is this scary

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weety
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is this scary

Post by weety »

am i right to be scared.... i was doing the tyre pressures on my car at my local garage and a bloke drove up in an old Saab....when i had finished he asked me if i could set the numbers on the tyre pressure machine for him...as he could not see them...aggghhhh
oh and he wanted 40 PSI put in his tyre as it had a slow puncture!
am i being wet or is that really scary???
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Post by nick »

Was there a very nervous looking labrador sat in the passenger seat ?
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fastandfurryous
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Post by fastandfurryous »

I'd have refused and told him to get his eyes sorted or stop driving. Bad eyesight causes countless crashes, including fatalities, every year. I keep trotting the statistic out, but 97% of the 3500 fatalities on UK roads are caused by Driver fault. Only 3% are Mechanical failure. We test the car every year, but the driver once in his/her lifetime. It simply isn't right.
My grandfather gave up driving when his eyesight began to fail. He actively made sure he was up to standard all the time. If he could, then others should too.
Be scared. I am whenever I drive.
alan s
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Post by alan s »

I suppose it depends on how big or small the letters are on the thing he was looking at.
A lot of people can't see4 small things up close but don't have a problem with larger objects further away.
When I had the driving school, I worked in Sufers Paradise and in those days the traffic consisted of trucks, semis, cars, motorbikes, touristy type queer pedal car things and pedestrians all wandering around looking like noddy dogs; heads bobbing everywhere but looking where they were going.
I took this bird in for a licence test after giving her a few lessons in the Surfers traffic. The tester came outside looking all embarrassed and asked me how long I'd been driving with her, did she do anything unusual when driving and did she normally wear glasses.
It turns out she couldn't read the TOP line on the eye chart, which explained why a couple of times she had asked "is this a stop or give way sign?" but used excuses as to why she couldn'yt read the word.
It also turned out that she was a full blown druggy and when she eventually went for a test (wearing glasses) decided to give herself a "hit" before she went and managed to blow it....at that stage...I gave up!![:(!][:(!]
So I suppose, seeing as how this one of mine never even went close to nailing anybody when I was in the car with her, your man might not have been as bad as first thought...then again......
Alan S[}:)][:D]
Jon

Post by Jon »

My mother can't read anything close up, and has to find reading glasses, but her long distance vision is superb. She can read Motorway or road signs at a great distance, and can spot detailed things from a long way away. No problems with her driving either (aged 63).
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fastandfurryous
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Post by fastandfurryous »

Just about every air-pressure electronic display unit in the UK has Digits about 30mm high. If you can't read that (and my father, who is also in his early 60's and needs glasses for driving can read them just fine) then there's definitely something wrong. I think I heard somewhere that some 15% of the drivers on UK roads would fail a sight test, which is a standard Number plate (VIN) at 20 Meters. That's scary.
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Post by bxbodger »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">oh and he wanted 40 PSI put in his tyre as it had a slow puncture!
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
I don't believe there's anybody who has never done this at least once!!!!
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Kowalski
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Post by Kowalski »

I blew my tyres up to 35 psi when I had a slow puncture, the standard pressure was 33.
Overinflating tyres is dangerous, underinflating is dangerous, its best to get the puncture sorted out quickly.
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Post by yangreen »

I've done it! My first car (Frud Fiesta) and I hadn't got a clue what it should have been. 40psi made the steering very light so I guessed it was a little too much! Almost had a wheel fall off that one as well. The wheel hadn't been done up very tightly. It was my very first day after picking it up and I was doing 70mph wondering what the noise was. Glad I stopped to check!
weety
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Post by weety »

it was a standard BP tyre machine display about 30 mm high, i could easily read the numbers from the other side of the car..... actually i agree with fastandfurryous why cant there at least be compulsary eye tests every five years
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Post by Homer »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by alans</i>

I suppose it depends on how big or small the letters are on the thing he was looking at.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
I agree, he may be long sighted, but if that was the case then how could he see the numbers on his speedo?
And <i>everybody</i> knows that is the most important thing to concentrate on!![^][:o)]
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Post by narnie »

Agreed old people should not drive, End of story
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Post by Homer »

Define old.
My kids think I am old.
Come to think of it most people I work with think I am old.
Should I be banished to the bus?
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Post by vanny »

I might have to get my mum to read this! She works in the Opthalmology department of the local hospital with at least 70% of her patients being over 60. They are ALL advised NOT to drive in for examinations partly because there are no parking spaces for miles around, but more importantly when they come they usually have very bad vision, quite a few have Glaucoma and most of them have there eyes fully dillated to go on one of the machines!
But yes you guessed it, even with there eyes fully dilated they still drive home! Happens all the time, and my mum's little AX proves it, there is not one body panel without some sort of major un repairable dent in it!
But to be honest from a young drivers point of view, although the elderly driver who clearly has no vision and a generally waining ability to drive is quite a frustrating danger to come upon, there not the worst! At least with one of these geriatric disasters waiting to happen there going slow and you can usually spot them far enough away to avoid them!
I'm all up for retesting every five years for two specific groups (maybe three). Firstly young drivers! It's true, they pass there test and think they can drive, WRONG! I've been driving 4 years now and would consider myself a safe driver, but not a good driver, my consistency is poor and i still have a lot to learn. But i think im probably unique in that view, most of my mates think there really good drivers, so far i haven't had a crash, been pulled over, written off a car nor had any sort of speding ticket, all of them have. So let try to educate the kids and have them realise that once they past there test they need to learn to drive!
Second group is buisness drivers! Historically in BMW's and Mercs but more typically these days in Audi's and VW Bora's with the TDi engines. You know the ones, those that sit about 2" from your bumper if you even think about driving in the outside lane. These are the ones that probably have a huge amount of driving experience, but have no respect for the road other peoples lives or there own lives. They just dont seem to understand that being wedged up someones tailpipe does not get them anywhere fast. We all have the problem when someone hogs the lane, personally i sit back and wait for them to move, and sit far enough back that as they begin to move over i can accelerate go past and come back into the lane. Your 'buisness' driver is so close that when you do move in they've lost momentum and look really bloody stupid with the whole lane empty in front of them.
My other possible target is Ford Focus drivers, not needs be all of them, I do have a thing against them but it's a certain type of driver that i dont like. They do the same as the buisness driver but in 30 limits in built up areas, these are the yuppies that like to yell abuse out of the window, drive with fogs on and never indicate. Round here there usually propelled by cap wearing scallys without brain or job. There leathal and quite often have no insurance, lets just rip up there license!
ah, i love ranting, but i've noticed the quality of driving has deteriorated massively since i passed my test, which means the almost old people on the board must be getting scared about how poor the driving quality has got?
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Post by yangreen »

No, you are wrong. The biggest problem is people who aren't like us. The ones who do not care about driving and only do it as a way to get from A to B. Hard to believe but there are people who see cars in the same way as an iron. It's just for doing a job. They don't care about driving properly. They don't care about indicating or using their headlamps in fog (plenty of them this morning!). They will totally ignore road markings and will drive along at 5mph trying to find somewhere without having the decency to think there may be a queue behind them wanting to get a move on. Ok, there are some dodgy people out there who know exactly what they are doing but there are millions more who are just oblivious. My girlie's Grandma (now passed away) used to drive a Rover SD1. She used to stop at the end of motorway slip roads and wait for a gap!! She would also reverse back around roundabouts if she missed her turn. Thank goodness she stopped driving in 1995! An extreme view but one for us car fans to consider. Now you've got me ranting too!
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