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A long time ago
I was driving my 1960s mini and got pulled by the filth for no reason other than it was very early in the morning and I was a teenager.

The mini was a bit of a junker but I did my best to keep it on the road.

One of the plod leant into my window (it was in the days before they asked you to get out), and asked me to test the brake lights and indicators while the other plod assessed the results to see if they were all working. Luckly, they were.

He then asked to hear the horn. I quickly leant over and picked the actual horn out of the glove shelf, where I had put it the other day after finding it was broken, and handed it to him. He took it and stared at it for a few seconds while the other plod creased himself laughing.

He handed the defunct horn back and sent me on my way without a ticket or fine. That was over 30 years ago. . . what are the chances of this happening today?

While I am here. . . and as the mists of time are clearing. The week after I passed my driving test - sometime in the late 18th century I think - I drove a very rusty and knackered first car, an escort van, up to London. As a real novice driver this was a tad ambitious, but I had a new licence and £2s worth of petrol in the tank.

Anyway. . . I drove up to Trafalgar Square from the south and there was traffic everywhere. Getting a bit nervous I decided to stick right behind a coach so I could keep out of trouble from cars flying in every direction in front of me. The coach stopped at some lights and then went through with me following, but not fast enough, and I kind of 'stranded' myself by some bollards, in no mans land, in the middle of car chaos.

A second later and I had a knock on the window from a foot based plod. He checked the car over and found out my tyres were a bit bald. . . well actually they were as good as slicks. . . and he did me for five including the spare!

Fast forward a couple of months and I was summoned to Bow Street Court and stood in a dock and given a fine and five endorsements from a judge in a wig.

My defence of not actually knowing that tyres actually had to have any tread on them at all was ignored. . .

I am on a roll. . . go back one week to my test and I found out an hour before my lesson that the car I was going to take it with had broken down. I made a call and found a relative close by who said I could borrow their car but to get there in time I had to drive my moped over to where they worked so they could drive me over to the testing station. On the way, to get there in time, I drove the wrong way down a one way street. I was stopped at the end by a plod and given a ticket.

But I got there and passed - Huzzah. I was still fined for the offence later though.

That's enough. The end.
(Mon 26th Apr 2010, 23:43, More)