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>> No. 3188 Anonymous
24th February 2015
Tuesday 11:01 pm
3188 QE2 Toll
I'm getting a hire car delivered to get me home from work. The quickest route has me crossing the QE2 bridge. However, they've removed the toll booth, and you're now supposed to pay the toll online.

I don't know what the car's registration is supposed to be until it gets delivered, so I can't sort it out now, which annoys me. I'm not looking forward to fucking about on my phone for half an hour to sort it out after I get in the car; the voyage will eat enough of my day up as it is.

I can't find any clear legal guidance on this issue; nothing that relates to a hire car. As I understand it, though, any fines incurred to the car would be paid by the agency, and the charges passed onto my employer, who hired the car.

This whole scheme is universally detested, and obviously a terrible inconvenience for everyone who knows about it. To most people around the country and world, they'll never even know about this stupid online pre-pay bollocks. It's obviously a egregious con.

I'm so annoyed by the whole thing's inconvenience that I think I'll just drive around the M25 southbound. Fuck tolls.

That brings me to my other question- what the hell can we do about these fucking tolls? There's no ethical justification for the Dartford crossing toll; the bridge was paid for twelve years ago. It boils my fucking piss- the toll amounts to nothing more than legal theft.

The M6 toll road is another waste of time. A fiver to use a road that's always fucking empty! Piss taking fucks.

Pic related- highway robbery.
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>> No. 3190 Anonymous
25th February 2015
Wednesday 2:26 am
3190 spacer
>>3188
M6 toll road is great though - never any traffic. That's the benefit lad!
>> No. 3191 Anonymous
25th February 2015
Wednesday 2:50 am
3191 spacer
>>3190
You still have to obey bullshit speed limits.
>> No. 3192 Anonymous
25th February 2015
Wednesday 4:04 am
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Yeah, there's this whole empty road with like five lanes or something stupid, of course you're going to speed. So, of course they built little hills for the coppers to hide behind to catch people out, in order to fine them. Buzzkill cunts.

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>> No. 3145 Anonymous
18th February 2015
Wednesday 1:25 am
3145 spacer
I'm a 22 year old male, living at home with parents, in an affluent area. I'm taking my driving test soon, but assuming all goes well, what are some decent, realistic options insurance wise? I'd like to get a 90-98 civic hatchback. Is that something doable?
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>> No. 3156 Anonymous
18th February 2015
Wednesday 2:30 pm
3156 spacer
>>3154
Yes, I'm massively insecure because I think certain cars are girly looking.
>> No. 3157 Anonymous
18th February 2015
Wednesday 2:46 pm
3157 spacer
>>3156

I know I probably felt like this about certain subjects as a teen/early 20s male, but I can't remember what it felt like. Honestly, get a small cheap car. You wont even care in 5 years that you owned it and neither will anyone else and you might even still have it.

It's not even rational or true to life either. Insecurity about what car you drive is something people get taken the piss out of them for, rather than what car they actually drive. Look at people who have Warrior 4x4s. I've yet to see someone I know look at one and not go "Well, he clearly has a small dick." and it is always a he.
>> No. 3158 Anonymous
18th February 2015
Wednesday 2:46 pm
3158 spacer
>>3155
>what could possibly be gay about an Aygo
For a start there's the name which has all three of G, A and Y in it. That's pretty gay.
>> No. 3159 Anonymous
18th February 2015
Wednesday 2:51 pm
3159 spacer
>>3158
If you put a G in front of it then it becomes GAygo and you can pretend you're a homophobe. Better than being a bumder.
>> No. 3160 Anonymous
18th February 2015
Wednesday 3:20 pm
3160 spacer
>>3157
This. The only trouble I ever had in six years owning a Ka was one cunt calling it a hairdresser's car. In that time it got me to and from work and all around town, which is all I needed it to do. Well, there was one other guy who used to have a go, but then he drove a Corsa so I always had the better comeback and therefore he doesn't count.

Seriously, 40mpg in a city full of fucking hills was nothing to sneeze at.

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>> No. 3072 Anonymous
26th November 2014
Wednesday 10:06 pm
3072 Modern cars are shite.
Out of interest, anyone here ever driven one of the new Sanderos, particularly the 90 horsepower model? By the facts and figures it should be far better than a ten year old Yaris, but is it actually better in practice?
Looking at reviews, all the professional reviewers claim that it's slow, or that the suspension and steering aren't fun, or that 55mpg (combined) isn't particularly impressive. But I don't get what they're comparing it against.

I may be in a position to get a new car next year, I'm dismayed about the state of the new car market at the moment. My choice seems to be something like £2-3K on a used car, or a Dacia Sandero on finance with a £3K deposit.

Which leads me onto my rant. Recently, every car manufacturer seems to be trying to compete with the likes of Audi and Mercedes on looks and performance. Ten years ago Ford Kas and Fiestas were driven by old men and middle aged housewives. They had crappy plastic interiors, no air conditioning, plain upholstery, yet there were more Fords on the roads than any other car. I've just took a look through the brochures now, even the bloody fiesta comes with a choice of 12 different interiors with chrome-lined everything, and just about every extra they can cram in. I've started seeing more new Mercedes on the way to work now, than new Fords.
It just seems to me that all of the mainstream manufacturers are trying so hard to mirror the top end of the market in all of their models, that many people are looking at the price tags and choosing the real thing instead for just a few pound extra a month.

Hence the Dacia.
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>> No. 3079 Anonymous
27th November 2014
Thursday 7:40 pm
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What about renting a car? I've no idea how viable this is financially, but it's not uncommon.
>> No. 3080 Anonymous
27th November 2014
Thursday 8:49 pm
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>>3079
It's common for people who need a car once a week. If you need a car every day it would cost silly money compared to buying a new car on finance.
>> No. 3081 Anonymous
27th November 2014
Thursday 8:54 pm
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>>3080
I'm on about a 2 year or whatever lease, not popping to Enterprise to have one for a weekend.
>> No. 3082 Anonymous
27th November 2014
Thursday 9:18 pm
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>>3081
Sorry, didn't realise what you meant.

Yes leasing is an option but it depends on the car and the circumstances. Charges vary depending on mileage, it can work out cheaper or more expensive than finance in the long-term, dealers can charge extortionate prices at the end of the lease for the slightest cosmetic damage, etc.
>> No. 3083 Anonymous
29th November 2014
Saturday 12:55 pm
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I just want to add this.

Who in their right mind would pay £1000 fucking extra on a £10,000 car, just for paisley pattered floor mats and a few bits of green paint.

To me this sums up everything that's wrong with modern society.

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>> No. 2800 Anonymous
30th November 2013
Saturday 1:03 am
2800 Motorcycles
Any motorbike riders here? I need some advice

Basically my dream is to ride bikes. I spend a lot of time watching youtube videos of motorcycle riders doing video blogs while riding. I am not a confident person and at the moment I don't trust myself with motorbikes, especially in London where drivers are extremely aggressive. But once I've finished studying (or got a part time job) I really want to ride again, I don't have many aspirations in this world but riding is one of them.

Two years ago when I lived in my hometown of Leicester I had a full time job with money to burn and I did my CBT (test in England to ride bikes up to 250cc) and passed. I then bought an Aprilia RS250. I rode it around my block a few times and holy shit I felt like my childhood dreams had come true, I never rode it to work because I wasn't confident on it. The bike had a load of issues and was extremely inconsistent also. I dropped it once and I had trouble picking it up, I'm an extremely skinny guy and this dropped my confidence more. I ended up selling it, I felt like a complete failure.

I have since moved to London to study at university and there are many people riding bikes and it made me want to try again, I may do another CBT test just to get me into it again when I can afford it since I just love the idea.

Can someone give me some advice on riding bikes and any experiences? Should I wait until I'm confident in myself before trying again since I'm scared to injure myself or others or humiliate myself?

Thanks
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>> No. 2834 Anonymous
11th February 2014
Tuesday 1:18 am
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>>2832

Bikes (and especially scooters) are a perfectly practical mode of transport within reasonable bounds. To go through your questions:

Bikes in general are perfectly practical for long journeys. It's more effort than driving a car because you're exposed to the elements, but plenty of people cover very long distances by bike. A 125cc bike is a bit of a chore for long journeys because of the limited power (most 125s will only do 60-65mph and take a while to get there) but bigger bikes will eat up the miles as easily as any car. I know plenty of people who take long (50-100 mile) commutes into London and cover the best part of a thousand miles in a weekend trip to the continent.

Luggage is inevitably a limitation. Scooters have an underseat storage box that's usually big enough for two helmets or a couple of bags of groceries. You can add side panniers and a top box to any bike or scooter, which will give you about a hundred litres of storage in total - roughly equivalent to a very large suitcase and adequate for a weekly shop for two people. Whether that's enough luggage capacity will depend on your lifestyle. Some bikers have figured out creative schemes for carrying guitars, fishing rods, golf clubs and even drum kits on their bike.

Carrying a passenger means getting a full license, as you're not allowed to take a pillion on L-plates. Once you have a full license, carrying a passenger is perfectly straightforward, although they will need a helmet and protective gloves. You need to give them a little briefing before hand so that they know not to resist the lean of the bike and have an agreed signal if they want you to stop, but otherwise it's no more difficult than taking a passenger in your car. If you regularly take passengers, you can get an intercom system that allows you to talk to your pillion rider via a headset.

The only dealbreaker in terms of weather is ice and snow, which is just too hazardous to ride on. At about this time of year, I keep an eye on the weather forecast so I know in advance if I'll need to get the bus or blag a lift. Otherwise, it's just a question of wearing the right gear and riding sensibly in the wet - leaving plenty of space ahead of you, keeping your speed down, braking before you think you'll need to. Newer bikes and scooters are available with anti-lock brakes, which are a real confidence booster in wet conditions. Modern motorbike clothing is highly waterproof and very warm, and you can add electrically heated grips to keep your hands toasty. There's nothing stopping you from using a bike as year-round transport.

Bikes aren't necessarily that much easier to travel with, but they can have much lower running costs and they're far easier to park. They are a hell of a lot more fun, which makes road trips far more enjoyable and exciting. You're not cut off from the world like you are in a car and really feel like part of your environment. If you're planning on going abroad then you'll need a full license. Riding in Europe is a doddle, you just ride down to Dover and hop on the ferry or the Eurotunnel. Going outside of the EU, you do need to do a bit of research and get your insurance sorted out.

If you don't really need motorised transport but would quite like the option, then small bikes and scooters are a hugely appealing option in terms of cost. These days you can buy a decent second-hand 125cc bike or scooter, a full set of safety clothing, a year's insurance and a CBT course for under £2000, which might well be less than you'd pay for your first year's car insurance. Fuel and other running costs are very low - a 125 costs £17 a year to tax, will do 80mpg+ and needs only very basic servicing. Running a 125 is often cheaper than a bus pass.
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>> No. 2838 Anonymous
12th February 2014
Wednesday 11:23 pm
2838 spacer
>>2834

>>2832 here

I read this, re-read this and read this again. This is very good advice.

I reckon if I ever get on a bike, it'll be partly for this reason.
>> No. 2840 Anonymous
13th February 2014
Thursday 1:21 am
2840 spacer
>>2834
> you can add electrically heated grips to keep your hands toasty.

I can not recommend this enough if you plan to do year round riding. Unless it gets proper frosty you can get away with wearing thing leather summer gloves even in the wet without feeling the chill and, worst come to worse, if you add some handle bar muffs then nothing this green and pleasant land can throw at you will stop you… except ice, like >>2834 said, because that's an entirely different issue. There's a reason most EU countries that have proper snow & ice winters offer seasonal insurance.

Anyway, if you do want to hop on again, as others have said getting a few more lessons is helpful. A CBT is really only about "Will you kill others", not "Will you get killed". Besides, even if you don't go DAS getting an actual A license of any form will reduce your insurance quite a bit and save you the hassle of redoing your CBT in two years time.

Being scared (gosh, I am repeating people a lot here) is just fine. You don't want to be petrified, but being concerned enough to be conscientious is really what absolutely every traffic participant should aspire to; it just happens to matter more on certain modes of transport.

Getting more into what you asked about, riding in London is only as scary as you want it to be as long as you understand two concepts: taking the lane, and "safe distance, but not large enough to invite overtakes" (the latter is a matter of experience, sadly). You don't have to filter, you don't have to weave, you don't have to pull any kind of stunt… you can just ride along with commuter traffic and relax. The option to skip past the queues of cars is always there, but until you feel confident enough to navigate those gaps you really don't have to. That is not to say that traffic cannot be bullying, mind. Certain people have the MGIF mentality (Must Get In Front, a close friend of SMIDSY) so you have to position yourself confidently. That shouldn't be a problem, though, since even on a c90 you could comfortably keep up with most of inner city London traffic (the venerable c125 has only fairly recently been replaced by the Innova 125 for delivery riders).

As for picking up your bike, there are plenty of videos out there to teach you how even a skinny lady can lift a Goldwing… it's more about technique and less about being skinny, lanky, pasty, whatever.

The long and short of it is: if you want to ride, just go friggin do it.
>> No. 3067 Anonymous
9th October 2014
Thursday 1:35 am
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Thought I'd reiterate the point of extra training after the CBT with a tale of my first crash. I took my CBT a couple of months ago and hired a CG125; rode it around for 200 odd miles without too much hassle and built up a false sense of confidence. Today I was knocked right back down to size. I was about to enter a 30mph flyover, following two cars at about 25mph: one minivan in front and a saloon behind him. The minivan stopped abruptly for no reason whatsoever, and the sedan behind had to emergency brake. Panic mode engaged, I slammed on the front brake. All the shit about not panic-squeezing the front brake and using more of the rear brake on a wet road went right out the window, and the handful of practice emergency stops I did on my CBT were long forgotten. The front wheel locked, the bike slid out to the left, and I was thrown off to the right with a loud thump to my head (thank dog there was no traffic behind me). The bike's ok, and thankfully I'm not much worse off. Just a slightly throbbing head, and an ego that's far more bruised than my elbows and knees. Looking back, I may have been following half a second too closely (especially for the damp conditions), maybe I just didn't notice the cars in front in time, or maybe fixation on what was happening in front took away precious milliseconds of reaction time.

The kicker is that earlier today I knocked into a guy's rear bumper in 3mph traffic because my attention was focused on a traffic light for a split second (no damage done, just a rubber mark that he wiped away). Perhaps an omen of what was to come. I'll be staying in a state of permanent frostiness on the roads from now, and will be enduring public transport before I can get some extra lessons from an instructor.
>> No. 3068 Anonymous
9th October 2014
Thursday 3:33 am
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>>3067

Loads of people have little prangs like that. The big enemy for any biker is complacency - people tend to have accidents when they feel settled and confident on their bike and let their concentration slip. You see it with new bikers a few months after their CBT, you see it with more experienced riders who fall into a routine with their commute and go into autopilot or get cocky about how much speed and power they can handle. Be thankful that you escaped largely unscathed and learn what you can from it.

More training is always a good idea for any biker at any skill level, but especially for someone with just a CBT. It's also a good idea to consciously practice what you have already learned, whether that is mentally reciting your observation-signal-manoeuvre routine sometimes, talking yourself through a tricky junction, or practising emergency stops in an empty car park.

The significance of road conditions cannot be overstated; If your front wheel locks, you are pretty much guaranteed to fall off. Hazards that a car driver would ignore totally can be a real threat to a biker with so much less rubber on the road. Autumn is always peak season for bike accidents, when riders with rusty wet-weather skills come a cropper and fallen leaves create skid hazards and conceal hidden dangers. Anticipation is the key to avoiding these situations. Give yourself plenty of stopping room, read the road carefully and slow down as soon as you see a potential hazard emerging. You can avoid most kinds of trouble by just thinking a couple of seconds ahead.

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>> No. 2722 Anonymous
16th September 2013
Monday 8:12 pm
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Which is the worst train company in terms of service?
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>> No. 3002 Anonymous
22nd August 2014
Friday 10:11 pm
3002 spacer
>>3000
>To be fair, London Midland was putting whole crapload of money into training new drivers, who were then being systematically poached by other operators who could afford to pay higher wages because they weren't paying for training.
That's not quite right. The new drivers were retained by way of repayment clauses. It was the more experienced drivers who were leaving because LM ended up at the bottom of the pay and conditions league table by a margin that would see a Premier League team relegated in March.

They went through a phase of an almost-complete weekday service, followed by severe disruption on Saturday, followed by almost total cancellation on Sunday. They had a limited capacity to train new drivers, and each required six months to pass out. At the same time, their drivers were on three-month notice contracts, but enough of them were leaving to create a squeeze. LM operate a six-day week - drivers work four out of six, and Sundays are voluntary cover. Usually, because they're at substantial overtime rates, Sundays are over-subscribed. Since the drivers wanted a pay rise, and voluntary means voluntary, they effectively instituted an overtime ban which LM had no hope of retaliating for. Saturdays took the hit as they shifted their roster balance so that they got more drivers on weekdays but at the cost of more of them getting rest days on Saturdays.

The worst part of all this was that there wasn't really an underlying financial reason for it. LM weren't particularly tightly squeezed, they were just tight.
>> No. 3024 Anonymous
26th September 2014
Friday 1:09 pm
3024 spacer
Why are delays much more prominent in this country compared to Germany and Japan? Do they have more modern infrastructure?
>> No. 3025 Anonymous
26th September 2014
Friday 1:19 pm
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>>3024

Yes, they actually spent money improving their infrastructure whereas we are still using Victorian era rail technology.

India is about to take over us in terms of rail infrastructure and they have people hanging off the sides of the fucking things.
>> No. 3026 Anonymous
26th September 2014
Friday 3:59 pm
3026 spacer
>>3024
Their reputation is mostly external. The reality is that German railways suffer delays just like any other network. One of the running jokes is that these days DB stands for "daheimbleiben" (literally "staying at home", though I suspect the implication is "going nowhere").

https://www.youtube.com/v/wXjhszy2f9w
This might help you grasp the meaning:
http://lyricstranslate.com/en/deutsche-bahn-deutsche-bahn.html
>> No. 3027 Anonymous
26th September 2014
Friday 5:48 pm
3027 spacer
>>3026

British railway passengers have the second-highest satisfaction ratings in Europe, second only to Finland. Our services are expensive (partly due to low subsidies, partly due to the inherently high cost of maintenance in a crowded country), but they work fantastically well.

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/flash/fl_382a_en.pdf

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>> No. 2989 Anonymous
15th August 2014
Friday 11:30 pm
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Lads, what do I do in this particular situation? I rented a 125cc bike recently, but riding it around I realised that certain aspects of the bike theory test and the CBT I took a year and a half ago had completely escaped my mind.

I had no idea precisely what I was supposed to do at this junction. I'm fairly sure I cocked things up by riding into the middle of the junction as soon as the light turned green, and making my right turn in the face of oncoming traffic, which seemed to be far enough away for me to quickly make a safe right turn.
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>> No. 2995 Anonymous
16th August 2014
Saturday 2:47 pm
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OP can you post a picture of the bike you've rented, please?
>> No. 2996 Anonymous
16th August 2014
Saturday 3:13 pm
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You almost did the right thing. I encounter a junction like this every day. The correct approach is to ride into the middle of the junction and stop, indicating right. Wait for all the oncoming traffic to pass you going straight over the junction. The opposing traffic who are turning right will stop and do a similar thing. You can do what you did and nip in and cross the junction right first, but the oncoming traffic won't give you much time and I would consider it an unnecessary risk to take - you're already at the front of the queue, just wait for the oncoming traffic to pass.

Even if the lights turn red again whilst you're stuck in the junction, you'll have time to turn right before the other set of lights changes and you're in the way.
>> No. 2997 Anonymous
17th August 2014
Sunday 12:00 am
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>>2996]
There's no oncoming traffic going straight over - He's on a one-way street I think.
>> No. 3012 Anonymous
27th August 2014
Wednesday 12:27 am
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Thanks for the advice. In the future I will wait in the middle-right of the junction and wait until there's a clear gap for me turn right.

Another question: what do I do if I'm in the middle of traffic (e.g. three cars in front of me, three cars behind me) and I'm approaching a red light? I'm not very comfortable with filtering yet. Do I simply stop behind the cars in front of me?

If I do filter, is it okay for me to stop alongside the other motorbikes that have filtered to the red traffic lights? What if there are no motorbikes and only cars at the traffic lights - do I position myself alongside the cars? Slightly in front of them?
>> No. 3013 Anonymous
27th August 2014
Wednesday 12:31 am
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>>3012
If you're going to filter, do so slowly enough to properly check for indications. If the car at the front is indicating to turn left and you put yourself alongside it, you risk dying of stupidity.

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>> No. 3003 Anonymous
26th August 2014
Tuesday 12:55 pm
3003 Good night, sweet prince.
>From 1 October 2014, the paper tax disc will no longer need to be displayed on a vehicle windscreen. If you have a tax disc with any months left to run after this date, then it can be removed from the vehicle windscreen and destroyed.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vehicle-tax-changes
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>> No. 3007 Anonymous
26th August 2014
Tuesday 1:44 pm
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>>3006

I think your previous statement still applies. How many people are going to know that they can get a refund? How many people are going to bother?
>> No. 3008 Anonymous
26th August 2014
Tuesday 1:58 pm
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>>3007
>automatically

If anything, the only real change is that there is no longer an artificial value premium on a car based on what month it was originally registered in.
>> No. 3009 Anonymous
26th August 2014
Tuesday 2:10 pm
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>>3008

I really need to start reading things before I comment on them.
>> No. 3010 Anonymous
26th August 2014
Tuesday 4:02 pm
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>>3007
>How many people are going to know that they can get a refund?
Or in other words, how many people miss out in life because they pretend to be too busy to read written information supplied to them? A lot, I'm sure. Why you'd blame anyone but them, I'm less sure about.
>> No. 3011 Anonymous
26th August 2014
Tuesday 6:09 pm
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>>3010
I'll say it again:
>automatically

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>> No. 2946 Anonymous
30th July 2014
Wednesday 10:49 am
2946 Autonomous automobiles to be street legal by January 2015
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28551069

So, lads, will you be buying a self-driving car? Watch this space lads.
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>> No. 2951 Anonymous
30th July 2014
Wednesday 12:52 pm
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>>2950
Top lads, them.
>> No. 2952 Anonymous
30th July 2014
Wednesday 1:32 pm
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>>2948
Reminds me of that Martin Clunes film of the bloke who wakes up naked in Scotland after his stag night.
>> No. 2953 Anonymous
30th July 2014
Wednesday 2:33 pm
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>>2947
I remember reading somewhere (some article linked on Slashdot a few months back) that they won't allow you to use them while you're pissed up.

So basically, they're fucking useless.
>> No. 2954 Anonymous
30th July 2014
Wednesday 4:20 pm
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>>2946

Autonomous technology will almost certainly be introduced progressively as the technology develops. Many new cars (Volvos, Mercs, some VWs) are already equipped with assisted braking technology that will automatically apply the brakes to prevent a low-speed crash. The next step is probably intelligent cruise control that is capable of following a car in front or overtaking slower traffic, as motorways are a relatively controlled environment and so easier for software to navigate.
>> No. 2955 Anonymous
30th July 2014
Wednesday 4:25 pm
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Remember not to buy one of these if you have any political ideas that are unpalatable. Otherwise you'll find yourself wrapped around a tree.

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>> No. 2905 Anonymous
7th July 2014
Monday 9:40 pm
2905 Sibling is a dangerous driver
Although I've always thought my (18 year old) brother is something of a little shit, I've never really considered going to the filth about him until today. This evening, after eating out, he was driving me and my family (4, all told) home in a small hatchback (my parents') and refused to put the lights on, despite it being dusk and other drivers having theirs on, and our reasonable requests to do so ('anonymous, please put the lights on'). He simply refused and kept going, eventually braking aggressively and shouting that 'everyone's a driver!' (I've been qualified for just under 5 years, my mum and dad since the dinosaurs), refusing to see sense.

He then took off, doing at least 25-28 on a 20 mph road with speed bumps. At this point I demanded that he stop and let me out, but 'I'd had my chance', refusing again on my second and third requests and he kept going. I eventually said unless he stopped the car I would call the police, upon which he duly did, with much snarling and all that wank. We all got out of the car and he fucked off to god knows where. AFAIK he's still driving somewhere, gone to a friend's house or wrapped around a lamp post.

My mum and dad basically pretended nothing had happened as we walked home. I wouldn't let it go and said that he is clearly not fit to drive a car (I didn't go so far as 'and needs professional help', for my sins). In any case, my parents don't seem to have any intent of doing anything meaningful concerning his behaviour. He's always been a bit of a prick; in the last two years he's become a really arrogant and selfish asshole, but this is behaviour is genuinely life-threatening, to himself, passengers pedestrians and other motorists.

I am in two minds about what to do. On one hand he might become more of a cunt if I really take matters into my own hands, such as by calling the (non-emergency) filth, and cause bad drama with my parents. On the other, he could end up being responsible for the death or injury of an innocent person. Exactly what I should do next, I don't know. I've tried googling 'what to do if dangerous driving' and other similar search terms but nothing is coming out. Are there any charities that might be able to help out with this? I'd be very grateful for any advice.
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>> No. 2929 Anonymous
7th July 2014
Monday 11:25 pm
2929 spacer
>>2928

In all fairness he shouldn't have called the poster who gave him the most sensible and well intentioned advice a moron if he didn't want a cunt-off.
>> No. 2930 Anonymous
7th July 2014
Monday 11:31 pm
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Cunt offs on /mph/. It's the end of the world I tell you.
>> No. 2931 Anonymous
8th July 2014
Tuesday 12:15 am
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>You are just a hateful cunt.
Says the guy who wrote all this:
>You sound like a self-righteous, self-absorbed, know-it-all, horrible bastard.
>You are a cunt mate. I hope you die in a car accident.
>You are honestly a vile creature. Fuck right off.
>> No. 2932 Anonymous
8th July 2014
Tuesday 6:51 am
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>>2930
All thanks to /*/sfw/.

Simple answer, but don't get in a car with him.
>> No. 2933 Anonymous
8th July 2014
Tuesday 9:51 am
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>>2909

I thought this was a quality post which made a lot of good points. The whole 'he could kill people' argument is both valid and void at the same time.

He could ride a bicycle like a knob and kill someone, or run down some stairs and kill someone etc... etc...

OK sure, he's in a motor vehicle so he has a tool that could do that a lot easier but you're going for the worst case scenario. It's far more likely that in driving like an idiot he'll get caught by the old bill who will give him a talking to + more if they feel the need or by a speed camera.

If you want to try and get through to your brother, maybe try an approach where you ask him if he's ever killed anyone before. Then ask why he's acting like he wants to. Or something, I don't know.

Also, him killing someone might not be such a bad thing, the person he kills could be an utter cunt.

I'd be more concerned about him ending up as one of those pricks on Road Wars.

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>> No. 2886 Anonymous
13th April 2014
Sunday 6:49 pm
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What do you fa.gs use for face protection for cycling?

I'm thinking of buying a ski mask to prevent bugs hitting my face and warmth. Would you recommend anything in particular?

There's some dirt cheap masks on ebay was wondering if any of you lot have them.
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>> No. 2887 Anonymous
13th April 2014
Sunday 7:25 pm
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My dad's in his mid 50s and has cycled all his life, he's never worn one and nor has anyone I know except someone I met who cycled from Siberia to England for a laff.
>> No. 2888 Anonymous
13th April 2014
Sunday 7:45 pm
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>>2886

A mask that makes you look more like a roving Anarchist than a pretentious cyclist. Not that it doesn't also do the latter, just less so.
>> No. 2889 Anonymous
13th April 2014
Sunday 8:17 pm
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Like most long-distance cyclists, I use a Buff-style neck tube. They're very versatile, especially if you opt for a relatively lightweight lycra fabric. You can wear them simply as a neck-warmer, as a mask, as a balaclava or as a hat. In the depths of winter I layer mine with a hat, during spring and autumn I use it singly. You look like a bit of a fanny, but that goes with the territory really.
>> No. 2890 Anonymous
14th April 2014
Monday 2:40 am
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I've never used anything, but I have a fairly bushy beard during the winter so that's probably enough. Plus my commute rarely takes me above 18mph so there's not much wind chill.

A Buff is probably your best bet though, unless you want to be shot by SO19.
>> No. 2900 Anonymous
11th June 2014
Wednesday 10:04 pm
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For my daily commute I use a pair of cycle glasses and that fixes most of my bug problems. I do occasionally catch a bug in my mouth but I am not convinced this warrants the hassle of having to use a mask. When it is really cold I'll probably just drive anyway.

I think if I were commuting in a city (read: London) I would use an anti-pollution mask though. Not sure to what degree those masks work but heavy breathing in traffic is no fun.

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>> No. 2711 Anonymous
8th August 2013
Thursday 7:26 pm
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So are any of you mechanically minded? I bought an old 2 stroke brit motorcycle for a few hundred quid a few years ago, with the aim of teaching myself about bike repair and how to ride. Trouble is, I bought a motorcycle that has no handy Haynes repair manual available, and in the process of trying to teach myself to how to ride it, I broke the damn thing.

Before I cocked everything up, the bike seemed to work pretty well - the engine would always rev up after a couple of kickstarts, would idle happily in neutral, but it would always stop because I had no idea how to manage the balancing act between engaging the clutch and getting into first gear. I only managed to get it into gear and actually ride the thing once out of a total of about 40 failed attempts. I thought I could continue with this trial and error approach until everything finally 'clicked', but the universe had other plans.

One day I repeated the procedure of kickstarting and trying and failing to get into first gear about 5 times. On the 6th kickstart, a loud bang emanated from the exhaust, and it seems to have killed whatever archaic techno-wizardry was going on in the engine.

When I try to engage the kickstarter, nothing happens. The engine doesn't start. The kickstarter turns, but now there's a 'whooshing' sound that wasn't there before, as if it's forcing air out of somewhere.

What could be the problem?
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>> No. 2891 Anonymous
29th May 2014
Thursday 9:58 pm
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A belated thanks for the advice. I've finally got around to tinkering with the bike, and I seem to be closer to identifying the problem.

It turns out that the whooshing sound is coming from between the cylinder head and the cylinder itself; a blown gasket perhaps? Would a blown gasket make the loud gunshot-like sound I heard when I first messed up the engine? In any case, I've ordered a replacement gasket for a tenner and will have a go at changing it myself.

What about tools? I have wrenches, socket wrenches, pliers, and screwdrivers.Anything else I might need? I don't think I'll need a torque wrench as I haven't seen any mention of torque values in the owner's manual.
>> No. 2892 Anonymous
29th May 2014
Thursday 10:19 pm
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>>2740

Neighbour banging on the ceiling levels of mirth.

I'm a child, clearly.
>> No. 2894 Anonymous
29th May 2014
Thursday 11:02 pm
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I can't listen to this song without crying
https://www.youtube.com/v/j0kJdrfzjAg
>> No. 2895 Anonymous
29th May 2014
Thursday 11:18 pm
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>>2894

I prefer the bluegrass version.

https://www.youtube.com/v/YW-w0KgE-8s
>> No. 2896 Anonymous
30th May 2014
Friday 12:21 am
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>>2894

100%, it's one of the finest songs in the English language. Thompson is a bloody genius.

Fuck it, this is a folk music thread now.

Songs I can't hear without crying:

https://www.youtube.com/v/D9UJSZKsYwM

https://www.youtube.com/v/wmhACB1ZPQM

whiteline
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>> No. 1688 Anonymous
9th April 2012
Monday 7:37 pm
1688 Road bikes
So I've just bought myself my first road bike - it's a Raleigh Airlite 200 which I paid £400 for; 3 months ago it was £600 because it's a 2011 model (no difference in 2012 models except the design, really).

It's a pretty standard entry level road bike - alloy frame, carbon forks, Shim Sora 18-speed gears.

Any of you lads ride a road bike? What do you ride?

Also, would you advise me getting a triple chainset so I can increase the number of gears to 27?
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>> No. 2881 Anonymous
1st April 2014
Tuesday 5:38 am
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>>2877

CFRP is really complicated stuff. You're not so much dealing with a material as an engineering structure in its own right. It is very difficult to generalise and the "average" properties of CFRP depend enormously on the industry and application.

The properties of the fibre itself vary hugely depending on the fibre manufacturing process, with elastic moduli ranging from 55GPa to 900GPa and tensile strength from 2000MPa to 6000MPa. The best fibre is shockingly expensive, dwarfing the costs of even very exotic metal alloys. You generally can't get strength and stiffness in the same fibre, so there's a complex tradeoff between cost, strength and stiffness.

Once you've chosen your fibre, you need to look at the laminate. Fibre volume fractions can vary from 30% with a crude wet layup up to 60%+ with a pre-preg process. Excess resin is worse than useless, adding weight and undermining the strength of the laminate. Ideally, the fibre needs to be completely wetted-out without any surplus resin. Air bubbles (voids) severely undermine strength, riddling the laminate with nucleation points for stress fractures and delamination. Autoclave processing massively increases the strength of a laminate by reducing voids to a minimum, ensuring proper resin distribution and allowing for the use of stronger high cure temperature resins.

Standard woven cloth is very convenient (both in design and manufacturing), but it's a relatively poor way to use the fibre. The crimp created by the interlacing of the fibres translates some normal stress into shear and the uneven surface of the cloth reduces the fibre volume. Unidirectional fabrics maximise the properties of the fibre by avoiding crimp, but increase design complexity substantially and makes the laminate less resilient to mistreatment. A woven fabric allows neighbouring fibres to support each other, so that a break in a fibre caused by drilled holes or damage only affects the local area. With UD, a broken fibre can move within the matrix, contributing little to the mechanical properties of the laminate.

The net result is that there's a vast range in the practical properties of CFRP, with bicycle frames being at the higher end. Because a bicycle frame is relatively small and high-value, you can go hell-for-leather in optimising the layup. You can afford to use high-grade fibre, heated steel tooling with internal bladder moulding and a high-pressure autoclave; You can trust the user to care for the frame and inspect it regularly for damage, so you can get away with using mainly or exclusively unidirectional fabric. Most engineers using composite materials don't have those luxuries.

The range is fairly broad just within bicycle frames. A basic carbon frame costs about £500 and weighs about 1.2kg, a top frame might be ten times the price and half the weight for the same stiffness. The difference is mainly accounted for by better quality carbon fibre, a more complex layup schedule and more careful process control.
>> No. 2882 Anonymous
1st April 2014
Tuesday 7:27 am
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Compared to a hybrid is it harder to cycle on a road bike than a hybrid? Over the same distance / geography.

I have both and it certainly feels like that to me.
>> No. 2883 Anonymous
1st April 2014
Tuesday 7:41 am
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>>2882

Depends how you define 'harder'.

A road bike is easier in that it uses your strength and power more efficiently, so for the same amount of energy, you go farther and faster. But a hybrid is far more comfortable on your arms, back, arse, and feet, so the same ride may leave you feeling fresher on a hybrid. A hybrid may also be geared lower to make hills easier (but slower), though a compact crankset on a roadie does much the same thing.

A road bike is invariably more efficient though so if we're talking pure effort of legs vs miles traveled it will always win. In your case you may feel the fatigue in your body more than your legs, or maybe your road bike is less appropriately geared for your riding. Do you live in a particularly hilly area?
>> No. 2884 Anonymous
1st April 2014
Tuesday 3:33 pm
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>>2883
> Do you live in a particularly hilly area?

Yeah I do somewhat.
>> No. 2885 Anonymous
1st April 2014
Tuesday 5:50 pm
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>>2884

It may just be that your road bike is geared higher than your hybrid then. Though if you feel like your roadie is still harder to ride than your hybrid on flat roads, I may be talking out of my calloused arse.

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>> No. 2849 Anonymous
25th February 2014
Tuesday 2:11 am
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_the_United_Kingdom,_Crown_dependencies_and_overseas_territories#Characters

>Due to batch registrations of new cars, it is common for cars with "neighbouring" letter sequences to be of the same or very similar specifications.

Who came up with this system and thought that was a good way to assign these letters?

Just imagine a granny that was nearly run over by a silver Vauxhall Astra and calls the police, but can't remember the last two letters. Then the police looks up the number plates and there are a hundred nearly identical silver Vauxhall Astras, all of which have almost the same plates except for the last two letters.

Literally any other way of assigning these numbers would have been better.
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>> No. 2855 Anonymous
25th February 2014
Tuesday 4:39 pm
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Would it not be possible to use IR paint (if such a thing exists) to alter a car's number plates in such a way that it's invisible to the naked eye but says something different if seen through an IR camera?
>> No. 2856 Anonymous
25th February 2014
Tuesday 5:14 pm
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>>2850
>It records the journeys of everyone indiscriminately and stores that data for up to two years.
Sigh. Why can't I be left alone?
>> No. 2857 Anonymous
25th February 2014
Tuesday 6:55 pm
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>>2854
>It records the journeys of everyone indiscriminately and stores that data for up to two years.
I'm going to need a source on that, because that sounds awfully illegal.
>> No. 2859 Anonymous
25th February 2014
Tuesday 6:59 pm
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>>2857
Why couldn't you have spent a single Google search?
http://www.police.uk/information-and-advice/automatic-number-plate-recognition/
>> No. 2860 Anonymous
25th February 2014
Tuesday 7:05 pm
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>>2859
It's not our job to substantiate your claims for you.

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>> No. 2835 Anonymous
11th February 2014
Tuesday 1:42 am
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Been having a few problems with my bike recently. The front wheel always goes flat too quickly despite having changed inner tube a few times, the chain skips over the gear rings occasionally and the brake pads drag slightly on the wheels in motion. Need to decide whether it's worth paying to have it fixed or just get a new bike. It only cost me ~£100 second hand a year and a half ago but I really liked it, it has such a light frame. Yet it seems like I could easily end up spending almost that much fixing everything.

If I were to get a new bike I'd probably want a road bike, seeing as short city commutes are my main use at the moment. I'd definitely rather have some gears though as opposed to anything singlespeed/fixie. Can anyone recommend some reasonably solid bikes for this purpose? I don't want to spend loads but I want something reliable.
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>> No. 2844 Anonymous
13th February 2014
Thursday 4:05 pm
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>>2837
>tighten the valve core into the metal housing

Some valves I've seen have a nut that screws on outside the wheel rim, is that what you mean? Generally the cheaper schrader tubes don't have this though.
>> No. 2846 Anonymous
14th February 2014
Friday 7:33 am
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>>2844

Both presta and schrader valves should be supported on the rim with a nut. Presta valves have a threaded core that needs to be unscrewed before pumping and then tightened, rather than the sprung pin on a schrader valve.

>>2843

Tyres generally need to be pumped harder than you might expect. If the tyre noticeably sags under your weight, it's too soft. The harder the tyre the more efficiently it will roll, so you want the tyre to be as firm as possible without the ride quality being impaired.
>> No. 2847 Anonymous
14th February 2014
Friday 8:07 am
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>>2843

>maybe before I just wasn't pumping them enough?

Thats probably true. If you can afford either a pressure gauge or a decent pump with one in (I recommend the Topeak Joe Blow, the yellow one - thirty quid in Evans or Wiggle), then you'll be set. It's very hard to judge otherwise.
>> No. 2848 Anonymous
14th February 2014
Friday 10:07 am
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>>2844
Nope. 'C' had flats on it, and needed to be screwed in a bit with pliers. Since doing that, tyres stay up for ages, rather than 2 days.
The eventual clue was when C came out when I unscrewed B.
>> No. 2878 Anonymous
29th March 2014
Saturday 1:57 am
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>>2847
I completely agree, a track pump is always a good investment (mine's a Lifeline jobbie which cost a touch under £20) but as long as you don't go for the cheapest tosh you can find they all work OK. For any complete newbie: on the tyre wall, it'll give you a pressure range the tyre supports; if you're riding on the road or anything other than sand, you want to be pretty close to the maximum pressure. Off-road biking has it's own rules, but let's not get into that.

>>2843
> apparently the wheels were a bit wonky and one was slightly buckled so he righted them up a bit somehow

It's the "truing" I mentioned above. Unless it was actually damaged, it means adjusting the tension on individual spokes to straighten the rim. Skip this if you know what spokes do. The spokes are under tension pulling the rim this way and that. The spokes have a butted end on the axle side and a threaded end on the rim side. Spoke lugs (you can see them poking out of the rim) screw onto the threaded end and anchor them to the rim. Those lugs can be tightened or loosened to adjust the tension and since the spokes attach left and right of the rim centre at the axle end that tension ends up pulling the rim in their respective direction (the rim is quite flexible, so with the tension it is by no means "straight" by default). Re-truing a wheel is tedious work, but oddly satisfying. The wheel is strapped into a truing stand which has very precise callipers and once minimum tension is achieved those callipers are used to make sure the wheel runs perfectly even. Spoke tension should be as even as possible and thankfully spoke production is quite a precise science theses days so counting the turns done on a lug is enough to compare actual tension. You can do this at home, but unless you enjoy tedious mind numbing work (I do) don't.

whiteline
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