coldel

It was very much mob mentality and some sort of 'we are in a movie' style behaviour took over. If the guy who got hurt was indeed helping another fallen biker then he should also throw some blame at those that charged the RR in the first place. As for sitting there and dialing 999, sorry but you wouldn't just sit there having a chat with some call centre person on the phone whilst some guys smash your windows in, really, you wouldn't. The guy is just feet away from you, the nearest police help once you have confirmed location etc is going to be minutes away, thats too late.

I could be very cynical and think bigger than the UK, and think that the likes of the UK and Europe want to curb China's global presence by stopping them from churning out production using inefficient and pollutant methods that we have self imposed bans on ourselves. I really don't think a couple of hundred quid tax on a car makes jack all difference, industry or not. I reckon we pay about 100 taxes many stealth a few more obvious every year we just don't know it or care to find out unless its headline stuff that political parties stick on the front of manifestoes.

Now thats a crock of sh1te

I havent got mine either... Not exactly good service for my first month...

I think it was more 75/25 bikes/rangie fault. They were riding their bikes very badly along a multi laned road, bike meet or not thats bad manners and is clearly going to cause problems for other road users. Maybe the rangie parped them, shouted out the window, or just drove close to them but he seemed to upset one guy who with utter stupidity took it to a next level with the braking maneuver. The rangie seemed to stop for some time, we can't see what happened but suddenly he just took off. He shouldnt have driven over a bike like he did, but he wouldnt have hit anyone had the plant life not tried brake testing him. As far as I am concerned if someone brake tests you and gets hit like that, its their own minuscule brained fault.

To be honest I think the idea that governments are using it as a reason to tax us is way off the mark. If it wasn't climate change, they would find another way they already tax us in hundreds of ways there would be another reason, they have been doing it for centuries. I am going to have a punt and say its more likely a political tool to enforce change on the likes of China who chuck out the most crap in the world (but of course means they are developing at a rate that threatens the likes of the US). From what I read, I don't think we are just speeding it up, it looks like we are shifting it beyond a natural recoverable limit?

http://news.sky.com/story/1148430/bikers-attack-range-rover-driver-after-collision

God that looks stunning - could so end up getting one of these after the VX!

We don't always agree Ekona but I'm with you one hundred percent on that. I am sick to death of people (unemployed or otherwise) moaning about the cost of having kids. Can't afford em, don't have em! I was on a job that paid a lot, my wife had a great job lined up, between us earning a fair amount of cash. Then her job suddenly got dumped out of the blue and I got made redundant in the same week with a 3 month old baby. Yes we took a punt that I was paying for everything and that my job would be safe when having our baby but we had a huge amount of bad luck in the space of a few months financially, and to be honest how else can you plan for a baby other than having a job and not being in debt? Also we were having trouble conceiving, time was running out as we both approached 40. So it was now or never. Prior to the job nightmare we had I had been in continuous employment for 12 years, I don't shirk work. We lived off our savings for a while but that child benefit made a massive difference to simply paying for some food shopping as we tried to make it stretch as both of us coped with the demands of a young baby and huge life change and trying to find work in a recession hit market place. Its not always just scroungers taking in child benefit.

Nice

Also: Driving into walls in empty car parks Going around roundabouts way too fast for the car to handle at the same time as shouting out 'weeeeeeeee'

Hmmmm. unworkable, too draconian, won't really make a dent for the £300m they are looking to spend on it. Its just another headliner to garner support from the majority employed.

Check around the engine for leaks? Literally stick your hand in there. Also if the car is going to sit idle for a couple of days stick some cardboard underneath which will show clearly anything leaking down from the car. Are you getting any blue smoke from the exhaust? Especially on start up (valve stem seals?).

Absolutely. But so far industry has vastly won over sustainability, no one wants to give anything up. Shock tactics like this are necessary.

Around 2:45ish today

I would disagree Nick, even when sitting at 60 i would rather do it in a zed than a diesel golf. There is still more fun in that and you will have to do minor roads at either end of the journey as well as various bits of overtaking in the main roads.

I think Spursmaddave used to commute on main roads in his and clocked up 100k+ worth dropping him a PM

Karma rules!

There is more carbon on the planet at this exact time than since humans began inhabiting it. Yes there was more CO2 in the atmosphere in the past, but that was dictated by nature not by another intervention i.e. us. The levels basically go up and down around a natural mean, what we have done is whack them up falsely and subsequently the temperature way past that natural high that the planet would produce and can naturally cool down from. What you are basically looking at is heating the planet up to the point that so much ice melts, ocean levels rise and ground based life as we know it wiped out on a huge scale to the point it wont ever recover naturally in the cycle its meant to because the land mass does not exist to produce the life required to reduce the CO2 and subsequent heat. As an analogy, its bit like driving your Zed into a garage on a set of rollers, closing the doors, having no fans on facing the car and firing the engine up. There is no natural flow of air into the front, the engine will heat up more than it should, the fans in the Zed will kick in but they will only last so long before they burn out and the engine heats up even more and goes bang.

I think you answered your own question there? More carbon dioxide means more heat in atmosphere, this means ice caps melt and oceans rise. What happened previously is as you say, we had a natural ice age, more ice, less trees, but less CO to deal with and vice versa, but the planet needs tens of thousands of years to adjust. We have by increasing the CO artificially over a relatively short amount of time (and the decrease of forrest fires is minute compared to the levels of natural resource burn increase and in no way offsets it) gives the planet no time to adjust naturally. The ice caps melt and freeze periodically as far as I have read, the problem is that we have artificially whacked up the temperature so that they melt back too far and be unable to grow back in the natural course of things.

I am not a greenie either But as far as I read into it (and as I say it wasn't very far) is that they were not trying to prove the hypothesis that humans are creating all the climate change, the hypothesis being tested was that we are not causing climate change, which has been proven false. From what I have read over the years there are cynics who simply put it down to natural causes and that we should't put in place any counter measures as its out of our hands, the point of this was that we can do something, even if it is not a total solution. And that we can only do something about it if we are causing some of it in the first place. As far as I can see there were lots of individual papers that told slightly varying stories, but this is the first truly global report pulling it all together and making a single storyline from it. Of course we are not the sole cause of all temperature changes on this planet, thats daft, but to think that we don't need some serious global polices put in place to stem carbon emissions and the like is probably more daft.

Didn't Will have one for a few days? My Dad bought one when Alfie was born (he even relaid his driveway to stop Rebecca accidentally stumbling when she gets out the car with Alfie!), just wanted a reliable car which is super practical and safe with him in the back. He's a car mechanic and he loves it, he went for the petrol version as purchase price is substantially cheaper but he loves it and is not easily impressed with cars.

Hmmm, I have a few views on this although I openly admit to not actually reading extensively either side of the argument: 1. Yes the media will blow it all up and make a story out of it, it's their job to 2. It is very possible to write models that predict future behaviour based on previous experience even if that data is partial or incomplete, it was my job for ten years and still is part of my job now 3. Humans must be altering the climate of this planet if any sort of common sense is applied, you can't create the levels of non naturally produced gasses etc without having an impact on the environment in which it exists 4. Yes the government will tax us on it, but there are hundreds of stealth taxes out there that contribute much more in the way of income than some random tax on cars and if anything this sort of report is aimed at big business and not individuals who happen to own larger than average engined cars Problem is its more than just carbon emissions, we were at a zoo with little Alfie at the weekend listening to some guy talking about Lemers, apparently 85% of rain forest in northern madagascar in which they live has been cut down and burnt. I am sure there are a thousand similar stories just like it. Without some sort of shock story or massive kick up the backside this planet with be shot to pieces in 50 years time. If it takes this report to do it whether its nonsense or not, then fair play because I haven't seen anything else work so far.

As RT says, by definition the wheels/axle width is now wider than before which the car was not set up for. Running a geo is absolutely important. Funny that since getting the VX where the handling is so 'frisky' the geo is the one thing every member gets done regularly, although very rarely see it done on here?

I know! Gits! They didn't want to get embarrassed by a little Vauxhall