Motoring: Modern Britain

I am so glad that I bought my RS4 when i turned 25.

This was 2008 when fuel prices were the same as they are today. OVer that time the price dropped back down the 90p and it was bliss! Cheap to run really.

But the constant filling up (smallish tank @ 62l) and getting under 200 miles was getting tiresome!

I've not done £500 in 2 weeks but i did about £700 in a month and that was painful!!!

Housey is right though I think the fun has gone. The roads are too busy, the cameras are too many and the risk of getting points/bans/fines is all too high (and i suspect higher now as the authorities try to raise money to offset their budget cuts!)

Now i've moved to a diesel motoring is properly cheap even with £1.30 a litre. I did a journey the otehr day that costs £60 in train fares for about £12 in fuel...
 
Gaygle said:
I said there aren't many twisty A roads where you can get to 100mph+ SAFELY. The only ones i've seen are just wide and straight - which is boring.



I'm sorry, but if you need to get your kicks from driving 100mph+ on A roads, then i suggest you find smaller roads where lower speeds are just as fun. I'm not some speed campaigner but exceeding 100mph on a twisty A road is just....stupid and unecessary and gives everyone else that just wants to go for a "hoon" a bad name.



My car is more than capable of these speeds, i have quite a lot of experience driving A-roads in all types of conditions and at all types of speeds and i still think 100mph on these roads is mental. I'm not arrogant enough to believe that i'm a driving God, because even if i was, the amount of unknowns on an A-roads is infinite and the number of things i've seen "around the next bend" is ridiculous (tractors, large animals, small animals, kids, cyclists, giant pot holes, accidents that have literally just happened, mud on the road, people parked in the most idiotic places).

Bottom line - exceeding 100mph on most "twisty A-roads" is silly
Click to expand...

Cornering at 100mph perhaps, but as a peak speed you can easily touch 100mph, that is my point.

At no point did I feel unsafe, have anything like a moment or anything like that - I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

In fact, thinking about it, at the last OcUK Southern Meet I went to the convoy was travelling at the sorts of speeds we are talking about and I was being left for dead!
 
MrLOL said:
These sort of speeds have been seen at the North York Moors meet too.
Click to expand...

You and I plus Tom and a couple others left whoever was in the Rover Turbo wondering where everyone had gone, I seem to recall? We weren't exactly giving it maximum beans either?

Obviously we are all childkillers....
 
DRZ said:
Obviously we are all childkillers....
Click to expand...

And none of you are in prison either?

I just dont think its true to say Motoring in this country has been ruined by the fact you go to prison for speeding. It seems like quite an odd viewpoint, infact.
 
Its definately changed, I don't really accelerate hard anymore - I spend most of my time in the car trying to get as much mpg as possible, at £1.35+ for diesel I'm squeezing every damned mile I can out of the tank. It definately isn't fun, that's for sure.
 
[TW]Fox;18465282 said:
And none of you are in prison either?

I just dont think its true to say Motoring in this country has been ruined by the fact you go to prison for speeding. It seems like quite an odd viewpoint, infact.
Click to expand...

I was driving a diesel golf - Housey has an RS4 - with the same level of commitment in his higher performance vehicle (to extract the same fun...) he would have been taking a significantly higher risk of punishment than I was. As I said earlier, I was taking it "easy" in comparison to the possible not because of fear or lack of skill but solely due to fear of prosecution.

In a mere 200bhp car that is alright because there is still room for fun. In a 911 GT3 that would be tedious. See my point yet?
 
Fusion said:
I wouldn't say it was "more affordable than ever". Think of the mid-late 90's, when petrol was 55-60p a litre, used cars were still cheap yet wages were still decent. It was this period when fuel prices were at their lowest adjusted for wages (which haven't more than doubled in 12-15 years like fuel has).
Click to expand...

+1

I had some real gaz guzzlers in the mid 90's, V8 merc's/BMWs :D
 
DRZ said:
I was driving a diesel golf - Housey has an RS4 - with the same level of commitment in his higher performance vehicle (to extract the same fun...) he would have been taking a significantly higher risk of punishment than I was. As I said earlier, I was taking it "easy" in comparison to the possible not because of fear or lack of skill but solely due to fear of prosecution.

In a mere 200bhp car that is alright because there is still room for fun. In a 911 GT3 that would be tedious. See my point yet?
Click to expand...

No, not really. Nowhere in the world can you really drive something like a 911 GT3 hard on the public road for a prolonged period of time and to be honest it's hard to accept the viewpoint that 'these days' driving sucks because such an opportunity isnt there.

The concept of being prosecuted for driving at very high speed has existed as long as the motor car the world over. It is not a new thing confined to 'Britain Today'.
 
I agree that the cost of owning a performance car is really out of control, It still has not put me off but I suspect that if petrol keep going up I may eventually feel that its not justifiable anymore.

I have tried to do less miles and use the mondeo for the London to Sheffield runs, I even took the train a few times!
 
Jez said:
TBH its better here than most other places in Europe as far as i can see? We are not alone on this side of the pond wrt high fuel prices. We have it incredibly easy in the scheme of things. Look are ireland for example - what a joke!
Click to expand...

Yup there has been a huge jump in fuel prices in Ireland. The average for unleaded is now 144.9 which is about £1.23. Your average prices are somewhere around £1.28 at the moment? Not the huge difference there used to be! Add this to our disgusting car tax and I reckon very few of you would be driving the cars you are now if you had Irelands road tax structure..

For anyone who is interested, have a look at what your car would cost to tax (€1 = £0.85)
CC € cost
0 - 1000 172
1001 - 1100 259
1101 - 1200 286
1201 - 1300 310
1301 - 1400 333
1401 - 1500 357
1501 - 1600 445
1601 - 1700 471
1701 - 1800 551
1801 - 1900 582
1901 - 2000 614
2001 - 2100 784
2101 - 2200 823
2201 - 2300 860
2301 - 2400 895
2401 - 2500 935
2501 - 2600 1120
2601 - 2700 1164
2701 - 2800 1204
2801 - 2900 1248
2901 - 3000 1293
3001 - 15000 1566

So Jez, you'd be paying €1566/year for your car. You would also have to pay approx 33% extra for it in the first place, about double insuring it and you get to use one of the smallest islands in Europe for the pleasure! With our crap road network, you'd probably average less MPG anyway which would offset the slightly lower fuel prices!

All in all, the UK doesn't have it so bad. You have a huge amount of fantastic roads on your doorstep and the continent is only a £50 ferry away. Sounds pretty good to me :)
 
[TW]Fox;18463585 said:
If you want a country where Motoring is far less fun than it could be, I'll again cite Australia, where the speeding fines are completely ridiculous, the limits pathetic...
Click to expand...

I don't know how much of Australia you saw, but I guess you spent a good bit of time in Victoria? Some absolutely amazing roads but you just cannot drive quickly. Did you do the great ocean road? That was superb and the limits were very well suited. I'm driving an old barge of a Ford Falcon so wasn't exactly the sports car of choice.

I did however have use of a Holden Commodore SV6 while I was in Adelaide and the Adelaide hills were some of the best roads I have ever driven on! The Commodore was superb as well.
 
Disgusting coward tactics by the rozzers are also ruining the driving experience:

cid59707849f3a54734adcd.jpg



Probably to a lesser extent than here, but still, this really peeves me off, solve more important crimes rather than a harmless one, but no, this one brings cash in so this one is more important :mad:.
 
At The Gates said:
Has it always been this bad? I don't think so no. It's always been busy, but over the last few years it's definitely started to get worse.
Click to expand...

I have been driving into & around London for the past 14 years, in commercial vehicles, if anything, its considerably better in many ways. (believe it or not!)
 
commited said:
So Jez, you'd be paying €1566/year for your car. You would also have to pay approx 33% extra for it in the first place, about double insuring it and you get to use one of the smallest islands in Europe for the pleasure! With our crap road network, you'd probably average less MPG anyway which would offset the slightly lower fuel prices!

All in all, the UK doesn't have it so bad. You have a huge amount of fantastic roads on your doorstep and the continent is only a £50 ferry away. Sounds pretty good to me :)
Click to expand...

I knew ireland was bad (whenever i am there people always comment on the S-Class) but not quite €1566 in tax alone bad! Whenever there i suffer from awful economy as you say, too, due to the roads not being of the nature where you can set your speed and forget. The connection with europe isnt a big one for me as i'd always fly anyway, but that is something which i hadnt even considered and is a very good point.

Seriously, its good in this country. Even the best of cars are what, £450/year to tax? Then we have pretty low and forgiving insurance costs (i wouldnt give a second thought to insurance really, for anything, its that low at 25 with 5NCB) and hardly any toll routes. The only road worthyness test we have is a super lax quick half hour once per year which even the shoddiest of bangers seem to pass, which costs about 25 quid. We hardly have it bad!
 
One thing I have noticed been driving nearly 10 years is the amount of parked cars at the side of roads now, in my area we you would have say one side of main road with cars parked on them now people are parking on both sides, parking on paths, double parking on residential roads, making it a pain to drive down them or cycle on them, the road onto the estate is bad now, first few houses on the road from the main road one has 4 cars and 2 vans and only space for 2 cars on the drive and one house 2 cars and they dont even park on the drive.

Its only going to get worse.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom