-metre gap between you and the vehicle in front.
Download the chart ‘Typical stopping distances’ (PDF, 125KB)
Read all the rules about control of the vehicle (117-126)
Tributes… from Andy Connolly, a race marshal, who honoured Mr Allan’s involvement in the British Touring Car Championship series.
He wrote on Twitter: “Saddened to hear that former BTCC driver Dave Allan passed away earlier this week. Remember him piloting that Civic to an inch of its life.”
A story on the BBC Technology website tells of a new car headlight that can – and I quote – “shine ‘around’ rain”. True to the BBC’s objective of dumbing things down, there will now be a whole raft of people under the impression that light can go round corners!
In actual fact, what this new headlight – which is in extremely early experimental stages – can do is pick up raindrops on a camera, calculate where they are likely to fall, then turn off light shining in that direction. It takes about 13 milliseconds to do this.
In tests, they managed to block out 79% of raindrops on a thunderstorm at 20mph, but only 20% of them at 60mph. They are dimmer than ordinary lights because they remove some of the radiation. One must assume that the more rain is in the air, the dimmer they are – which seems counterproductive to me.
On a more practical note, there is already a problem with those so-called adaptive headlights dazzling people and getting broken, and even BMW admits they are hard to keep working for the lifetime of a car. Given that most types contain sensors and motors to move them, the number of things that can go wrong (and the cost of repairing them) is much higher than with the traditional fixed type. Having a camera, beam splitter, and projector in there as well is obviously a huge step towards simplification. Not.
I also love the way that people gush about the road safety advantages of adaptive lights shining around corners, when the greatest safety benefits would be gained from having to go slower – not being able to do it faster! I mean, it’s Audis and BMWs that usually have these things, and those drivers really do not need any further encouragement or justification to drive like prats.
Being able to drive faster in the rain is just asking for trouble.
Well, two of my local garages got fuel in again today – and there were queues at them all day. Fortunately, they weren’t as large as yesterday – although it WAS bad around midday-mid-afternoon.
I finally went in one of them tonight after my last lesson, and when the queues had almost gone. I thought I’d be in and out reasonably quickly, but when I got to the pay desk there was a stupid bitch with a credit card that the attendant was having to phone up someone about. Judging from his rolled eyes and repeated attempts, he couldn’t get through. In the end, we all heard clearly that she’d bought just over £12 of fuel! What was the bloody point?
When I got outside, they were queuing up the road again because no one else had been able to pay quickly and drive away.
Nice one, Victoria Mott. A nominee for the Darwin Awards 2012.
Meanwhile, the BBC reports that panic buying by people like Ms Mott is hitting small businesses hard. People are cancelling holidays and such like. It’s not surprising – yesterday I was seriously worried that I would have to cancel lessons, even though I had half a tank left.
Half a tank lasts me a day if I’m busy. The same amount would keep idiots like Ms Mott and her kind going for a bloody week.
I heard this on the radio a few minutes ago and it hasn’t filtered through properly into the news channels yet. Also on Sky News. More stories coming in from Yorkshire, and the BBC. Keep an eye on these as they will expand the story when more information comes in.
A woman in York has suffered 40% burns as the petrol she was transferring into different containers in her kitchen burst into flames.
Contrary to what it said, it did NOT withdraw the advice. It diluted it in an attempt to protect the moron who said it. The fact is, it WAS said. In just the same way that someone in court who says they “didn’t mean” to do something is still guilty of it, the “government” is guilty of advising people to panic buy.
Cameron is totally out of touch with reality (and the electorate) if he thinks people aren’t this stupid. They are. And they are simply following the advice of HIS government.
It made me laugh listening to news yesterday. Plenty of talk about garage forecourts “running low” or seeing “increased sales”. What planet does the BBC live on, where the entire surface of the earth appears to consist only of London and the Home Counties, and nowhere else.
In Nottingham, Asda at West Bridgford had a queue outside as I drove past on a lesson at around mid-afternoon. A glance in showed the garage was shut. There was a BBC van with big satellite dish on top parked in the pub next door, so it’s not like they didn’t know.
Around the same time, Bunny service station was closed with “No Fuel” signs outside.
All day, the Esso service Station in Ruddington had had long queues outside. By evening it was empty – and there isn’t a delivery scheduled until tonight at the earliest, so I’m told.
The garage on Meadow Lane only had diesel left.
This morning, I noticed the Crusader garage had “no fuel” signs up.
I’ve noticed that 90% of the panic buyers are old people and women with kids – those with nothing else to do all day. I’m sure their adventures in the queues are the sole topic around the dinner table or outside the school gates that day. All of them will happily back up into main roads, on to roundabouts, or anywhere else they fancy, without the slightest consideration for the obstruction they are causing. Let’s be honest, who but old people and women with kids could think as one-dimensionally as that?
Fuel should be rationed. And the ANPR system ought to be able to recognise regular customers and kick out those parasites who travel around.
And the police should get off their arses and do what the forces have been doing in other counties – moving people on who block roads.
I was really worried last night. With only about half a tank of fuel, I would only have had enough to get me through today (probably) and then I’d be screwed. Fortunately, on a lesson last night I took a pupil into a garage and we managed to fill up there – it was good experience, of course. but I prefer to do this when I think they’re ready, and not because I have to.
I use a tank of fuel every two days, and that’s only fits into my week if I have unrestricted access to fuel when I get low. Because of panic buying, I dare not stick to my schedule – I cannot, otherwise I’d simply end up out of gas. I’ve just got to bite the bullet and top up when I can – and keep my fingers crossed that even that is enough.
Panic buyers haven’t made me use more fuel, but they’ve forced me to have to fill up every day instead of every other day. I will be out of work if I don’t.
Panic buyers are imbeciles. Anyone reading this who has panic bought fuel when they don’t need it is an imbecile. Anyone thinking of panic buying is an imbecile.
After that idiot Francis Maude told everyone to go out an panic buy fuel today – and after his so-called boss made matters worse by implying that people should only panic buy sensibly – that’s exactly what they were doing tonight (minus the “sensible” part).
There were huge queues at the garages.
They weren’t putting much in, either. A stupid bitch in a white BMW X6 attempted to barge her way in front of me (and failed), and then spent literally less than 30 seconds putting diesel in the damned thing after she’d pushed in front of someone else. She must have spent less than a tenner!
If they can’t afford to run the damned things properly they shouldn’t have them. As I often tell my pupils, not all of the jackasses who have these big cars actually own them. They technically belong to the finance company.
This email alert came in via the DSA. The entire situation is down to a bunch of arseholes and a union. So just a big bunch of arseholes really. This simple fact doesn’t stop the lower primates trying to blame the DSA somehow.
I can’t really think of any publication out there (other than the Arseholes’ Union Newsletter) which would advise the public to go out and panic buy, break speed limits, queue at forecourts on purpose to cause disruption, and so on. So the DSA’s advice is:
Motorists can also help by following the following sensible advice:
don’t change your purchasing behaviour, refuel as you normally would, planning ahead if you have a long journey to go on
stick to speed limits as this helps conserve fuel
don’t queue at petrol forecourts, this causes congestion and increases disruption
check travel sites and latest news before travelling
In actual fact, this is what all the newspapers are saying, and the AA, and other motoring groups. It is the standard advice at times like these.
The only problem is that people who aren’t tanker drivers and who aren’t fully paid up members of the Arseholes’ Union are not automatically any further up the evolutionary ladder. And they WILL go out and panic buy.
My opinion is that the media should simply not publicise the Arseholes’ Union’s intentions. But since that is never going to happen, sensible advice has to be given – even if people aren’t going to follow it.
Addendum: And it transpires that the Mickey Mouse coalition – much beloved by many of the lower primates out there – actually HAS advised people to panic buy.
The Fire Service is furious, because apart from the danger to the pond life which will be storing it in plastic buckets in its kitchens and bedrooms, there is also the danger to firemen who enter burning buildings not expecting to find gallons of fuel sitting around.
There was a queue outside Morrisons in Netherfield this afternoon. All the mummies in their 4x4s taking “sensible precautions” as advised by Cameron and his gang.
An email alert from the DSA says that more than half of all motorists use the DVLA’s digital services to tax their car or declare it off the road.
I was pleasantly surprised by this – but then I saw the bit about how “digital services” means online AND telephone services. I would imagine that the percentage using the actual “online” part is considerably less than the overall figure.
Still, Mike Penning finds a totally positive spin for the situation, claiming that more motorists want to deal with the DVLA at a time and place to suit them.
What exactly does he think they wanted previously? Or what does he think the other half want now? Do they want to deal with the DVLA at an extremely inconvenient time and place?
Maybe his daughter told him what to think, because Penning seems incapable of drawing logical conclusions out of anything for himself.
As I mentioned in the previous article (Despatch), there was an interesting snippet at the end about proposals to give councils the power to control roadworks. Under what are called “lane rental” schemes, utility companies could be charged £2,500 per day to dig up the busiest roads at peak times.
Personally, I don’t think it goes far enough. They should be charged £5,000 an hour to dig up ANY road. That way, they might get some work done instead of pratting around for a couple of hours a day and installing traffic lights and lane restrictions which persist during rush hour, causing massive tailbacks.
The water and gas companies are easily the worst offenders.
They dig up the road, then spend a minimum of two days doing absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, the rest of us have to endure temporary lights – often three- or four-way – while the road is effectively blocked.
Once upon a time, they’d put a big metal sheet over the hole after they finished work for the day. They still could in most cases, since the hole is rarely more than about half a metre wide and maybe three or four metres long. No doubt Health & Safety issues are involved, though.
Also, once upon a time, they’d get the job finished in a couple of hours – often during the night. I can’t see what has changed to the extent that the same simple repairs now take at least a week, with working hours only between 10am and just after midday at best. Again, I suspect Health & Safety is involved – after all, if they can’t get enough people to stand around in yellow hi-vis jackets doing nothing, how on earth can a gas or water leak possibly get fixed?
Mind you, it isn’t JUST the water and gas people. This picture from Google shows what University Boulevard in Nottingham looked like. Until recently, that is.
Even in winter, it was one of the nicest looking roads in Nottingham, with mature Lime trees lining both sides, creating an avenue with a footpath and cycle lane for the Spandex boys to ignore completely during rush hour.
But, it isn’t like that any more. Most of the trees on the left have been felled for the bloody tram extension. It has been chaos as they closed one lane of the road – and God only knows what it will be like when they start building the tramline. Anyone who has seen any of the Nottingham tram areas will know they are concrete monstrosities. You can’t have trees near the overhead lines, it seems.
Cities which have grown around tram systems are beautiful (places like Munich and Hannover spring to mind). Cities in which tram lines have grown through the city are ugly monstrosities with huge traffic problems. And they will remain so, no matter how many Mickey Mouse green awards the city in question insists on giving to itself.
Given the carbon footprint involved in building them and powering them, the tiny number of people they can carry in proportion to the number who need to travel, and the amount of extra congestion they cause for cars during peak hours, trams are the biggest “Green Herring” of all time. And especially so in Nottingham.
you can see to be clear. You should
you can see to be clear. You should 
had almost gone. I thought I’d be in and out reasonably quickly, but when I got to the pay desk there was a stupid bitch with a credit card that the attendant was having to phone up someone about. Judging from his rolled eyes and repeated attempts, he couldn’t get through. In the end, we all heard clearly that she’d bought just over £12 of fuel! What was the bloody point?