Latest Moan From You and Me 2024

Very easy to just drive through a camera that clocks your number, they are on many main roads everywhere.

 

It turned out that the young man who hit my car from behind and wrote it off wasn’t insured. The car was … it was his mum’s … but he wasn’t covered to drive it.
There’s probably quite a few out there like that …

 

Yes and I'm afraid we're having to pick up the bill. It's always seems to be the same. Though I guess it will be a long time before the young man can afford insurance.

 

I were just watching local farmer driving up and down the road in tractor, when he first came down he had someone following, he pulls over to let vehicle pass, sayed vehicle was one of his own!!!!
Come back agian some one following so i thought he would again pull over to let vehicle pass, but no and it wasn't one of his own!!! he keep going

 

Until very recently French cars have had a wee slot inside their windscreen to display their insurance status. This is being phased out as systems go digital and insurance status can be checked via number plate.

Since the Gilets Jaunes protests when radars were vandalised, sprayed or covered with bin bags, many have been replaced with more modern machines up high on poles which, supposedly, moves them out of harm's way. There are always signs signalling fixed radars ahead but people still get caught out.

For some reason they are are not operational 24/7 but there's one I pass twice a week that is still at hip level and is operational often enough to be regularly sprayed red by people it's caught speeding. It's a sneaky one that gets you both ways as OH discovered one night driving home from dance class and doing 84 in its 80kph zone whilst driving away from it on the other side of the road.

 

Yeah, sounds about right, I've seen some tractor drivers pull over to let a stream of traffic pass, I've also seen some intent on just being a PITA.

There is a back lane that is a short cut to my sisters house, if you meet a farmer coming the other way nine times out of ten they will force you over into heavily rutted mud, that lane is "theirs" and they dont like anyone else using it, I think they purposely rut up the sides to stop people using it, but its a public road.

 

Everyone seems to have a very poor opinion of their fellow man today.

 

@pete We have narrow lanes here too and the sides get muddy and rutted because not just tractors have to pull over to allow 2 vehicles to pass in opposite directions. A lot of the wider, main roads have single white lines so there's no way to pass a tractor in front and no space for them to pull over to make room. It's all part of living in the countryside and having all the space and light and fresh air.

 

I think its dried out OK, had to charge it up and it had lost the time and date, but appears to be working now.

 

If the vehicle belonged to the farmer it may well have been driven by his employee … time is money … and this spring many are so far behind because of the wet weather they’re struggling to get urgent work done in time. Pulling over to let other vehicles pass will cost him money and impact on his work. Every little moment counts I heard from a reliable source of a farmer whose net income last year worked out at about £50 a week … can you imagine his overdraft!

Also, pulling over to the side of the road in such huge vehicles can seriously damage the road surface … more potholes anyone?

Pulling over onto the verge will damage ditches and drainage culverts that help deal with the heavy rainfall on the roads. … anyone else remember the floods last autumn and winter?

The farmers are producing our food… we can’t rely on quick and easy imported veg etc from across the Channel can we?

It was ever thus … farmers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t

 

Respect works both ways!

 

I'm sorry but with some farmers its a case of "get off my Land" or in this case don't come down "my lane".

My Brother in law was towing a trailer a while back and using the back road to get to the tip.
He was basically forced off the road by the local farmer coming the other way in his landrover, ended up having to reverse quickly and the result was the trailer came round and in a kind of jack knife and hit the back of his car.

 

Back in the olden days before Covid. We used to visit small towns a few miles away rather than the bigger local shopping places. They had enough of the usual suspects and some interesting independents. We haven't been back for years. I am willing to down/ up load an app ( whatever) but even locally, I put an app on my phone only to find that it only covered one car park.
Until they get together and work out a one app fits all, I'll spend my money elsewhere. If a garden centre can manage several franchises at one till, they can.
Maybe I'm a paranoid cove but the fewer apps I have on my phone the less chance of data breaches or whatever.

 

@pete Generally speaking the farmers here are good about pulling over to give more room to oncoming vehicles and other traffic does the same for tractors, depending on who gets to a suitable spot first. No point in a fragile car body arguing with a tractor or its trailer! Never seen one in a Landrover. They usually have a little white Renault van asa runabout.

Delivery and service Transit type vans are another matter entirely, driving at ridiculous speeds and not giving way.