Conference terri::cars_uk

    I heard on local radio (Ocean Sound) this morning that the police
    are trying to locate a man seen skate boarding down the hard shoulder
    of the M27 yesterday !
    
    Does anyone know more about this bizarre story ?
    
    - Roy

    This morning I was awoken not by my alarm, but my the sounds of
    someone 'revving the nuts off' their car !
    
    This went on for some time, so I decided to take a look out of
    my window to see what was going on.
    
    It turned out that a woman who lives opposite was trying to reverse
    her car (an all-aggro) out of here garage and up her drive.  This
    drive is about two car-lengths long, but at least a 30-degree slope.
    
    Unfortunately, the driver was poor at both reversing and hill-starts.
    This resulted in numerous attempts (it took 15 minutes in all) at
    getting the back of the car out of the garage and up the slope.
    To make things worse, due to lack of confidence in here reversing,
    once moving, she did not fully engage the clutch.  Due to the steep
    angle of the drive, the car then decides that it won't go up, but
    tries to roll back down it.  Her solution to this was not to feed in
    more clutch, but to press the throttle even harder.
    
    This resulted in the horrific noise of an allegro engine at the
    rev-limit or more - indicated by what I would swear was valve bounce.
    
    And all this on a cold engine !!!!
    
    
    It was a terrible display of [lack of] driving skills.  Perhaps this
    maneuvre was attempted at an early hour in the hope that no-one would
    witness it, but with the noise involved I expect all the neighbours
    were woken up by this disturbance.  After the car had eventually made
    it past the top of the drive and onto the road, it was parked there
    and the driver went indoors.  The car was still not moved �-hour later.
    
    J.R.

Watched (heard, smelt) this in a pub car park one day last summer. Apart from
the noise, the poor clutch must have been red hot, from the smell!

Jc

    I heard this morning, that Nigel Mansell is a Special Constable at home
    in the Isle of Mann, and the local papers frequently carry reports of
    "Nige' gets his man !"
    
    
    Shaun
    

    
    Did I hear that Nigel is selling up and moving from the Isle of Man ?
    
    A mere snip at �4m if you want to put in an offer :-)

	
	The bad reverser probably went inside for a lie down and a gin to
	calm her nerves.  At my last house, the neighbours across the road
	were like that, terrible at reversing.  Bags of revving and slipping
	of clutch.  Doors open watching the edge of the drive (the drive had
	a slight curve).  They'd lived there for 30 years, never got any
	better...

	Dave

    On the radio this morning:
    
    An unmarked police car was following a red sierra down the M3 in
    Hampshire at over 100 MPH. It was just about to put on the hidden blue
    lights when the sierra put on it's hidden poilce stop sign!.
    
    Seems it was another unmarker police car from another force that had
    strayed over the border following another car, but switched to tagging
    the hapshire car when it spotted it. The hampshire car had done
    likewise, thus they had let go two other speeders in order to 'catch'
    each other.
    
    It made me smile.
    
    Richard

A supposedly true story which I heard last week...

A man comes to England, and collects a hire car at the airport.  It's rather
plush, and has cruise control.  This man has never seen cruise control before,
so thinks it's rather neat.

Anyway, as he's driving down the road, he decides there's something he needs
from his briefcase, which is in the back.  So he sets the cruise control, and
climbs over into the back seat.

While looking through his briefcase, he suddenly realises that the cruise
control doesn't control the steering (presumably he's veering of the road).
There isn't time for him to climb back into the front before the impending
accident, so he hastily puts on the rear seatbelt.

In the ensuing crash, he's knocked unconscious.  The police are rather puzzled
when they arrive and find a driverless car with a rear seat passenger...

Scott

Urban Legend.

Its usually takes place in a motor home, however...

-Al

    Clip on the radio mentioned that the Dartford Bridge is to open tomorrow.
    
    J.R.

Its already been opened (unoficially), My brothers been using it on and off 
for the last few weeks apparently it opens some nights, I guess there testing 
it before its officially opened.



			Mike.

    Brian (smug git) Redhead was going on about it this morning on R4. They
    even played a compilation of Dartmouth Tunnel Worst Traffic Jams
    reports.
    
    Dougie
    
    PS - It's got Concrete Cancer apparently. The tunnel that is.
    

    
>    PS - It's got Concrete Cancer apparently. The tunnel that is.
    
Yeah, report last night said that they would probably close one of the tunnels 
at a time to make major repairs.   Depending upon analysis still to be done, 
this may be only at night, or completely, over an extended period.

The good news is, is that this isn't likely for at least another year....

    Re the Dartford bridge
    
    Official opening is lunchtime today.
    
    Ceremony to be performed by H.M. the Queen.
    
    
    To be named the 'Queen Elizabeth the Second' Bridge
    
    That means there will be [at least] two QE2 bridges, since the
    ship already has one (but is that going to lose its name?).
    
    J.R.

    
    
    
    The UK has had 2 Queen Elizabeth`s ??????????????????????!!!!!!!!
    
                                                 Doogz
    
            P.S. Rathole warning  Rathole warning 8*) 8*) 

    
    Didn't she cut off the Queen of Scotland's head and take over the
    vacant position? (This being the first QE, not the current one! :^))
    
    Mark

Re: .20

>    PS - It's got Concrete Cancer apparently. The tunnel that is.
    
That is incorrect.  "Concrete Cancer" is a popular term for what is
properly called alkali-aggregate reaction.  This is when the highly 
alkaline cement reacts with the stone used in the concrete and the stone 
crumbles away.  The mechanism involved is not fully understood.

The concrete in the Dartford Tunnel is suffering from chloride attack. 
This is caused when chloride materials (road salt in this case) penetrate
into the concrete and cause corrosion of the reinforcing steel.  The steel
is normally protected from corrosion by being in a highly alkaline
environment. 

jb

�                        -< Bit shaky on Tudor history. >-
    
    Well, I would claim to be 'extremely poor' on most history...
    
    The name of the bridge is what I [thought I] heard on the radio.
    I am ready to stand corrected if anyone knows better.
    
    J.R.

    I overheard this conversation at a recent hockey club dinner :-
    
    
    A: "Hey, have you seen their new car ? It's really smart." 
    
    B: "No, what is it ?"
    
    A: "A Mercedes GOOSE"
    
    B: "What, I've never heard of that before"
    
    A: "Well, that's what it said on the back"
    
    Anyway, after further discussion, the car they were talking about
    turned out to be a :-
    
            
    Mercedes 500SE !

Elton John's chaffeur has dented the bonnet and front spoiler of Elton's
XJ220 after hitting a concrete bollard. 

Ian