Towed!

When luck runs out!

It has cost me 139 euros and forty-four centimos, plus taxi fare for me to bring you this report.

You have no doubt noticed the gruas, (town hall tow trucks) from time to time picking up cars and bikes that are illegally parked and carting them off. In Valencia double parking is not legal. No matter what people tell you, and regardless of how many people do this, parking alongside a line of cars is not a good thing to do. Normally you would leave the handbrake off, or you would come running when you hear the other driver blowing his horn, but this does not make it legal. It simply makes the practise acceptable among drivers.

In Spain this is the custom and no-one is expected to get angry. This time it’s your turn to have to wait a minute while the other driver comes running. Next time you are the one to slightly inconvenience someone. It all works out, except in the eyes of the City. They employ officers to roam around on their motorcycles to spot the offenders and they call in the tow trucks that pick up your vehicle and leave a sticker on the ground where your car was.

Then you take a taxi to the impound centre where you pay your 91 euros fine plus tow charges of 48.44 euros, and you get your car back. The drivers are careful with your vehicle and usually carry out the tow without damage to your property. It will be an unwelcome bill but you have done wrong. The objective of the City is to keep the roads clear, so, if you have ever doubled-parked and got away with it, count your lucky stars.

However, you should know that one day your luck will run out and on that day you will pay. Incidentally, should you leave your car in the lock-up more than 24 hours you start to run up daily parking fees of 17.43. That is slightly cheaper than parking in a private parking garage.

Copyright © 2009 Eugene Carmichael

The Odd Ball

This is about driving a right-hand drive car on the right side of the road.

Several years ago an incident occurred that will likely never be completely forgotten. Traffic along the N-332 in the area of Torrevieja had come to a complete stop in the northbound direction. Southbound traffic was flowing freely. In among the stopped traffic was a right-hand drive car. For reasons known only to the driver he suddenly pulled out into the lane of opposing traffic, even although he could not see whether anything was coming. The following chain events occurred as a result of this reckless action:

He pulled into the path of a charter bus carrying 49 school children.
His wife, who was sitting in the left seat, was killed instantly from the impact.
A friend who was visiting them from the U.K. who was sitting in the rear was killed instantly also.
The bus lost control and veered left, pushing the car ahead of it. They crashed into another car that was stopped. The driver and his pregnant girlfriend occupied that car.
That driver was killed and the three vehicles went over a thirty- foot embankment with the bus falling on top of the other two cars.
The girlfriend was trapped in the wreckage.
On board the bus several of the children were injured, as was the driver.
One of the children’s injuries were so severe that she had to be air-lifted to the nearest trauma hospital, as was the girlfriend when she was freed from the mess. The only good news in all this was that the pregnant lady eventually delivered her full-term baby. The baby was named “Miracle.”

There was much speculation that the original driver must have been drunk. His family were fierce in defending him, saying that he never touched alcohol. So, that was not his excuse.

I was very angry over that incident. Such a disaster caused through one senseless action on the part of one person. The driver was critically and permanently injured, and it seems that someone made the decision that there was nothing more that the law could do to him that he hadn’t already done to himself. He doesn’t seem to have been charged with the matter.

I recall being super-critical about drivers of right-hand drive vehicles here on the Continent, or people who take their cars into Britain. I reasoned that if you must drive such a car that makes you the Odd Ball, then you must always exercise a very high degree of care and caution. Now, I am the owner of a Jaguar Sovereign right-hand drive car.

This is not the smartest thing that I’ve done. However, at my age I might never have an opportunity to do such a dopey thing again. The car is fourteen years old, and because it was used as a car to transport VIPs, its condition is similar to having just come out of the showroom. It drives like a dream, so in reality I am not regretting the purchase. The problem is getting used to driving a car that puts the driver on the curb-side rather than on the middle of the road.
I assumed that I might have had some difficulty handling the car, but it has come to me quite naturally. There are some things that present problems that will take some time to become comfortable with. The main problems arise when I encounter ticket machines at toll-booths and in parking zones. If I don’t have a passenger I have to get out and run round to the machine and run back into the car, all of which drives the people behind me bonkers.

When driving along two-way traffic lanes, and I come upon a slow-moving vehicle, such as a tractor, I am presented with an extremely dangerous situation. Before overtaking I have to make very certain that the other lane is clear, and if I cannot absolutely be sure, then I have to stay with the tractor and move along at 10 kilometres an hour. I am determined not to make the same mistake as the driver referenced above.

Finally, I do not have the luxury of most drivers who can relax a little to daydream of pleasant things as they drive along. I must be aware at all times where I must position my car. I cannot let the car drift too far towards the centre line, especially when on corners. The strain of always being so aware is draining, but the car is an engineering delight and I do feel special in it.

I add my congratulations to Jaguar for such a fine product. I always have to remember that it was they who built it, not me. I simply get to drive it.

Copyright © 2009 Eugene Carmichael

¿The End of Formula One?

These are very hard Times!

The economic crisis through which we are living is unlike anything I have ever known in all my seventy years. Even if you are 100 years old, I’m sure you could say the same. We have seen institutions that have weathered financial storms for over one hundred years that no longer exist. The world had simply got way ahead of itself through greed, and the use of credit to feed our greed.

In my father’s time we lived within our means. If we couldn’t pay for it with cash we went without. Then came all those easy-payment plans and before you know it, we were all in a great big hole. Now, we are trying to get out of that hole through the same method we used to get in.

All sectors have been affected, even the undertakers who have had to accommodate families in their hour of grief by offering lesser options. One of the hardest hit has been the auto industry. Dealerships have closed, and very special deals have been offered through a combination of the government and the retail sales. It has taken almost any kind of deal to move cars out of the showrooms. Formula One, however, has continued to race a full season, against commonsense logic that said it should have folded early on.

How can this be? Especially when you consider that the sport gobbles up so much cash for so little reward. It just doesn’t make sense. Honda Motors agrees, being the first constructor to throw in the towel. Meanwhile there has been all that bickering between the teams, with a split that was narrowly averted (for the time being) that would have created two racing systems.

Now, Toyota has finally wizened up to the fact that when the company is losing money as though through a fire hose they can no longer afford to throw more than 100 million dollars behind something as silly as racing. If your company won the constructor’s cup and your car was the winning one, if people don’t have the money to buy your everyday products, it simply doesn’t make any sense at all. Congratulations to Honda for being the first to blink. I believe that some sort of macho game has been going on. Although the water has been getting hotter and hotter, no-one wanted to admit that it was too hot.

I think that Renault will be the next to at least suspend racing for at least a year.

I will be very surprised if there is a racing season next year, or if there is, I imagine there will be a much smaller field. That would be fine, because in the midst of such intense economic suffering it is obscene to have Formula One cars going racing at top speeds as though we are in the midst of economic prosperity.

It’s time that we all get real!

Copyright © 2009 Eugene Carmichael

Drivers we hate the most

Don't leave home without your sense of Humour

A poll was recently taken in Britain to determine who drivers hate the most among themselves. The result was that all drivers hate each other, and passengers think the driver is always crazy.

There is nothing new about these findings. This is the way it has always been in every country around the world. I just don’t know what it is that happens every time a person sits behind the wheel, but we all seem to undergo some kind of metamorphosis. We see kind and gentle accountants suddenly change into raging lunatics, capable of the most shocking road rage.

The words that come out of the mouths of demure ladies when they get cut off makes the hair on my back stand on edge. This subject is just crying out for study by some institution with the means and ability to get to the bottom of the mystery.

In the results of the study of ten groups, the ranking was as follows:
Tenth Place: Drivers with Caravans on holiday. They are looking at the scenery and taking their time. That just drives the rest of us up the wall.
Ninth place: Foreign Lorry Drivers. They don’t bloody well know where they are going, and they take up so much space. The perfect nuisance when you’re trying to get home for dinner.
Eighth place: Flipping taxis and mini-cab drivers. These people should all show bumper stickers that say “As a matter of fact, I do own the road!”
Seventh place: School run moms. When school is out traffic flows freely. Why do they have to drive such tanks to pick up the kids. I saw a mother in a Hummer. That is a war vehicle. They say it’s for self-defence.
Sixth place: Bleeding Sunday drivers. Having spent the entire week doing battle with traffic, why would someone say on Sunday, “come on, let’s go for a drive in the country?” During the week they drive like Lewis Hamilton. Sundays, they are Mr. Snail. Grrrr!
Fifth place: Mr White Van Man. You don’t actually have to be white to belong to this group. I don´t know whether they are as bad as, or worse than cab drivers, but honestly, there should be a law.
Fourth place: I don’t understand why those stereos –on-wheels should be in this list at all. I think it’s really cool to have a top sound system in my car. What would be the point if you can’t enjoy it too?
Third place. Mr. Show-off. His intention is simply one thing: to charm the pants off the girls. As a young man I thought it was only fair that having bought my super cool car, if a young woman accepted a ride she should expect to come across. (What the hell was I thinking?)
Second place: Courtesy. In England little road courtesies are commonly practised, but people who are at the receiving end must remember to acknowledge their appreciation. In Spain road courtesy doesn’t exist, so no problema!
First place: God, how we hate those damned Boy Racers. Never mind that we were all young once and offended everybody else on the road. Now I’m seventy and I just do not appreciate getting cut up by someone my own son’s age. Oh dear! He is my own son.

Happy motoring everyone! Don’t forget to smile!

Copyright © 2009 Eugene Carmichael

Driving against the Flow of Traffic

We call this an accident. It's really simply a crash that might have been avoided.

My recent motorcycle crash was caused by a car moving against the lawful flow of traffic. That sent me in search of other incidents of this nature, and what might have been some of the consequences. In my case I have a broken leg and a cast that I will have to live with for six weeks, not to mention the discomfit.

No sooner had I started my search did I come across an incident that happened recently in the United States. A woman attended a family and friends picnic in the country, at which she drank alcohol and smoked marijuana. At the end of the day she borrowed a car and piled into it five children, her own and a friends, the oldest of which was nine, and set off to drive them home. However, she promptly drove into the wrong lane and didn’t appear to notice.

For two miles she drove at speed, and through divine intervention she missed all the on-coming vehicles until luck ran out and she slammed head-on into an oncoming car carrying three adults. Those three people were killed outright, and her car exploded into a ball of fire, killing all but her own son, who was badly burned.

This is a statistic that just simply didn’t have to happen. It was caused recklessly and stupidly and is just plain indefensible.

Question: Does anybody out there still think that it’s a good idea to drive with alcohol in your system, and is it a good idea to take illicit drugs of any kind?

This makes my broken leg seem not so important after all.

There was a time when I was most frightened on the road. It was the day that I met a driver on the highway coming towards me in the wrong direction. We were on the A 7 travelling North and we had just passed the junction with the road to Madrid. All three lanes were occupied and traffic was moving fluidly, when off in the distance we could hear the blowing of horns and something strange was taking place. A vehicle with its lights on and occupying the left lane, sometimes called the fast lane was coming our way.

There was a short break between us and the traffic ahead and we could see that the driver was making a left hand signal. We all went to our hazard lights at the same time and that great body of traffic reduced speed as though we had rehearsed together. The driver made a flawless u-turn then picked up speed ahead of us and took the first exit.

Is it possible to accidentally enter a highway and drive against traffic if there is nothing to impair your judgement? I think this is so because in most cases there is only a painted line on the road to divide the exit ramp from the on ramp. If something distracts your attention just for a moment it would be possible to cross over that line. However, it has to become apparent very quickly that you are doing something very wrong.

Unless, of course you are impaired by drink or drugs or tiredness. All of these things are fatal and should be avoided at all costs. You may not be so concerned for my benefit, but for self-preservation alone I expect you to care, because by now we all know how deadly these things are.

I don’t want to leave this without bringing into the picture the whole culture of drugs, and that includes alcohol when talking about having a good time. I no longer will go to someone’s home in the United States, except my family because I was always confronted by that tray with a choice of poison. “Do a line? Smoke a joint? Drop some pills? What’s your pleasure? “ Trying to refuse would lead to all manner of bad reactions. “You must be a narc!” “Do you think you’re better than we are?” I never got a return invitation and had no intention of ever going back. Meanwhile, the United States are giving Mexico a hard time to do more to stop drugs coming over their border, when in fact it is the buyers in America who are responsible for the problem.

The first time that a drug importer brings in a shipment and no-one buys it, he will change into a different business.

Finally, others can make such fatal mistakes such as British drivers coming to the European Continent, or vice-versa. Usually the problem arises when entering a major road from a minor road. If there is no traffic to remind us which side to use it is all too easy to make a mistake.

Take care out there. No one says that you have to die on the road!

Copyright © 2009 Eugene Carmichael