British Expats - Transport / car advice

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Re: Transport / car advice

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aucklander (Post 9278375)

[*]Applying make up & doing hair

I had a girlfriend once who told me she thought it was sexist that vanity mirrors where always on the passenger’s side only.

Re: Transport / car advice

In New Zealand any car journey you can walk away from is considered a good one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by janeyk (Post 9263085)

as other poster has said insurance tends to be cheaper here , WOf is about $50 or less takes 20 mins max
Japanese imports are in abundance or were before the earthquake we both drive 10 year old cars that have done 60k miles and are great for what we need, although they do not tend to come with instruction manuals, 2nd keys and radios that need the band

Would you want the Japanese manuals anyway? Haynes manual is what you want petal. You can swap the head unit as well if you have some wiring skills. On the lower FM frequencies you used to be able to pick up police bands :blink:.

Re: Transport / car advice

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aucklander (Post 9278375)

What rubbish about automatics encouraging a lazy approach to driving thus causing accidents. Why do the drivers in the UK & Europe cling to old fashioned manual transmissions? I drove automatics in Australia for 32 years & 8 years in NZ as most people do. Are you also saying that Australia has a high accident rate also because of this preference? Also why don't Formula 1 race cars have manual transmissions?.

Accidents are caused by ignorance & lack of attention & the real culprits of inattention are these point listed below all of which I have witnessed other drivers doing.

Mobile phones calling & texting
Turning round to supervise children in rear
Applying make up & doing hair
Eating & drinking
Reading papers & maps
Getting dressed whist driving
Smoking & using cigarette lighter
Fiddling with sound system
Not leaving enough room for error
Failing to make use of rear & side vision mirrors

Last week on a motorway in Spain I saw a man changing gears, talking on his mobile & filling in paperwork on his lap all at the same time as he was driving at speeds of over 110 kph!

May I point out they are not 'accidents' but collisions. Accidents insinuate a minor, blameless, unimportant event IMO. Calling something an 'accident' when some pissed up, excess speeding knob has killed someone else because of shitty, uncontrolled driving is about as much an 'accident' as I am the popoe. I was plod we called them RTAs, I refered to them as RTCs.

Re: Transport / car advice

Quote:

Originally Posted by Genesis (Post 9278624)

:thumbup:

Re: Transport / car advice

Quote:

Originally Posted by Genesis (Post 9278624)

Plod you should know better an accident is an accident until proved otherwise in a court of law & the word accident is what we lesser folk use to describe accidents.
With regard to the standard of driving in NZ that is a whole different ball game. To do it justice I would upset the Dept of Immigration, the Dept of Ethnic Affairs, the Dept of Political Correctness I would be accused of sexual discrimination, racism & probably be deported to the Middle East as a terrorist. But the simple truth is a lot of the people driving on the roads of NZ are from South Pacific Islands & have little or no experience driving manuals or automatics. As a Polynesian friend once said to me the first time in his life he had worn shoes was when he came to NZ, but having said that & having driven in most of the countries on the planet some of the biggest wankers I found were in the UK. Could this be because they are driving manuals or are they just plonkers behind the wheel of a car.

Re: Transport / car advice

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aucklander (Post 9279150)

Ah - now I understand. Here in Canterbury I find the driving standards and the courtesy of drivers very similar to back in Scotland and the rest of the UK. So is it because, shall we say, there is less ethnic diversity ?