G
Guest
Guest
Jon
| It aint like hauling the ponies along the quiet lanes
| of Devon consistent with showing respect to protecting the
| pedestrians and occupants by having a car with a high safety
| rating and no potentially hazardous bolt-ons.
Not always so! The local hazards come into two categories:
(a) The traditional young farmer in souped up small car. Goes too fast, but usually has bloody good reactions - and anyway the car would probably disintegrate if you hit it because it has had so many holes drilled in it for spoilers, lights, body kit, etc. And they respect animals & pedestrians.
(b) Sadly Devon is slowly becomming yuppyfied, and the number of Mercedes and BMWs on the roads is increasing. They are a damned sight more dangerous because they've been on the BMW/Mercedes "you've bought our car so you own the road" course, and don't slow down for anything. In addition they are always late, and usually on the mobile phone to Harrods / stockbroker / mistress (or, in the case of Mercedes owners, the garage that has loaned them a car while fixing theirs...)
Moi? Prejudiced? Never!!
Christopher Bell
BTW I spent a year driving in Cairo (circa 1980) which was "interesting" in the Bosnian sense. Noone believes me when I say that I had been driving there for 3 months before I realised that they actually had traffic lights, but it's true. There were absolutely no rules at all, merely conventions. I had an old VW Passat which was unique in the company fleet in that it had seat-belts (which was why I chose it), but the bodywork resembled that Peugot ad set in India where the young man gets his car remodelled by an elephant. But at least no-one shot at me - although it did have a couple of holes in the roof that looked about .22 diameter ...
I take your point about the "safe, cosy" west. But I'm not going to apologise for working to make cars safer: I know too many people who have survived accidents to want to go back to the death-traps of the 70s and earlier. Ho hum, I have to prepare a talk on this for 12 days time...
| It aint like hauling the ponies along the quiet lanes
| of Devon consistent with showing respect to protecting the
| pedestrians and occupants by having a car with a high safety
| rating and no potentially hazardous bolt-ons.
Not always so! The local hazards come into two categories:
(a) The traditional young farmer in souped up small car. Goes too fast, but usually has bloody good reactions - and anyway the car would probably disintegrate if you hit it because it has had so many holes drilled in it for spoilers, lights, body kit, etc. And they respect animals & pedestrians.
(b) Sadly Devon is slowly becomming yuppyfied, and the number of Mercedes and BMWs on the roads is increasing. They are a damned sight more dangerous because they've been on the BMW/Mercedes "you've bought our car so you own the road" course, and don't slow down for anything. In addition they are always late, and usually on the mobile phone to Harrods / stockbroker / mistress (or, in the case of Mercedes owners, the garage that has loaned them a car while fixing theirs...)
Moi? Prejudiced? Never!!
Christopher Bell
BTW I spent a year driving in Cairo (circa 1980) which was "interesting" in the Bosnian sense. Noone believes me when I say that I had been driving there for 3 months before I realised that they actually had traffic lights, but it's true. There were absolutely no rules at all, merely conventions. I had an old VW Passat which was unique in the company fleet in that it had seat-belts (which was why I chose it), but the bodywork resembled that Peugot ad set in India where the young man gets his car remodelled by an elephant. But at least no-one shot at me - although it did have a couple of holes in the roof that looked about .22 diameter ...
I take your point about the "safe, cosy" west. But I'm not going to apologise for working to make cars safer: I know too many people who have survived accidents to want to go back to the death-traps of the 70s and earlier. Ho hum, I have to prepare a talk on this for 12 days time...