Across Europe with no brake lights
When I was 7, my family drove to Switzerland on holiday. As you do.

Shortly after leaving, the brake lights and indicators blew a fuse. We tried to get to get this fixed several times between Edinburgh and Felixstowe, determined not to leave the country with faulty lights. Various mechanics and AA men had a go but every time they fixed it, the fuse blew again.

So there we were, driving several hundred miles across Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, France and Switzerland using hand signals. In a British car, driving on the right - my mum's friend had to do the signals out of the passenger window whenever instructed.

At our campsite in Lauterbrunnen we met a Scottish mechanic who offered to fix it - but still it blew again.

So off we went again, hundreds of miles back to the ferry, flapping arms out of the passenger window again.

We called the AA again the moment we were back on British soil. We had relay membership and my mum, being totally fed up of driving anyway, decided we would exploit that and get a free tow back from Felixtowe to Edinburgh. She argued it wasn't safe to drive without our lights, and nobody could fix them.

The plan was scuppered when the AA man fixed them. Just like that. Two weeks worth of other mechanics hadn't managed when we really wanted them to, and he did it when we really didn't want him to.

I think my mum spent most of the drive back to edinburgh cursing every time she saw an AA van.

For the record, if anyone cares, the problem was caused by a new reverse light which had been wired the wrong way round. Bet you're glad you asked...
(Eldred, Fri 8 Sep 2006, 15:38, Reply)