Only a few miles from home, late afternoon, on a fast A road which I know like the back of my hand. Taxi in front of me has been tailgating the old Polo with L plates. A few occasions it could have overtaken safely but didn’t.
Short straight bit of road, good sight lines, LL presses the sport button and thinks if Joe Le Taxi decides to continue mimsing behind said L plated Polo at 35 in the NSL I can have them both. No sweat. Super safe.
Joe Le T makes no effort to overtake at the start of the short straight. So Barbie picks up her skirts. Cogs turn slowly. Joe Le T thinks let’s have a go. Just as I’m on the ‘wrong’ side of the road level with the his car. No indicator. Obviously didn’t look in the mirror. I thought he’d have spotted my lights pulling out to overtake him. Im literally forced off the road. Offside wheels on the verge braking hard, hit a large drain cover ( new drains put in a few years ago as this section of road used to flood heavily). Rear OS tyre deflates immediately, but I avoid both Joe and the dry stone wall. Just. Limp 100 or so yards to safe pull in which was incredibly lucky, hoping the totally knackered tyre stays on the rim.
Porsche Assistance called out and within 40 mins the collapsible spare is fitted and I’m home on my drive.
Car being collected by main dealer tomorrow AM who will put it up in the air and check for any underbody damage. Fingers crossed.
Joe le Taxi didn’t stop. Sodded off pdq. Being 4WD with tyres over 30% worn it looks like 2 new rears will have to be fitted. Michelin Latitude Sport 3 ( 295/40/R20) at £209 a corner, fitted, from Black Circles inc 10% discount. Got away lightly I suppose, but wish I had dashcam footage of the episode. The dealer were notified immediately and have ordered the tyres.....I wonder if they’ll price match Black Circles. And please can I have a 911 as a courtesy car. Pretty please.
Worse things happen at sea. Wouldn’t have happened if I’d been driving a Micra.
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Lucky escape there, LL. I'm glad you got out of it with flesh and bones intact, hopefully there'll be no other damage to the car.
It is always worth fitting a dashcam, you never know what will crop up on your travels.
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Yeap lucky escape without a doubt. Appalling standards of driving.
The fact that it had a Taxi plate on would make me doubly cautious. T**t!
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>>Worse things happen at sea.
The best way to look at it.
I've taken to driving with headlights on in the MX-5, despite the DRLs. I think people must look over it.
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you need a car with greater presence and purpose.
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DBX would fit the bill. And I could go live in a tent.
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>> DBX would fit the bill.
It would that, failing that a car that everyone thinks is a fuzz car.....
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I’ll call at Settle police station this AM on the off chance that anyone following called it in, or better still had a dash cam to confirm the described circumstances.
North Yorks County Council have a camera mounted on the roundabout 2 miles further on...if it’s hi def it can pick up car reg numbers, but data protection probably wouldn’t allow me access to those details. I’d still like to find the name of the taxi company and report it to them, even though no further action would ensue.
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It may be driving without due care or something but I expect it was an honest mistake. Haven't we all been there?
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>>even though no further action would ensue
And if it does? Let he who is without sin and all that.
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thinks is a fuzz car.....
White Volvo on local plates.....we popped to a less salubrious part of Rhyl the other day to sell an item....the buyer actually said he thought we were the fuzz...
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>> thinks is a fuzz car.....
>>
>> White Volvo on local plates.....we popped to a less salubrious part of Rhyl the other
>> day to sell an item....the buyer actually said he thought we were the fuzz...
In the Beemer fast lane motorway traffic seems to part and peel away in front of you like Moses crossing the Dead Sea. Mind you it is being driven, errr how shall we say,.....decisively!
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I know the guy was a t*** and the fault was entirely his. No doubt.
But I do just wonder whether or not in hindsight, since you were just a few miles from home, that it might have been better not to have tried saving the 15 seconds, or whatever it would have been, and simply not taken the risk.
Surely when overtaking more than one car on a single lane road the most likely thing to happen is the rear car stupidly pulling out?
Sometimes a risk/reward calculation tends to suggest that saving the wear and tear on your nerves is more important than a few moments possibly saved. There's *always* another dick waiting to hold you up just around the corner, anyway.
Stick something nice on whatever you use for audio entertainment and let it wash past you.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Wed 5 Aug 20 at 08:36
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He probably thought, "well the guy in the fast car behind me hasn't zapped me by now, so probably isn't going to"
I dunno, give you poor basic northern souls some exotica, and they just dont know how to carry it off
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Or, maybe the taxi driver is a misogynist? Probably saw your car start to make the move and decided he wasn't going to be bested by a girl?
;-)
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>> Or, maybe the taxi driver is a misogynist? Probably saw your car start to make
>> the move and decided he wasn't going to be bested by a girl?
>> ;-)
>>
Haha. That made me smile.
Egg appeared overnight on front off side, so that’s 4 new tyres now. On the positive side I’ll have plenty of tread for winter when the FCO are still advising against all but essential travel to Spain so I’ll be crying into my porridge.
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I’m over it now.
I didn’t see it as ‘a risk’ as I’ve overtaken slower traffic on that particular stretch more times than I can remember over the past 20 years. And I’m very, very aware when overtaking more than one vehicle of driver/s in front not assessing the overtaking opportunity as quickly as myself. Local knowledge is a great help and I allow for that. In this case Joe Le Taxi had multiple earlier opportunities to overtake the slow vehicle in front. So my thinking was he wouldn’t on this occasion, and I hesitated a few seconds just in case he did. It was a Berlingo/Partner type taxi so with due respect to them not the best in gear acceleration vehicle.
It is what it is.
The main dealer tyre price was almost £300 more for 4 new tyres so I’m using Black Circles, and get Barbie recovered to my nominated fitter in due course.
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My car has stupidly low profile tyres on it and I've had a lot of instances of tyre wall bulges from potholes ( no not kerbs before you start )
Interestingly enough though ( or maybe not ) the winter tyres I've not got around to taking off this year seem much more resilient.
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Given that my tyres are silly low profile, 295/40 rears, 265/45 fronts, both on 20” rims, the ride quality is amazingly compliant. And that’s without the optional, and expensive, air suspension. They’re the standard rims...quite why anyone would pay extra for 21” rims is beyond me.
Porsche Assistance have been A1. Fitted my collapsible spare, and a techy is going to assess the egg on my Front offside today and ascertain whether it’s safe to drive the 16 miles to my nominated fitter. If not it will be on a flatbed later in the week once the tyre fitter has received the rubber from Black Circles.
Michelin Latitude Sport 3s again. I saw no reason to change.
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LL. Now you've had time to reflect was there any indication that the car was going to pull out?
I'm thinking in terms of the 'closing gap'. When a vehicle is closing in on a slower vehicle and the gap between them is closing then there is a strong possibility its going to pull out. Likewise when a car is about to commence an overtake it may accelerate towards the vehicle infront before pulling out.
This is particularly relevant to multi carriageway roads.
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"I didn't see it as a risk."
Says it all really
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You can get a decent dashcam for under £100 that most probably would have gathered all the information you needed there.
I really don’t understand why folks don’t have them or in my son’s case, refuses to have one even when I was buying it.
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>> ... or in my son’s case, refuses to have one even when I was buying it.
Yeah, maybe he doesn't want Dad to be able to review the footage?
;-)
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Multiple overtakes are far more common on a bike than in a car, having the power and acceleration to get past quickly when there would not be enough room on four wheels. But one of the things I taught myself to do as a mater of course when attempting one is a long main beam flash when pulling out and before drawing level with the first car. It does seem to alert even the doziest drivers.
Mind you, plodding round on a 125 these days overtakes are few and far between :-(
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>>Mind you, plodding round on a 125
How are you getting on with it. I ask as one of the doom mongers.
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Ok so far, but I've only really managed to get little more than round the block until recently. My damaged finger meant I could not get a glove on for a fair while after getting the bike so I did not want to chance an off, but it's all systems go now.
It is too early to tell what reliability will be like, but reports I've seen from owners largely dismiss the claims that modern Chinese bikes fall to bits after leaving the dealership. You read lots of "My foreman's sons mate had one ten years ago and it was a dog", but few recent scare stories from owners. Many of those you do get are the same as you'll see about any learner legal motorcycle, " Don't touch Brand X with a bargepole, I've got one and it ran out of oil after ten thousand miles and seized and the cheating dealer says it's my fault for not checking it!"
Last edited by: Robin O'Reliant on Wed 5 Aug 20 at 19:18
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>>reports I've seen from owners largely dismiss the claims that modern Chinese bikes fall to bits after leaving the dealership
I don't know about bikes, but the Chinese car manufacturers are very present here. It's fair to say that 10 years ago they were badly put together and came apart frequently.
Not now though. I was in a new one recently and it was very pleasant. Typically I cannot remember which brand it was, it obviously didn't ring any bells. The MGs are quite nice these days too.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Wed 5 Aug 20 at 20:48
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>>
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>> I don't know about bikes, but the Chinese car manufacturers are very present here. It's
>> fair to say that 10 years ago they were badly put together and came apart
>> frequently.
>>
>>
The Chinese market used to be Asia, where they could get away with lower standards of quality. They are now trying gaining a foothold in the developed countries who have their own established car and motorcycle industries and knew full well that they had to up their game considerably to succeed. They are outselling Japanese bikes in the learner class now, and that is how to build brand loyalty for the future when you start to introduce bigger bikes into the range. Honda did that in the early sixties and in a short time managed to kill the British motorcycle industry completely.
That is in stark contrast to Norton, who re-entered the motorcycle market with over priced replicas of ancient machines which only people too old to ride anymore remembered. I could see them going to the wall from day one.
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They are knocking out reproduction Escort Mk 2 bodyshells so maybe we should allow some slack.
www.motorsport-tools.com/brand-new-manufactured-complete-escort-mk2-bodyshell-standard-rs-spec-body-shell.html
Last edited by: Fullchat on Wed 5 Aug 20 at 21:35
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That was close - Robin O'Reliant
