Early Risers.

[Jock67B]

My mother had a mobility badge for use in her car when my father was a passenger:  My mother in law has one, as well, and on the rare occasions we take her anywhere, we use the badge to help with parking, although I do tend to drop her off and then move the car to a normal parking bay.

 

Len might not be the badge holder, but have given a lift to someone who is.

 

Which would no doubt account for all these cars with mobility badges whose drivers seem to leap out and rush into the shops.

Richard, I have a blue badge and the handbook includes a strict set of guidelines but sadly abuse is common-place. The specific rules are available to view on the 'you gov' site!

Kind regards,

Jock.

[jamie92208]

Morning all,

 

Bright sunshine earlier - must have lasted nearly 10 minutes, now it's liquid sunshine time.  Otherwise fairly quiet although just had a long 'phone discussion about various 'heritage' railways which has definitely decided me not to travel on a couple of them.

 

And DD your car looks even more complicated than mine - and i can't understand some of that although I do really, really like the moving map display on mine (but not the daft woman who issues satnav instructions).

 

Have a good day folks.

I'm not sure that the voice is from a woman as she never loses her temper when I ignore her instructions.

 

I'll get my coat.

 

Jamie

[Tony_S]

That’s the setting for Frinton, surely?

 

Best, Pete.

I think I would have to clean the car before being allowed into Frinton.

[The Lurker]

My Mrs thinks the Yaris Verso looks like an Invacar (not that I knew that term until today)

[Jock67B]

I don't think that's a motability car; they are on a 3 year lease and I doubt if you could change the registration. You also have to pay extra for anything other than a basic hatchback.

 

Not everybody who is entitled to a blue badge has a visible mobility impairment. Although I'm aware of and abhor the extensive abuse of the blue badge system, some people appear to believe that only wheelchair users are entitled. My wife is disabled but can walk short distances without a stick or crutches. When Martyn was small she used the buggy as support. She was once abused in a car park by someone who seemed to believe that the disabled shouldn't be allowed to have children.

 

Mind you, the way the new system of PIP appears to be developing; in future only wheelchair users may get the badge.

 

Wet and gloomy here, I shall go out later for T9s if any are left. 

 

As a point of information, you can have a private plate on your Motability car, lots of my clients did and any good dealership completed the relevant paperwork for them at the three year changeover. You are certainly not restricted to basic hatchbacks Pete, although that used to be the case - the type of car available depends on how much the manufacturers subsidise them and many use the scheme to move soon to be superseded or slow selling vehicle stock. It is a very complex calculation as a lot hinges on the projected re-sale value after the three year contract ends, which affects the up-front payment as well! As an example, I was supplying the higher spec. Citroen DS3 on a nil advance a couple of years back! I'd be happy to enlighten anyone about the scheme if they are considering an application, simply PM me.

Kind regards,

Jock.

 

Pete

[Tony_S]

I'm not sure that the voice is from a woman as she never loses her temper when I ignore her instructions.

 

I'll get my coat.

 

Jamie

Aditi's car allegedly has voice controlled operation for some features. Never bothered to try them though. When Matthew and I were in a hire car in Texas the rental sat nav responded to something he said and started giving trip statistics instead of helping us through some complicated junctions.

[skipepsi]

Mick,

You can always check on line at the Motability web-site. It doesn't do to assume though as it doesn't have the usual Motability tax-disc holder. Lots of people comply with the 'blue badge' requirements but still own the car! I speak from experience because I am one! Having been a Motability specialist for well over thirty years, I fell foul of the rule that states you must be under sixty-five when you first join the scheme (you can then stay on it for the rest of your life!) and I wasn't taken ill until I was sixty-six!

Debs is right about how lucky Len is not to have an Invacar (they haven't been supplied for years now in any case). I remember Graham Hill road-testing one on TV and even a world champion couldn't handle it so what chance did a heavily disabled person have? They were terribly light and there were incidences when they blew over on to the side with the single opening door leaving the driver trapped until someone kind enough came along to right it! Sad for any motorcycle fan as the 'Greeves' motorcycle company of Thundersley in Essex made them. Despite their reputation for winning 'Trials' and 'Scrambles' bikes, the Invacar was a crock of.............(fit your own word as appropriate!)

Kind regards,

Jock.

It was meant as a joke Jock as nowadays the BHP limit is 125 and I think the battery probably has that in that car. The C4 Picasso we chose as a Motability car this time cost us £699 in advance rental but is supposed to run at around 70 mpg so we were hoping to save the cash on fuel consumption....... 55mpg average at present

.One of the things I will not do if MrsB isn't in the car is use the disabled bays to me it is simply wrong.

 

 

Edit for poor speeling poor grammar is fitted as standard..

Edited November 12, 2014 by skipepsi

[Jock67B]

Please don't confuse the Blue Badge scheme with Motability. Since my second heart attack and with my b******d leg I now have a Blue Badge which allows me to park nearer to where I need to be. There are strict conditions for its use. Motability is a car lease scheme for people who receive Mobility Allowance at the highest rate ( approx £200 per month which you exchange for the car), such as my blind friend. At the moment he does not have a Motability car as it is cheaper to keep the old one going. He is considering getting a Motability car when the old car dies.

 

BTW he doesn't drive it , his wife does!  There is no identification on Motability cars, and as said above the norm is a basic vehicle but you can choose to make an up-front payment to get something nicer. Motability is the biggest car leasing scheme in the UK, if not the world, and the majority of cars are supplied for children.

 

Ed

I refer to my post replying to Pete, Ed. the cars are certainly not all basic these days as they have discovered that a better specification car fetches a better resale value and it's the difference between that, and the cost to Motability (often better than we as dealers enjoyed!) that matters! Experts sit round the table and estimate this difference then if it is matched by the Motability amount received, no advance is necessary. This is how the advance payment on the higher value vehicles is arrived at!

Kind regards,

Jock.

 

PS. As for getting in the Jag, I can still get into my Midget (and those who know me will appreciate that this is no mean feat), but can't drive the thing because the big slipper I am obliged to use at the moment is too big and I can't use the throttle and brake pedals.

[edcayton]

Several Invacars were built by AC cars (as in AC Cobra). I believe that at one time they were producing the fastest and slowest-accelerating cars at the same time.

 

Ed

 

Just been looking up Motability prices. It seems that Jaguar/Land Rover cars are not available on the scheme at the moment, but as an example you can get a BMW X1 for an up-front payment of around £2000. A couple of years ago we went to a Motability event at Duxford. Got to drive some cars and look at lots, plus got free entry to the museum. Great day.

Edited November 12, 2014 by edcayton

[Jock67B]

MickB,

I think you'll find that the BHP limit is age related - if you look at the listings on the site, you'll see that you could have had a 160BHP version at a much higher advance of course. From memory the age limit was twenty-one? It's never a good idea to rely on the published figures for fuel consumption. They are recorded under set conditions which you can't mimic in normal day to day use. What you are achieving is quite fair for a vehicle that size with a relatively small engine. I hope the dealer told you to regularity clear the computer memory, especially if going on a long journey, otherwise your average is calculated including all the cold engine short trips to the shops etc. which will affect the figures! We have a C3 Picasso with a similar engine but on our last trip to Cornwall we managed to hit the seventy MPG mark but I had cleared one of the memories as we set out. Joanna achieves low fifties round here as she does lots of journeys of a mile or so! The regular trips I make to Colchester are very good for the FAP filter which otherwise would never get hot enough to burn off the particles which would result in replacement!

Kind regards,

Jock.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

We used to have a Garmin satnav, and the voice was quite Estuary, and the attempts at French were pitiable.

Now we have the built-in Volvo. Much more middle-class, carefully enunciated and just a frisson of Miss Whiplash...

Recent experience of a satnav phonetically attempting the place names of Italy was just mind bendingly funny. Every other town sounded like a surgical procedure or a dire medical condition. On one day alone we got choked in traffic at pharyngitis, had a pain in the side laughing about appendacectomy, tried the new bypass round innafarcta to reach amorbidlio obesia  - where the cakes and ice cream were to die for.

[Oldddudders]

Morning all

 

I plead guilty to Andrew C's grassing me up! 66 today - and feel quite lucky to have got this far, as many of my nearest and dearest didn't.

 

A lovely morning, in contrast to a wet and blustery evening yesterday, and so I sauntered off to Le Mans to buy my Eurostar ticket for next month. Unusually this is a single - Sherry and I will be braving the briny Plymouth - St Malo a few days later. Sherry will then spend Xmas and NY here, which will make a lovely change.

 

Being rural, our refuse-and-recyc discipline is a little more relaxed than some. No wheelie-bins - but yellow translucent sacks are provided for recyc. This may contain anything and everything on a list of recyclable items and materials. Thus paper and cardboard go in with tins and plastic bottles which we are exhorted not to rinse. Glass is excluded - we have to deliver that to a skip in the village. Refuse is collected weekly - supply your own sack - but recyc is fortnightly. The document that shows what can and can't be recycled also has a useful calendar showing which Friday morning it is. So last Friday was the designated day, and I put my bag out Thursday lunchtime. Mid-morning Friday - after the usual pick-up time - I noticed the bag hadn't gone, so they must be running late, but someone had added a second bag! Saturday I went shopping and noticed no-one else had an uncollected bag. Rum, that. So I decided to look more closely - and found neither of the bags is mine, both being tied up with string, not the usual flimsy plastic tap supplied! Why would someone dump their recyc on my gateway - bagged? Should I be paranoid?

 

Hope your week progressing to order.

[Happy Hippo]

Happy Birthday Ian

[PhilJ W]

Many happy returns Ian.

[AndyB]

I believe my ex was the sat nav voice for Renault some years ago. 

Trust me, when she told you what to do, you didn't dare have an alternative route in mind!        

 

Happy birthday, Ian. 

[Jock67B]

Happy birthday Ian, and many of them! You're catching me up mate!

Kind regards,

Jock.

Edited November 12, 2014 by Jock67B

[Ian Abel]

Happy Birthday Ian... you're running about 4 months ahead of me

 

Managed to get a couple more yards of track and a point laid last evening - incredible how slowly this track-laying task can be sometimes, time you've offered up the pieces, cut/re-cut correctly, added droppers, drilled holes, glued track, blimey... I'm getting there though

 

Disability permits...hmmm...very contentious hereabouts!

We have one for my 96 year old MiL allowing the Mrs to park close when she takes her mum shopping etc. At least it's pretty obvious it is needed, and it's never been used unless we have MiL on board and needing to be somewhere.

Unfortunately, a temporary one is available to almost "anyone" who can convince their doctor they need one, truly doesn't take much <sigh> and judging by the high-end cars and SUVs with sprightly folks charging in and out of them and hauling back two or three grocery bags whilst juggling their cell-phone, some are less "needed" than others.

Such a shame that an otherwise sensible and practical benefit for those in need is (as bloody always) abused by a few thoughtless self-important cockwombles   

 

HUMP day and the drive-to-the-office day to boot... -11 on the drive in, ahhh, isn't that lovely!!!

We've now got some light blowing snow, but it's not supposed to amount to much, so I guess that means we could get either a dusting or a FOOT of snow <sigh> 

 

Onward...

[skipepsi]

Went off sat navs when ours told us to do a u turn on the M6 toll motorway...... The one in the picasso seems to have a witch inside it doesn't let you put in all the details you want but gets you there anyway????  The average on the Motability website for the Zafira was 42.7mpg  which is exactly what it acheived after over 60,000 miles driven by me, 'leadfoot' maybe but it did what it promised. The C4 has a long way to improve but it has only done 9,000 miles so far. You were right about the BHP limit Jock you have to be over 25 now to drive our car. The cap put on the scheme was the cost of the car not to exceed £23,000 to stop an abuse of the scheme where someone with an aged aunt in Wigan was running around London in a big BMW in her name and as the named driver I have to live within 5 miles of MrsB to stop that too.

 

Forgot to add Happy Birthday Ian and plenty more to enjoy some more happiness.

Edited November 12, 2014 by skipepsi

[Coombe Barton]

Recent experience of a satnav phonetically attempting the place names of Italy was just mind bendingly funny. Every other town sounded like a surgical procedure or a dire medical condition. On one day alone we got choked in traffic at pharyngitis, had a pain in the side laughing about appendacectomy, tried the new bypass round innafarcta to reach amorbidlio obesia  - where the cakes and ice cream were to die for.

 

Talking about phonetic pronunciation, when, several years ago, my son was working in a call centre, people unfamiliar with the English language had problems with some towns.

 

LOUGHBOROUGH became LOOGIEBARROOUGA

[Oldddudders]

A colleague had to think hard when a US visitor asked for a train to Bazzingstukie. Basingstoke.

[colin penfold]

Happy birthday Ian

[grandadbob]

Many happy returns Ian - I'll catch you up in 19 days time!.

[AndyB]

Went off sat navs when ours told us to do a u turn on the M6 toll motorway...... 

 

My sat nav outsourced that job to my bank manager. 

[skipepsi]

My sat nav outsourced that job to my bank manager. 

My bank manager sits next to me in the car....

[Adams442T]

Happy Birthday Ian!  As long as I keep up my present position of being just a year ahead I'll be happy too.  'Course the alternative might seriously impede my modelling................