DaveMcT said:

Back then, low paid manual workers were little more than slaves. The unions served an important role against Lord-of-the-manor style company owners.

But they over-played their hand and the old mass employment industries have closed. We no longer have factories where children risk losing limbs while cleaning under working machinery. Which begs the question what do the mass unions actually offer today other than being fund raisers for leftist politics.

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now with no unions people are slaves again with zero hour contracts and the threat of not being given any hours if you have to take a day off sick or to look after a sick child. large employers have way too many people than they need on the payroll on zero hours so there is always someone left suffering. its a cruel evil way of getting around employment laws that were set up to protect workers.

My youngest drove Daffo our 169 into the hard end of a kerb at speed. Frightened me pooh less!

Pull over I said. Ooh I got a killer look.

A lump the size of a golf ball on the side of the n/s tyre. No one within 50 miles carries 165 65 14 Goodyear tyres. So we are using the wheel barrow tyre. Amazingly it didnt seem too bad,

Its going to cost me £75 in the morning for a new tyre in foreign parts.

Please Lord can we have no further damage......

At least we are unscathed. She was avoiding something lying in the road.... probably a bloody great pot hole.

dave said:

now with no unions people are slaves again with zero hour contracts and the threat of not being given any hours if you have to take a day off sick or to look after a sick child. large employers have way too many people than they need on the payroll on zero hours so there is always someone left suffering. its a cruel evil way of getting around employment laws that were set up to protect workers.

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There will always be bad employers but legislating against things like zero hours (which many people prefer) simply restricts the jobs market and reduces the work available. Or it causes the bad companies to go rogue where there is no control and the workers are much worse off. There are more than enough laws to stop this, but it has been an issue especially for some migrant workers who would never be unionised anyway.

People are not idiots. They should be allowed to make their own choices and mistakes. Treating everyone like idiots just breeds a population of - well - guess what.

dave said:

now with no unions people are slaves again with zero hour contracts and the threat of not being given any hours if you have to take a day off sick or to look after a sick child. large employers have way too many people than they need on the payroll on zero hours so there is always someone left suffering. its a cruel evil way of getting around employment laws that were set up to protect workers.

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And restricting access to tribunal's is the icing on the cake!

DaveMcT said:

There will always be bad employers but legislating against things like zero hours (which many people prefer) simply restricts the jobs market and reduces the work available. Or it causes the bad companies to go rogue where there is no control and the workers are much worse off. There are more than enough laws to stop this, but it has been an issue especially for some migrant workers who would never be unionised anyway.

People are not idiots. They should be allowed to make their own choices and mistakes. Treating everyone like idiots just breeds a population of - well - guess what.

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ive never met anyone who prefers a zero hours contract, i don't believe there are "many" on one who prefer it to the security and options of guaranteed hours.

I was popping along the A4 between Marlborough and Chippenham. A van ahead slowed, moved left, signalled right. (Clues there) Opposite, on the right, was a narrow minor road.
When oncoming traffic cleared, van started his U-turn. Of course the road mouth was too small, and the verge soft, and a beckoning ditch, so he got three-quarters the way and stopped to reverse.

At which point the noise arrived. That frightened him.

Had he bothered to look into the minor road, he would have seen the approaching ambulance, blue lights flashing. And he'd just parked across its nose.

In his panic, he reversed a little quicker than otherwise, put his left rear wheel onto the grass behind him and stopped. Luckily there was then room for the ambulance to emerge, as the van was now not going anywhere.

It is all about effective observation, followed by planning.

Just spent the last 12 minutes (yes I timed it as I've watched this before) being entertained by a red Fabia trying to park in the layby outside the flats opposite. This car, one of the flashy ones with black wheels, body trim and two tone paint job (but lacking the "go", promised by the trim pack, to make it interesting to me) actually belongs to someone who I suspect lives in the next street but is parking here because their street is narrow.

My pal's Merc 2 seater is parked in the middle of the bay so there's about 2 car lengths - maybe a smidgeon more - behind it to where the kerb bends back out to the road side. Well, There was lots of frantic and ineffective wheel twiddling, often in the wrong direction with flashers going in both directions from time to time and even, once, wipers sweeping - it'a bright sunny day out there! There really was/is plenty of room here to do a simple reverse and square up maneuver. However the driver has finally given up and left the car with it's N/S rear wheel just up on the kerb stone. Our kerbs are really high so it takes some effort to do this.

Now this was all very amusing and cheered me up no end but now, sitting with my cup of Lidl Cappuccino, I'm actually quite appalled that anyone so demonstrably incompetent can have a license and be in charge of a vehicle. Good job it's such a distinctive car, means I should be able to spot it quite easily and stay well clear out on the road.

dave said:

ive never met anyone who prefers a zero hours contract, i don't believe there are "many" on one who prefer it to the security and options of guaranteed hours.

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There are many who prefer the flexibility of zero hours. All you have to do is ask. Clearly of course, they would all prefer to have 40 hours at Glaxo pay rates and be able to afford helpers to look after the kids either side of school hours. As would we all, but life is not that easy and it never will be.

But the issue is left wingers telling people how to live their lives. Zero hours are hated, yet Working Time Credit which deliberately pays low pay companies to pay low wages is all fine and dandy. It is all about keeping the low paid down so they will keep voting Labour.

Well my faith in humanity is restored! The girl who lives in the middle flat opposite us, where the layby is, has just returned. My pal has gone with his Merc and she's just executed an absolutely perfect reverse park into the vacant space - even squared up her front wheels so they are pointing straight ahead. That leaves the red Fabia behind her. I am humbled with admiration! Let's just hope the Fabia manages to leave without marking her car (which is white) Maybe she could give the Fabia driver a few tips? - but nah, lost cause I fancy.

DaveMcT said:

But the issue is left wingers telling people how to live their lives. Zero hours are hated, yet Working Time Credit which deliberately pays low pay companies to pay low wages is all fine and dandy. It is all about keeping the low paid down so they will keep voting Labour.

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How does that work given how long since they were in government?

Maybemaybenot said:

How does that work given how long since they were in government?

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It works just fine because they mess things up so much that there's never time to fix everything before they are allowed back to cause yet more harm.

Blair and Brown put lefty liberals into all the regulatory jobs and massively increased the amount of regulation. They got away with it with their low pay benefits bribe to big companies. But they still trashed the economy with British banks "too big to fail" being bailed out at our expense.

If the banks do a repeat job over car finance we will have to hope the government have the guts to tell them to fall over and die. I wont be holding my breath.

DaveMcT said:

It works just fine because they mess things up so much that there's never time to fix everything before they are allowed back to cause yet more harm.

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So after nearly ten years Conservatives haven't been good enough to undo the rascally lefties shenanigans?

Maybemaybenot said:

So after nearly ten years Conservatives haven't been good enough to undo the rascally lefties shenanigans?

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That's the one.

No further damage but I threw out the Bilstein rear dampers and put on Monroe while the car was on ramps. Silence is golden... but the ride is not as smooth.

Pugglt Auld Jock said:

Well my faith in humanity is restored! The girl who lives in the middle flat opposite us, where the layby is, has just returned. My pal has gone with his Merc and she's just executed an absolutely perfect reverse park into the vacant space - even squared up her front wheels so they are pointing straight ahead. That leaves the red Fabia behind her. I am humbled with admiration! Let's just hope the Fabia manages to leave without marking her car (which is white) Maybe she could give the Fabia driver a few tips? - but nah, lost cause I fancy.

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Brings back memories of my Mum. Back in the 70's when I was a mere teenager, I can remember the start of a VERY long journey from Maidstone to London. It took 45 minutes for her to reverse the car out of the garage onto our drive, and another hour to bodge the door mirror back onto the door. Things went from bad to worse.... I think from memory it took about 5 hours to get to Paddington station. In those days I could get to Chlemsford in an hour....

One of her last comments before I confiscated her car when she was 90 was I've been driving for 65 years and I know what I am doing. Suffice to say it took 6 months to get that car straightened out. I shudder to think how many parked cars she disabled and damaged in those 65 yrs!

The Panda Nut said:

Brings back memories of my Mum.

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My mum also drove into old age. She had two great loves, Horses and sporty cars. The last car she had was an MGB GT and it was this car which, along with failing health, finally made her realize she had to give up when she found she could only exit the vehicle by shuffling backwards out of the car onto the ground with her backside before then turning over so she could stand up. Try doing that on a wet windy day or in the snow!

There were occasions when her driving terrified me. Probably the most troubling was when, in my early teens (and by then I'd been tearing around the fields in pickups and old cars learning all about steering on the throttle, how to apply opposite lock and do what they now a days call drifting) She completely lost control of our MK2 3.8 Jag in the snow. The car started to go sideways and I was sitting waiting for her to apply opposite lock but instead she took her hands off the wheel entirely. We arrived at the next corner somewhat sideways and, by some miracle, pointing into the bend. The tyres gripped and on we went round the bend. It was a left hand bend, had it been a right hand one we would have been off into the undergrowth! She was a very accomplished horsewoman and told me she thought cars were very like horses. So, just as you would loosen the reins on a horse which was loosing it's footing so it could "have it's head" so too you should let the steering "have it's head" by letting go of the wheel if the car was in "difficulty"! Amazingly I don't think she ever had an accident?

Pugglt Auld Jock said:

She completely lost control of our MK2 3.8 Jag in the snow. The car started to go sideways and I was sitting waiting for her to apply opposite lock but instead she took her hands off the wheel entirely. We arrived at the next corner somewhat sideways and, by some miracle, pointing into the bend. The tyres gripped and on we went round the bend. It was a left hand bend, had it been a right hand one we would have been off into the undergrowth! She was a very accomplished horsewoman and told me she thought cars were very like horses. So, just as you would loosen the reins on a horse which was loosing it's footing so it could "have it's head" so too you should let the steering "have it's head" by letting go of the wheel if the car was in "difficulty"! Amazingly I don't think she ever had an accident?

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Oddly enough pro-drifters use a similar technique, in that when initiating a drift they cannot wind the opposite lock on fast enough to counter but they can release the wheel and let the front wheels find the required angle. If you release the wheel they will effectively follow the line of least resistance which in a drift automatically applies opposite lock. It also lets them find grip as you are no longer scrubbing them across the tarmac, but usually on the public road you don't have the space to let this happen.

However they do have cars with extremely fancy steering systems designed to help this...and massive available steering angle.

StevenRB45 said:

Oddly enough pro-drifters use a similar technique, in that when initiating a drift they cannot wind the opposite lock on fast enough to counter but they can release the wheel and let the front wheels find the required angle. If you release the wheel they will effectively follow the line of least resistance which in a drift automatically applies opposite lock. It also lets them find grip as you are no longer scrubbing them across the tarmac, but usually on the public road you don't have the space to let this happen.

However they do have cars with extremely fancy steering systems designed to help this...and massive available steering angle.

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Having spent a number of years before I was old enough to get my licence charging around the fields and estate tracks and learning a lot about car control in the process I managed to find enough money, with the help of my father, to buy a 1275 Cooper S in my later teen years. I thought, with all this experience of loose surface driving, that I'd make a "magic" rally driver and spent a couple of years proving, quite spectacularly, to myself and everyone else that I really wasn't fast enough!

One of the things this sort of competitive driving quickly teaches you is that it's not the initial winding on of opposite lock to control an oversteer situation which is the problem. It's when the rear wheels bite again and flick the vehicle over into oversteer in the other direction. To counter this you need to go, in the most extreme situations, very quickly from full lock in one direction to full lock the other way and then be ready to do it again! You can think about and talk about doing this as much as you like but the only way to learn it is to do it (check out your nearest skid pan for courses) You'll very quickly learn that feeding the wheel through from hand to hand in the "approved" technique is not going to work. Learning that you could buy a "quick rack" back in the '60's was an absolute revelation - but failed to make me any quicker! Think I was too worried about hurting the car and found it impossible to disconnect the self preservation part of my brain.

Pugglt Auld Jock said:

Think I was too worried about hurting the car and found it impossible to disconnect the self preservation part of my brain.

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Makes perfect sense on open roads, but in a rally car that's what full harness belts, roll cage, crash hat, knee and elbow pads are about.

By the way countering a sliding bike takes some getting your head round. If the front end slips left, you have to flick the steering to the right - basically pull it up with the lowest handlebar. The momentary opposite lock creates a cornering force that lifts the bike out of the slide. If its really slippery you carry on down. If you do the "obvious" thing and steer the other way your next stop will be the scene of the crash.

Pugglt Auld Jock said:

One of the things this sort of competitive driving quickly teaches you is that it's not the initial winding on of opposite lock to control an oversteer situation which is the problem. It's when the rear wheels bite again and flick the vehicle over into oversteer in the other direction. To counter this you need to go, in the most extreme situations, very quickly from full lock in one direction to full lock the other way and then be ready to do it again! You can think about and talk about doing this as much as you like but the only way to learn it is to do it (check out your nearest skid pan for courses) You'll very quickly learn that feeding the wheel through from hand to hand in the "approved" technique is not going to work. Learning that you could buy a "quick rack" back in the '60's was an absolute revelation - but failed to make me any quicker! Think I was too worried about hurting the car and found it impossible to disconnect the self preservation part of my brain.

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Don't worry wasn't saying she was doing the right thing! It's not releasing the wheel that's the skill in drifting it's the throttle control and knowing when to take active control again.

One of the reasons modern ESP is so effective at reducing single vehicle accidents is it stops the rotation before you get into a "tank slapper". If you are sliding it'll brake the outside rear wheel on the side that is pulling it straight, then if you'd put opposite lock on it'll pull the other back brake to stop the movement the other way.

Got a live demonstration of this on some diesel a few years ago..would have been fun if it wasn't occurring 3 feet from a lamp post.