We say dust off and nuke the car from orbit

People have coming up to us recently and been asking questions on our apparent lack of driving. The recurrent queries are

1. Why haven't we seen you parking badly?
2. Why haven't we seen you driving badly?
3. Why haven't you driven right behind us in the fast lane of the motorway at 90 mph, flashing your lights at us?

For reasons which may be covered in a future post, the Bristol Traffic Important Car for Important People has now been officially written off; the insurers of the Important Car for Important People providing a rental car until a settlement is reached. The answers to the question are thus:

1. We have —just in a Vauxhall Corsa 1.4
2. We have —just in a Vauxhall Corsa 1.4
3. We can't, it's a Vauxhall Corsa 1.4

Here it is in all its glory, just after stocking up on marmite at Sainsbury's Brislington.

Compared to a team member's MkII Astra 1.4L of many decades ago, the Corsa isn't that bad for luggage room, but manages to be tangibly slower. All the weight of modern safety equipment like airbags and ABS, along with power steering, electric windows and the like have made for a vehicle which struggles to break the 20 mph limit. Our urban speedo watching is now one of looking down at the mph dial as it gets into the late teens, muttering "go on Corsa, you can do it!".

Unfortunately, free vehicle that it is, it comes with a fundamental flaw: a £500 insurance excess and undamaged bodywork. It has both wingmirrors and the alloy wheels lacking those scrapes which mark a car christened for use in urban Bristol.

It's not a matter of whether the car is going to end up with a wingmirror held up with duct tape, wheels documenting the kerb heights parked against, or graceful scrapes aquired on daily use. It's when. It even constrains parking choices: you start worrying in the night about what it will look like in the morning —that maybe you shouldn't have parked sticking out quite so much on that corner.

Accordingly, rather than await the day when the car is returned and a large bill for damage presented, the team decided to return the car early, and borrow a parent's '53 reg Peugot 307 HDi. The parent in question had a little medical incident in August, their car parked up since then. Taking it away from them should help get them used to the post-driving lifestyle, which, in Portsmouth, "city by the sea", means getting used to FirstBus coming by once an hour, except on Sundays, when it drops to "who knows"

Vehicle collected, successfully driven to Bristol. Compared to the Corsa, it's stable, and it's manual transmission and the minimal turbocharger give it a better 0-20 number —still not great for getting on the M32 from the secret Mina Road access point. With the changes there, you can't even be at 15 mph before you approach the merge point.

But it's stable, and pre-commissoned for abuse in an urban environment. All it needs is cleaning up, the parent being one of those who like to hoard things in their vehicle.

All goes well, the interior binned; time to go to the boot. Four cans of WD-40 and three de-icers seem overkill, but as a Glaswegian who used to own a Mini, the owner no doubt had picked up some habits they couldn't get rid of. That's not the issue though, the issue is what turns up once the boot contents are purged, and the layers underneath explored.

What's there? Moss large quantities of it. Enough that you have to look for David Attenborough and his camera crew.

And under the moss? Water. Large quantities of water.

The entire spare wheel compartment has about 2-3 cm of water in it. This is, well, unexpected, and best accompanied with the expression "What the fuck?"

Now, Pompey is a coastal town, and it could be that there have been some high tides flooding the streets —tides covered up by the Portsmouth Tourist Board. This is unlikely, as the loss of the city to climate change is something that UKIP would be highlighting as a positive outcome of climate change.

Discounting that, and deliberate human action, the other key hypothesis has "it's been collecting water from rain". With the car unused for a few weeks (this photo was taken early October), water could easily have seeped in to the stationary car.

Except: it's been a really dry Autumn. Has it really been long enough for the spare wheel bay to fill with water and plants to start growing?

No, this car has been collecting rainwater for some time.

For anyone with ageing parents, there's always the question "when should they stop driving?" You always hope that they stop before they end up in a serious crash, maybe just a small one involving a bollard where the police suggest politely to put away the car keys.

Maybe, just maybe, the fact that you've clearly been driving around not noticing the strange slushing sound coming from the back, or the odd fusty smell. One can but hope. That or bribe the garage doing the MoT to make sure the car fails.

The wealthy in society, the Camerons, the Rees-Moggs, they look forward to inheriting the family estate, what with its greenery and lakes.

Us: we fear the family hatchback.

Hook work by N4CSP

A contributor "SP" sends us a video along with the commentary

The grey car, N4CSP, is clearly in a hurry to get to the Callington Road Hospital, adjacent to the Tesco in Brislington. Unfortunately, I am about to cross the junction they wish to turn into, and so like any right-minded person who wants to exterminate another useless tax dodger, they wait until the last second to accelerate past then cut across to make the left turn.

This impressive action saved them a whole 4 seconds on their journey time, enabling them to no doubt secure a much deserved parking spot.


Interestingly, Callington Road Hospital is for people with mental health issues (no, not cyclists, proper weirdos), although I was unable to tell if the driver of N4 CSP was a member of staff in a hurry to beat up some of the patients, or a patient desperate to secure a fresh supply of Prozac.

Parking in and near hospitals are a controversial issue -the EP recently printed a lovely letter by Brian Rogers of Kingsdown , which we have covered, in which the way that fit and healthy cyclists get in the way of people trying to get to hospital:

These tax-payer funded lycra clad louts have spent the last 14 years "saving" the planet by not using cars as they abuse anyone who must use a car for such essential travel as work or hospital visits.

Well, "SP, you may have met Mr Rogers himself. At least this time he wasn't held up.  As for the claim that cyclists aren't "proper wierdos", we would dispute that. Grown men do not normally dress in plastic bags.

Brislington Traffic! Welcome!

Quick pointer to the wonderfully named Briztraffic, who have recently started providing coverage of the Brislington area of the city. For our readers out of town, most time in the area is spent by non-residents in the A4 in traffic jams at this point. There's a nice part to the north, by the Avon, which has pleasant paths along the river. Paths which, if turned into new roads to Bath, could reduce A4 congestion. But no, the war on motorist continues and these paths are wasted on families walking their dogs or cycling happily around.

We have added a link to the site in our quick links list.

To follow up their coverage of the Kingsdown RPZ issue, apparently the yellow lines over driveways were something residents could opt out from. On Victoria Walk leading to Fremantle Square, there are some that have clearly done this. Even so, during RPZ hours, they'll need a permit to park there. We are busy sorting out one for the one white van in the team that doesn't have a disabled "park everywhere" permit. Apparently the council doesn't actually check with the DVLA that the vehicle is registered at an address in the RPZ; you just need to provide a gas or electricity bill that shows the vehicle owner lives there. As producing fake utility bills is easier and cheaper than telling the DVLA that you've moved, this should be fairly straightforward. We shall be reselling our "Workers' Chernobyl and Belarus Gas and Electricity Collective" bill template for others to re-use, once we know it works.

One other interesting feature is any new "low vehicle use" buildings/conversions in the area won't be eligible for more than one permit, which means the builders who say "green housing" to get to use more space for housing rather than parking really will get to mean housing with only one car per household.