A Blog from Another World

Whilst walking around ‘The Barbican’ which is the oldest part of Plymouth, and the place where the Pilgrims left for a better life in the New World, I happened upon this….

Yes, believe it or not, that is a “Party Ambulance”. No it doesn’t go around the city picking up the people who have had a few too many drinks and ruined the party atmosphere – the itention is that you hire it out and drive around town with tunes and a lightshow in the back (I didn’t look inside, so I can’t be sure if there is a strecher or defribulator!).

This is the latest (or so it would seem) in the Limo type party experience. I remember last year someone was hiring out a fire truck to take you to your party, well now you can have the “Party Ambulance” pick you up when all that partying is done!

You saw it here first kids!

About a month before I went to New York I started learning to drive, except for my dumpster incident, I have been getting better and better and my driving instructor was pretty impressed with me today.

In order to pass your drivers test and get a full license in the UK, you have to take not only the “written” (or theory) and practical tests, but also a ‘Hazard Perception’ test which is part of the written test. Its all done on a computer, first you are asked 35 questions about driving law and how to operate and maintain your car and then you get a 3 minute break before the next part.

The Hazard Perception test consists of a series of 14 video clips shot from a camera mounted on a car, you assume the role of the person driving the car and you have to click the mouse when you see a “developing hazard”. There is a countdown system, if you click your mouse when the hazard first appears then you get 5 points, for each second later you loose 1 point, unless you get zero points if you would have caused an accident because you didn’t react. You have to get 44 points out of a possible 75, 13 of the clips contain one hazard, one contains two.

Because this is fairly difficult to explain, I have uploaded a video clip from the training CD I have. This is not an official government video, so its not as good a quality as those used in the actual test, but it gives you an idea of what its like.

Watch the video at YouTube by clicking here.

I think its fairly easy to spot the hazard there – the kid drops something in the road, but doesn’t look before he runs out and grabs it. Every drivers worst nightmare, but you can see that this does have a positive effect – those people who cannot pass this test, can’t get a drivers license.

The UK is, as far as I know, the only country in the world that currently does this. It has been a requirement for about 4 years now, but weather it has succeeded in lowering the number of deaths on the road, I don’t know.

So, now that I have passed the theory and hazard perception tests, I can continue to take lessons and get my driving up to a standard where I can take the practical test. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes!

This afternoon my driving instructor picked me up for my lesson as usual, but he had some news for me, we would probably end up in lots of traffic jams today because of an incident that happened earlier in the day – a low-loader truck carrying a cherry picker smashed into a footbridge over a main road near the train station and dragged it 50 feet down the road! The road, although now re-opened, was closed for some time.

These are some photo’s I took tonight, its kinda spooky, the steps to the bridge are in tact (although apparently their foundations were seriously damaged), but there is no bridge across the road!

You can read the full story on the website of the local paper, the Plymouth Herald, here.

Those of you who don’t know me very well might not know that I have been taking driving lessons back in England. I am doing pretty well and I have about 19hrs experience. I took a break from that to go on my vacation, which I am spending with my good friend Gina and her family in New York.

Gina’s step-dad, Steve, wanted to move the cars from the driveway so that he could mow the grass on either side of it. He told me to get the keys to Gina’s car.

Lets just say that the car Gina has been driving up until recently is pretty beat up. She can’t drive it anymore because it won’t pass the NY DMV Inspection which is due now.

This is the car; it’s a 1991 Chevy Cavalier.

So I thought that I would try and help Steve out by moving Gina’s car. All I had to do was reverse it 30 feet down the driveway. The last thing Steve said to me before I started the car was “Don’t hit that dumpster!”.

This is the dumpster; it’s about 1.5 cubic yards in capacity and made of solid steel!

Now, I have never driven in the US before and I have never driven an automatic car before; so both of these were very different to me, since we drive on the left in the UK.

I started the car and put it into reverse. Now I am pretty sure I didn’t hit the gas pedal, but then I didn’t hit the brake pedal either! According to Gina and her Mom who were watching, the car shot backwards at 40mph and went straight into the dumpster, knocking it over and pushing it back about 5 feet from its usual spot.

Apart from being knocked over and moved forward, the dumpster didn’t sustain any damage apart from some paint which rubbed off the car. Although Steve had to use a tractor with a snow plough to push it back to its usual spot.

The car however, was damaged. The trunk was dented and the plastic covering the rear lights was smashed up, there was also damage to the bumper.

Apart from a very dented pride, I was fine and Gina was cool about it too, since it is not economical to do any work to the car to get it to pass the inspection.

I think I’d better stick to driving cars with dual controls and manual gearboxes that have the driver’s seat on the right hand side for the time being!