The grumpy thread

[Kevin-TIB]

1 minute ago, Rust Collector said:

Did a slower limit on dual carriageways use to be a thing? I remember arguing with my parents about it a little while back, they were adamant NSL was 60 on a dual carriageway and the only 70 limit was on a motorway and that I must be confused as I hadn't been driving for as long as them so couldn't possibly be right 😅

Back in the 90s, I was convinced that a dual carriageway with a barrier was 60 mph unless otherwise notified. I've no idea when I was aware that it's actually 70.

[cort1977]

Just had a NIP in the post, no speed courses in Scotland so at least £100 and three points.  I actually saw the camera and slowed right down but then stupidly assumed I was out of range and accelerated away.  I am such a twat.

I did a course a few years ago in England, did learn a few things that had changed like 20mph limits so not a total waste of time.

[sierraman]

3 hours ago, Talbot said:

The entire premise of a speed awareness course is exactly that, making people aware of what speed they should be doing.  The basic assumption is of incompetence rather than malicious intent, so they are looking to educate.  There's nothing in there that isn't in the highway code, or indeed that you should/needed to know for passing your test, it's better described as a "bringing you back up to standard" course.

The lady running the one I went on was rather put out (indeed accused me of cheating, somehow) because I knew the answer to everything she was asking.  I ended up not answering questions in the end as it got rather embarrassing that no-one else knew the answers to really fucking basic road questions.  She also didn't like the fact that I told her that I was completely aware of the speed I was doing, what the limit was, and that there was a very high chance of an awareness course at the speed I was traveling, that I was taking a calculated risk rather than not knowing what the hell I was doing.  I probably should not have said that, as another course provider might have kicked me off for that sort of admission.

If you actually know what you're doing on the road, the course is somewhat simple, but £85 and a few hours is far better than £100 and 3 points.  I am absolutely sure that some people learned a lot on the course I was on.  That in itself is bloody scary.

Fuckin hell, I hope I’m never on one with you! We’d still be on till 7pm! 🤣

Like anything else involving a bollocking, turn up, minimum interaction, just nod at the right points and get out of there as quickly as possible. Like Fire Marshall courses they’re always run by some Keith Lard type that revels in the idea of giving people a telling off. 

[Wack]

If you're ever unsure when the school holidays are just use the centerparcs website 

[somewhatfoolish]

21 hours ago, sheffcortinacentre said:

Yes but think how safer the roads are & the bonus of someone to blame  without having to even leave the police station.

I blame Barbara Castle.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

29 minutes ago, Wack said:

If you're ever unsure when the school holidays are just use the centerparcs website 

My partner is a teacher and this is why we have to go and find weird places to stay, especially since we take the dog.  Finding anywhere half decent that doesn't also simultaneously bankrupt us in the school holidays is a pain in the arse.

[sierraman]

But god forbid you go outside the kids holidays you are hit with a fine and a shitty letter from the headteacher who will lecture you about attendance. 

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, sierraman said:

Fuckin hell, I hope I’m never on one with you! We’d still be on till 7pm! 🤣

Like anything else involving a bollocking, turn up, minimum interaction, just nod at the right points and get out of there as quickly as possible. Like Fire Marshall courses they’re always run by some Keith Lard type that revels in the idea of giving people a telling off. 

That reminds me of a time when I tailgated an old(er!) guy through the barriers to the parking at our local marina. Am fully entitled to be there, and have a pass, but know the barriers sense another vehicle. He had a right go, citing H&S, fire regs, number of people on site, who was there when etc. Didn't occur to him that a) the public could walk around untestricted and b) there was no check at the exit (proximity) barrier so no record of vehicles leaving.

[New POD]

10 hours ago, Metal Guru said:

I take it you just have to nod and agree that speed is bad rather than have an adult discussion about it.

5 things I've learnt. 

1) They lied about people having to arrive on time or there'll not be allowed in.  Some bloke turned up at 8:15. 

2) Smug, I don't want to sound. I was the only one that knew all the speed limits.  It was scary, how many people thought 50 was the limit on NSL single carriageway and 60 was the limit on NSL dual carriageway.   This doesn't surprise me, because there's a speed camera on.a dial carriageway that I go along and 90% of the cars break to 55 mph (usually from 80) 

3) I've learnt that tomorrow  when I get to the Road works at J10 on the M6 and the overhead gantry says 50, and the temporary road work sign 35 foot further on says 60, as soon as I pass it I can do 60, until I reach the next overhead gantry sign saying 50,  when I must be doing 50, until the next temporary sign saying 60.....

 

4) Nuns, kittens and cardboard boxes will die if I go 1mph over the limit. 

5) Some people are very stupid.  Yes we were all stupid to get caught speeding, but these were just dense. 

 

[New POD]

4 hours ago, cort1977 said:

Just had a NIP in the post, no speed courses in Scotland so at least £100 and three points.  I actually saw the camera and slowed right down but then stupidly assumed I was out of range and accelerated away.  I am such a twat.

I did a course a few years ago in England, did learn a few things that had changed like 20mph limits so not a total waste of time.

Ah yes. The tutor mistakenly said where ever you are in the UK you can get a course. 

[New POD]

6 hours ago, omegod said:

4 hours if I recall , to be honest I did learn a bit from it and it's changed my driving as a result 

8 til 10:45.  Actually sat down at 8:05, and left at 10:40. 

 

[cobblers]

On 1/4/2023 at 10:10 AM, sierraman said:

17 mph on the straight then 40mph through Baslow 🤣

Today!

60 limit, good visibility, normal traffic would be 50-70mph. 31mph seems about right

1 mile later, you hit the 30 limit in baslow?  Lets speed up to 40mph! (someone else was driving and took this picture and they should be locked up and shot for speeding)

 

[RoverFolkUs]

2 hours ago, sierraman said:

But god forbid you go outside the kids holidays you are hit with a fine and a shitty letter from the headteacher who will lecture you about attendance. 

The same head teachers that happily exclude students for a hair cut or pair of shoes...!!

I always remember the "number 2 and up" rule. Anyone with hair shorter than a number 2 was isolated until it grew back 🤔🤷

[Pieman]

On the subject of head teachers, I am still angry at the head of a friend's daughter's school who sent him a fine and a threat of court proceedings for her repeated absences due to illness a few years ago.

At the time he received it, she was close to death in hospital from blood poisoning due to a long-undetected ovarian tumour.  Having told the school this, unbelievably they were unmoved and still threatened him, at which I think he almost assaulted the headmaster.  Thankfully emergency surgery saved his daughter's life.

[greengartside]

I was watching tv on my break at work. It was Britain’s Notorious Prisons (on ITV). This episode was about Strangeways in Manchester and it featured interviews with ex-prisoners and who was involved with the 1990 riot there. Rioter Alan Lord then popped up and my blood immediately boiled. He was the guy that murdered my dad’s best mate and the reason why he was in there in the first place.
 

Stop giving this c@nt airtime, he doesn’t deserve it. He deserves to rot in hell.

[Mally]

3 hours ago, sierraman said:

But god forbid you go outside the kids holidays you are hit with a fine and a shitty letter from the headteacher who will lecture you about attendance. 

Likely a £260 fine for taking my grand kids to watch Daytona 500. They have to consult a new headteacher to see what is said.

Last years Head  said racing in Holland was an educational sports visit.

[AnthonyG]

5 hours ago, sierraman said:

Like anything else involving a bollocking, turn up, minimum interaction, just nod at the right points and get out of there as quickly as possible. Like Fire Marshall courses they’re always run by some Keith Lard type that revels in the idea of giving people a telling off. 

The one I was on last November had two presenters, one was an ex driving instructor who was alright, the other was an ex-cop, presumably traffic, who was an arrogant nob who was obviously a bit pissed off he couldn’t just arrest anyone who mildly irked him anymore.  He also made references to urban Bristol and street crime which made me suspect he would be stopping and searching black people all the time given half a chance. 

He spent most of the time trading insults with / telling off a mouthy retired HGV driver who appeared to have time travelled from 1976, with sexist jokes, eyerolling and smirking, he was such a throwback in his fake leather jacket and Mexican bandit  ‘tache. 

I guess they both would have agreed on the premise of a young black male equals a likely criminal though. 

[Talbot]

14 hours ago, sierraman said:

Fuckin hell, I hope I’m never on one with you! We’d still be on till 7pm! 🤣

Dafuq are you on about?  If anything, answering stuff made the course run quicker, as we weren't sat there for 6 eternities while she tried to tease the answer out of someone.

[sierraman]

10 minutes ago, Talbot said:

Dafuq are you on about?  If anything, answering stuff made the course run quicker, as we weren't sat there for 6 eternities while she tried to tease the answer out of someone.

It just came across like you were one of these asking hundred questions when everyone else just wanted to get out of there. 

[Talbot]

21 minutes ago, sierraman said:

It just came across like you were one of these asking hundred questions when everyone else just wanted to get out of there. 

Answering, not asking.

Quite frankly, I had zero interest in being there and was attempting to hurry it all along as much as possible.  Which she probably picked up on...

[sierraman]

8 minutes ago, Talbot said:

Answering, not asking.

Quite frankly, I had zero interest in being there and was attempting to hurry it all along as much as possible.  Which she probably picked up on...

Fair play, like a work bollocking, you just go through the motions and keep your head down until it drops off. 

[Metal Guru]

34 minutes ago, sierraman said:

Fair play, like a work bollocking, you just go through the motions and keep your head down until it drops off. 

So saying “ surely driving at 35mph keeping my eyes on the road, is safer than driving at 25mph looking constantly at the speedo?” , doesn’t go down well?

[Talbot]

1 hour ago, Metal Guru said:

So saying “ surely driving at 35mph keeping my eyes on the road, is safer than driving at 25mph looking constantly at the speedo?” , doesn’t go down well?

It doesn't.  Despite similar comments from at least one cheif police officer in the past, any comment you make that tries to justify your speed above the limit will be met with as much enthusiasm as a fart in a lift.

As people have said above.. listen, nod, answer questions if you know the answer, but otherwise the best course of action is to be fairly invisible.

[chadders]

In my experience everybody, including the lecturers as I think they're paid a fixed amount per course, wants the course to finish as soon as possible so the fewer questions asked the better.

[Yoss]

I've only had to go on one speed awareness course. I got caught doing 37 in a 30 zone on the A30 in Somerset. The letter had a list of locations you could attend. Somerset police had agreement with other police forces so you could attend one nearer home, but Hampshire police were not on the list so I had to go back to Somerset.

Looked at the list and one of the locations was the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton. That looked interesting. All the rest were at hotel conference rooms. That's OK then, I'll make a day of it, thought I. Took the ZT-T 190 (got the fine in the humble Felicia) for a blast, had breakfast at a cafe in Wincanton and turned up bang on time. 

Turns out the museum was shut, we just had a conference room at the back. But we had to walk right through the museum to get to it which was in semi darkness but enough to see stuff. We were given tea and biscuits and had a half time break. To get to the toilets you also had to walk across half the museum. We were told not to look at anything on the way. Yeah right. 

So maybe not quite worth £90 but a good day out anyway. 

[horriblemercedes]

Anyone seen Avoidance with Romesh Ranganathan? I found it really funny and Ranganathan's character in that works as a speed awareness course person

[Talbot]

1 hour ago, Yoss said:

We were told not to look at anything on the way.

Ok, I'll keep my eyes shut.  Oh dear, how did I wander off into the exhibits?  How could that possibly have happe.... ooh!  look at that!

The best time for doing a speed awareness course was when they were being done over zoom.  The locations were still shown as geographic, but you could just pick any location you fancy and join, hence you choose the cheapest one.. Saved at least £20 doing that on mine.

The entire premise of the one I did was completely flawed IMO... it was a national limit dual carriageway which then has a 60mph restriction on it.  The restriction was put in place for an at-grade junction, and to ensure people had got down to 60 by the junction, there's a speed camera just before it.  What isn't in the spirit of safety is putting a scamera van just by the speed camera pole pointing back up the road to where the 60 limit starts, and pinging people about 50M past the sign, well before the junction which is the whole reason for the limit change.

I suspect they pinged hundreds of people that day.  I got something like 71 in a 60, slowing from the 70+vat I'd been doing beforehand.  Was it breaking the law?  Absolutely.  Was it in any way dangerous?  Not even slightly.  Hence my comment to the woman running it that I was quite aware of my speed, and was allowing it to bleed away before the actual hazard.  Had I gone just a few MPH slower, I'd have been ignored.  Plus I had some bellend right on my bumper who would have been doing 20mph more than me.  He soon backed off when he saw the scamera van.. I just hope he was pinged too.  IMO he was a far greater danger than I was.  Still peeved about that.

[Wack]

All this talk of going to court reminded me of the time I was talking to a truck driver

He'd been done for speeding again and was due for a ban under totting up so they had him in court to hear his mitigating circumstances 

Need a licence to feed my kittens etc 

They listened but decided to ban him anyway 

When does this ban start 

Now 

Right, well that's going to be a problem then, I've come in the truck and it's completey blocking your car park, he gave them the keys and went home on the bus 

[Yoss]

7 hours ago, Talbot said:

Ok, I'll keep my eyes shut.  Oh dear, how did I wander off into the exhibits?  How could that possibly have happe.... ooh!  look at that!

 

Yeah that was pretty much how it was. To be honest I don't think they were expecting us not to look at stuff but they had to say it to cover themselves as the museum only had the emergency lighting on but it was enough to see by and gave the place a nice cosy atmosphere. 

[Zelandeth]

Oh for the love of...

I am so, so, so, so fed up of the ever growing number of suppliers both in the electronics and automotive sectors who despite shipping othrwise worldwide are now choosing not to ship to the UK.

I fully understand why, but man it's bloody frustrating.  Especially when you can't find alternative suppliers.