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Re: Why I want to revisit the UK.
Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2022 7:37 am
by Simon_100
Chops wrote: ↑Fri Mar 25, 2022 6:33 am
All you blokes drive on the wrong side of the road, dontcha know. My luck I'd take out half of East London before I figured it out. Nah, one thing we got here Stateside are cars. We got cars and more cars. Comparatively speaking, gasoline here sells for a pittance compared to what Europeans are paying, but we are making good progress catching up to our British cousins. No, the train for me. Where it doesn't go I'll walk in the rain and thank every drop.
+1 for that on several levels. After twenty five years living in Spain , wher we too drive of the right, i.e. correct, side of the road I have real issues with the change, usually driving my hire car straight onto the motorway intersection whie checking over my left shoulder for traffic already in the lane ...
In general cars are 'pants' - UK English for rubbish or at least it was in the '90s! - and serve only a mobile hazreds for us motorcyclists, for whom roads were invented
So unless it's by bike then by train and
Shank's pony you go.
But even by train there are boring bits, e.g. the East Coast main libe for much if the way up to Scotland so take a few good reads. Just now I'm into a 'classic', Scottish Journey' by Edwin Muir. Bookworms may spot the resemblance in the title to the famous 'English Journey' by J B Priestley, which was a record of England in the years immediately following the Great Depression, and in fact Muir's book is a companion as it was commissioned along wth Priestley's work by Heinemann & Gollancz. So far very ineresting although I'm only in as far as Edinburgh, the Lowland and into the Borders. My wife, who was born in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary but actually lived in Leith and South Queensferry as a child in the early sixties (he farther was a fireman) said there wasn't so much difference to conditions of the poorer classes in those towns in her childhood than in those bleak years of the nineteen thirties!
Otherwise most of my Scottish reading - you'll have you've guessed that I'm a
sassanach!
- is by
John Prebble who is far more upbeat, at least 'John Prebble's Scotland' (Secker & Warbugh, 1984, also availabe in Penguin) is. Othweise his more well known titles including Glencoe, Culloden, The Darien Disaster and The Highland Clearances are each more depressing - and distressing! - than the last!
Over to you Scottish fellows, is/was the Edwin Muir book as famous in Scotland as J B Priestley's was to the English? It'd be interestig to know.
Re: Why I want to revisit the UK.
Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2022 7:47 am
by sandy
When I drive off the ferry in France I dont seem to have any problems driving on the right. Most odd. I remember one nasty thing that happened to me in Spain , La Coruna. I was waiting at a red light turning right and a Spannish driver piled in to the boot of my car. Memories.
Re: Why I want to revisit the UK.
Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2022 7:54 am
by Simon_100
sandy wrote: ↑Fri Mar 25, 2022 7:47 am
When I drive off the ferry in France I dont seem to have any problems driving on the right. Most odd.
Me neither when we used to travel down here two or three times a year in the 'eighties. But my car trips are rare - three times since 1997! - so that may explain it. But you also depart a ferry terminal directly onto the road system as opposed to joining it from the airport terminal which usually have one-way until the motorway. My espcapade with the entry lane was years ago joining the M23 towards Brigton from Gatwick and in 2019 I drove out of the car pound at Liverpool straigt into the right-hand side of the road and would have edone a roundablitanti-clockwise if it wasn't for an air crew on a zebra crossing gesticulating at me wildly that i realised y mistake. In all cases after that i've been fine!
Re: Why I want to revisit the UK.
Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2022 7:56 am
by Simon_100
Simon_100 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 25, 2022 7:37 am
Chops wrote: ↑Fri Mar 25, 2022 6:33 am...
Otherwise most of my Scottish reading - you'll have you've guessed that I'm a
sassanach!
- is by
John Prebble who is far more upbeat, at least 'John Prebble's Scotland' (Secker & Warbugh, 1984, also availabe in Penguin) is. Othweise his more well known titles including Glencoe, Culloden, The Darien Disaster and The Highland Clearances are each more depressing - and distressing! - than the last!
Oh the wonders of Wikipedia, I've just leanred that John Prebble wrote the screenplay for the film Zulu - can't say fairer than that!
Re: Why I want to revisit the UK.
Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2022 8:07 am
by Simon_100
sandy wrote: ↑Fri Mar 25, 2022 7:47 am ... I remember one nasty thing that happened to me in Spain , La Coruna. I was waiting at a red light turning right and a Spannish driver piled in to the boot of my car. Memories.
Ouch! It has to be said that Spanish drivers are, er, challenging! The characteristic horrors are: not indicating to turn left on roundabouts as that would mean you are overtaking - that's in the Spanish Highway code, that roundabouts are considered legally to be straight roads that you can overtake on and hence you should only indicate right as you exit ... Pulling up to join a highway without looking, i.e. only looking once they are stationary which is fine in principle but rather vexing when they forget about the 'stationary' bit!
These are just a few vexations in the life of a biker
Re: Why I want to revisit the UK.
Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2022 9:50 am
by Steve M
Simon_100 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 25, 2022 8:07 am
Ouch! It has to be said that Spanish drivers are, er, challenging!
My experience of Spanish driving over the last 25 years had been an absolute delight. I have found their lane discipline to be exemplary (it slips a bit as you get closer to the centre of the large cities).
And I have to compliment their motorway system, or more specifically, the toll system that keeps the majority of drivers to the side roads.
But if you want empty motorways, try Portugal.
And then there is India......drivers turn their headlights off at night to save wear and tear on the bulbs!
Re: Why I want to revisit the UK.
Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2022 10:10 am
by sandy
I will say this about my prang. It was in the centre of La Coruna and the Lady driver was very sorry and insisted in aranging to take my car to the garage she used for repair and she would pay for everything and she pleaded with me not to let her husband find out because she was not suposed to be driving his car for some reason.
I was very lucky because my wife who was withm me at the time could speak fluent Spanish. I would have had to just let the AA sort it out because I dont speak word of Spanish. The garage was very good and car was back in 3 days as good as new.
Re: Why I want to revisit the UK.
Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2022 8:01 am
by Simon_100
Steve M wrote: ↑Fri Mar 25, 2022 9:50 am
Simon_100 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 25, 2022 8:07 am
Ouch! It has to be said that Spanish drivers are, er, challenging!
My experience of Spanish driving over the last 25 years had been an absolute delight. I have found their lane discipline to be exemplary (it slips a bit as you get closer to the centre of the large cities).
And I have to compliment their motorway system, or more specifically, the toll system that keeps the majority of drivers to the side roads.
But if you want empty motorways, try Portugal.
And then there is India......drivers turn their headlights off at night to save wear and tear on the bulbs!
Don't get me wrong, driving in Spain is fantastic, especially compared to the UK. FYI there are far fewer toll motorways now as most of the franchises expired a year or so ago, especially here in Catalonia where the tolls were yet another pro-independence gripe - no tolls in Madrid! But there is a plan to make
all 'autovias' tolled in a couple of years' time to satisfy EU emission controls, or so they say ...
sandy wrote: ↑Fri Mar 25, 2022 10:10 am
I will say this about my prang. It was in the centre of La Coruna and the Lady driver was very sorry and insisted in aranging to take my car to the garage she used for repair and she would pay for everything and she pleaded with me not to let her husband find out because she was not suposed to be driving his car for some reason.
I was very lucky because my wife who was withm me at the time could speak fluent Spanish. I would have had to just let the AA sort it out because I dont speak word of Spanish. The garage was very good and car was back in 3 days as good as new.
I've no doubt that the good lady was indeed charming but there's a good chance that all the help was down to her not being unsured to drive her hisnband's car - that's the way most policies work here ...
Re: Why I want to revisit the UK.
Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2022 8:20 am
by Walkingthedog
Sandy surely the car belonging to the woman who drove into you was damaged so how would her husband not know?
Very strange.
Re: Why I want to revisit the UK.
Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2022 10:00 am
by Simon_100
Good morning Mr Chops, I'm conscious of yur thread being hi-jacked a bit by us talking about Spain - apologies and perhaps this was due to the endless character of the British winter giving them all 'gate fever' to remember sunny times past
Mind you, the weather here in Spain or pretty horrible too right now!