Bill Pragnell wrote:
> "scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
>>> Quizzical fact: I passed my car driving test first time, in about 10
>>> minutes, after one driving lesson and driving through a red traffic light
>>> and parking on the pavement (sidewalk) in a major city.
>>>
>>> How?
>> Because they were desperate for people to drive stuff in the war and were
>> handing out licenses to anyone with at least one leg and one foot?  :-D
> 
> You were learning to drive an emergency vehicle?
> 
> 



-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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Stephen <mca### [at] aolDOTcom> wrote:
> Bill Pragnell wrote:
> > "scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> >>> Quizzical fact: I passed my car driving test first time, in about 10
> >>> minutes, after one driving lesson and driving through a red traffic light
> >>> and parking on the pavement (sidewalk) in a major city.
> >>>
> >>> How?
> >> Because they were desperate for people to drive stuff in the war and were
> >> handing out licenses to anyone with at least one leg and one foot?  :-D
> >
> > You were learning to drive an emergency vehicle?
> >
> >
>


Your 'car' was an invalid carriage?
The 'driving test' was actually a driving mission in Grand Theft Auto?

Ah, I dunno

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:40:00 +0000, Stephen wrote:
> 
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:14:17 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>>>
>>>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:37:40 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> How?
>>>>> Your examiner was blind? ;-)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Nor drunk.
>>> Hmmm...you weren't in the UK?
>>>
>>>
>> Aberdeen
> 
> Doing a test at the proving ground and the test objective was to get away 
> from something that was about to explode as fast as you could? ;-)
> 
> Jim

I've done that in a lifeboat, though.

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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Bill Pragnell wrote:

> Ah, I dunno
> 

Give in?

I had just started my test and had stopped at traffic lights in the 
outside lane of a dual carriageway. Ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling I saw a 
fire engine approaching me at speed in my rear view mirror. I told the 
driving tester that I was going to move into the gap between the 

follow me, turning right. The road ahead was too narrow for him to 
overtake me if I pulled into the side. So I told the tester that I was 
going up on the pavement. After the tender had passed, the tester told 
me to put the car back onto the road and stop after taking the next 
turning. He then asked me to do a three point turn and a couple of easy 
questions. I thought that he was just going through the motions. He then 
said that I had passed and never mentioned the fire engine at all. The 
whole test lasted less than 15 minutes.
I have dined out on that story for years :-)


-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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Stephen <mca### [at] aolDOTcom> wrote:
> Bill Pragnell wrote:
>
> > Ah, I dunno
> >
>
> Give in?
[snip]
> I have dined out on that story for years :-)

Excellent story. I take it the test wouldn't otherwise have been that short,
just ended up that way as a result of your initiative?

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> 
> About the only thing that can go wrong with a tray-load drive is if the
> disk isn't sitting in it properly, and it gets mashed when the tray
> tries to shut. USUALLY the servo system notices this and stops trying to
> shut the door. Depending on how cheap the drive is...
> 

Or the drive fails to stop the disk before ejecting it and it's still
rotating when the tray comes out. You would be surprised how fast the
disc leaves the tray from even a small bump...

-Aero

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> 
> I *was* going to buy a Mazda RX8. Almost the same price. [Obviously both
> are second-hand.] It has a 3.0 L Wankel engine, agressive styling,
> bucket seats, the whole lot.
> 
> ...but then I took it for a test drive. Man, it JUST DOESN'T MOVE!

You could have tried pressing the gas pedal, you know? The thing about
wankel is that it constantly rotates in just one direction, so it can
reach incredible rpm's. It probably wakes up when an otto-engine hits
the limiter (around 6-8krpm).

> I have since found out that the road tax alone is £500/year - that's
> more than my *insurance*! o_O

Well yes, it's not necessarily a cheap car to own :).

> Well maybe it just *looked* 30 years old then. It was really, really
> rusty. (But then, it was a Land Rover.) For example, there was a hole
> under the accelerator pedal where you can watch the road go past below.

Well yes, Land rover has incredibly traditional look and all, also it
one of the toughest (if not The toughest) cars ever done - they just
keep running.

-Aero

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Stephen wrote:
> You’re getting closer but not too close.

You're Amish?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> 
> Once upon a time, some cars actually didn't *have* seatbelts, and so
> you'd have to go fit them. But yeah, today that doesn't happen much. My
> point is really that you now cannot modify almost any aspect of the car
> because there's so much high-tech stuff in there.

Well yes. I guess they've been standard since the 70's.

> Sure is! I guess it got five stars from NCAP for a reason. (That would
> also explain the huge door pillars that obscure the view of the road...)

Well yes. It makes it possible for you to stay alive and get hurt badly
for the rest of your life from the same speed you would've simply died
on your old car :p.

> It just means that if you want to make any modifications at all, you
> have to go through Renault, which limits choice and increases the price.
> (Not to mention that we don't *have* Renault dealers in England...)

Not necessarily, you can achieve the same safety level by doing things
yourself than with your old car. But you don't actually want that,
'cause you can get drastically better safety level by doing things right.

> My car doesn't *have* a warranty anyway. ;-)

Not anymore. It had when it was new.

>> That's probably in the service program, right?
> 
> Probably. If I had one.

The service company has one, you can ask them for it. They'll also know
what to do when you'll take your car to be serviced.

>> If you have a properly working automatic wiper option, you simply don't
>> need to touch the lever yourself except for some rare wipe-once
>> -situations - just keep it in the automatic position.
> 
> Doesn't work like that. Like I say, automatic seems to just mean "random
> speed". Doesn't appear to be related to the road conditions in any way.
> (Although I presume if it were to rain really hard, the wipers would
> speed up.) The long and short of it is that if I find that I can't see,
> I need the wipers to wipe NOW, not in 20 seconds' time.

Like I said, *properly working* automatic wipers work like that.

This for sure is the automation and not the speed-adjustment you mentioned?

> If I *ever* get a nice girl to sit in my car, I'm not sure they'll be
> any picnic stuff happening. 0;-)

Why not? Girls like picnics.

-Aero

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> 
> I've yet to meet a car where the wipers *don't* leave smears. My
> previous two cars have both had dozens of wiper blades, all to no avail.
> 

Welcome to look and see.

-Aero

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