Author Topic: Driving  (Read 7684 times)

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Offline rhuddlan

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Re: Driving
« Reply #15 on: May 31, 2017, 07:45:50 pm »
Nemesis, sorry about that. I also recall the pop had a starting handle! Essential in the winter as the electrics were poor !

Ian,   I started with m/cs by going with my dad when I was 16 with my provisional licence and no knowledge to Colwyn Bay. Dad thought a 50cc Girelli would be ideal but Geoff Owen(shop owner) saw the look of disappointment on my face and suggested a good British bike....A James 200cc Sports Captain. He could have probably made more on the sale of a new 50cc bike so he was kind enough to sell me something I wanted...particularly as I worked all the summer season on Rhyl Prom flogging lilos and buckets and spades!.Sadly I haven't a pic....I hadn't the money... I recently saw the invoice though....if I find it again i will take a pic and post it.
After that it was more 2 strokes.... a BSA Bantam scrambler for fun and then an Ariel Leader 250 twin.

Offline Fester

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Re: Driving
« Reply #16 on: May 31, 2017, 07:56:25 pm »
I used to drive down to Swindon for work reasons, and football several times a year.
But I never, ever got used to the SEVEN roundabouts, which are all together in one cluster as you get into the town.
They are all painted on the roads, and trying to obey them is nigh on impossible.
Most locals ignore them and drive over them, others try to fathom them.. and it was just chaos as far as I could see.
Fester...
- Semper in Excretum, Sole Profundum Variat -


Offline rhuddlan

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Re: Driving
« Reply #17 on: May 31, 2017, 08:11:08 pm »
1968 motorcyle invoice.....Geoff Owen Colwyn Bay, should be attached.
I see I paid for it in instalments!

Offline DVT

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Re: Driving
« Reply #18 on: May 31, 2017, 08:40:51 pm »
Cars in the wrong line happens every day on the Black Cat Roundabout and more so on the bigger roundabout under the A55 just next to it - plenty of instances recorded on my dashcam - had an instance only this morning that was almost identical to the Audi incident - a Polo did exactly the same thing to a lorry that I was following at that very same point.  But enough of that argument.

I bought my first car a week before my 17th birthday in 1966 - a 1963 Austin Mini Countryman - the woodie type, cost me a year's salary (£395) - would love to have one of those now, not seen one for many years!

I never had a professional lesson, just drove round with Dad next to me - I couldn't afford lessons.  Did take two goes to pass the test as on the first occasion it rained heavily and the windows steamed up - I hit the kerb when asked to do the manouvere of reversing round a corner!

A few years later, when I was 20, my cousin and I both entered a Road Safety Rally in Liverpool - I had no navigator so completed the course on my own and finished 3rd overall from over 100 entries - won a free IAM Test which I took, without getting any special lessons, a year later and passed!

Over the 50+ years of driving I have averaged about 12k miles a year, my driving has included a fair bit of competition including rally driving on roads and in forests.  I am proud of the fact that in all that time I have only had one insurance claim and that was way back in 1975 when I had a slow head-on at a blind bend on a minor road, I had actually stopped but the oncoming car slid on loose gravel.  I remember once reading that drivers will have an accident every nine years on average so hope I'm not tempting fate as I'm way overdue for one.

I consider myself to be a careful driver but certainly not infallible so always cautious especially when there are others around - when I started to drive I was told to treat every other driver as a complete idiot, as there are times when you would be correct in that assumption!

Offline snowcap

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Re: Driving
« Reply #19 on: May 31, 2017, 11:18:24 pm »
you have brought back some good memories there Nem.I passed my test in 1959 driving  in  an army champ (type of jeep) you had to take your foot of the gas to get the wipers to work. My first car was a 1949 morris ten, it would never have passed a MOT. if you hit a pot hole you had to wait and see which way the car would go and counteract it. The driving standard today is much higher than in those days and you have to be far more alert on roundabouts and roads in general. We all think we are right when it comes to how people should drive and that's why it is nearly always the other guys fault. The person who has never made a mistake while driving hasn't been born yet but i think the dashcam is one of the best things that has ever been brought in, what can't speak can't lie

Offline Ian

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Re: Driving
« Reply #20 on: June 01, 2017, 08:22:10 am »

A few years later, when I was 20, my cousin and I both entered a Road Safety Rally in Liverpool - I had no navigator so completed the course on my own and finished 3rd overall from over 100 entries - won a free IAM Test which I took, without getting any special lessons, a year later and passed!


I think I was on that same rally :-)
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.  ― Michel de Montaigne

Si hoc legere scis, nimis eruditionis habes.

Offline mondie

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Re: Driving
« Reply #21 on: June 02, 2017, 04:21:55 pm »
The Police system is called Defensive driving. It aims to enhance driving skills by teaching drivers to read the road, anticipate possible issues and read car positioning, as you might read body language.  Sadly, the nearest IAM motorist's group seems to be in Bangor: northwalesgroup@hotmail.com

Thank you Ian, this is great info. I will fire off an email now.

Cheers Simon

Offline DVT

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Re: Driving
« Reply #22 on: June 06, 2017, 01:04:44 pm »
Just found a pic of my first car - 1963 Austin Mini Countryman 848cc ... bought just before my 17th birthday in March 1966.  Wish I still had it!

Offline hollins

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Re: Driving
« Reply #23 on: June 06, 2017, 10:07:13 pm »
I have posted these pics of the car that belonged to my parents before but here it is again in case you missed it first time DVT.

Offline DVT

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Re: Driving
« Reply #24 on: July 09, 2017, 09:13:05 am »
I know this is the Driving thread, and this pic is of Parking ... top of hill in Llan Junction yesterday a number of cars parked on the double yellows but this one really takes the prize ... one of those days when the Traffic Warden should have been about!!!


Offline Hugo

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Re: Driving
« Reply #25 on: July 09, 2017, 12:40:06 pm »
DVT  that's atrocious parking, why don't you send it to the Daily Post as they have a monthly feature of bad parkers.
That could well win the July one.
Don't they have Traffic Wardens in the Junction?

Offline Nemesis

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Re: Driving
« Reply #26 on: July 10, 2017, 11:07:30 am »
I have posted these pics of the car that belonged to my parents before but here it is again in case you missed it first time DVT.


Running In. I remember my Dad having those signs when he had a new car. Those were the days!
Mad, Bad and Dangerous to know.

Offline Fester

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Re: Driving
« Reply #27 on: August 13, 2017, 01:49:17 pm »
There was someone DRIVING this car, that fell 7 stories out of a car park in the US, .. amazing cctv footage.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-40904076/car-plunges-seven-storeys-off-us-parking-garage
Fester...
- Semper in Excretum, Sole Profundum Variat -

Offline Hugo

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Re: Driving
« Reply #28 on: August 13, 2017, 02:07:27 pm »
That was an incredible bit of good luck that the two drivers escaped getting killed when the car fell from 7 storeys.