Be Excellent To Each Other

Tell that to my Mum. Bought me a bike for my 13th birthday and a cycle helmet too.

A week later, foolishly tried to jump up a kerb from a narrow angle and stuffed it up, went over the handlebars and hit the ground helmet-first. Almost certainly saved me from a pretty serious head injury.

Walked home sheepishly, still aching a bit from the crash, walked in the door and showed Mum my helmet.

"That was £30! I'm not buying you another one!"

I'll go as far as saying you have a serious head, but 'pretty' is pushing it.

Hah! Brilliant. The helmet I lost in my crash was £400, almost certainly saved my life, and I don’t begrudge ‘losing’ that money in the slightest.

For anyone that was wondering about this.


A cheerful 'fuck you' to those who originally mocked my resolve in getting my money back.

They go on to say how it was all a terrible mistake and they apologise for making it, yada yada bullshit bollocks.

Nice one. But I don't think anyone said that you shouldn't try and get your money back, just that if they said no that you probably wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

That was always arguable, and I certainly didn't think so. Challenging Hertz to provide evidence about the extent of the damage was sufficient for them to admit they didn't have a leg to stand on.

Next time drive more carefully, then you won't need to claim it back.

Or at least drive with the radio on full and the windows open so they don't hear the bumps.

I've never had an accident or made a claim on insurance. Tapping a post at 2mph when reversing doesn't count. Thanks though, I'll make sure that I take out the full insurance the next time I plan to do this.

<ring ring, ring ring>

"Hello, Fate, God here. I've just found out the name of that person who's been poking you with a large stick..."

I don't believe in in fate, or god, and I know that joking about something, such as coming down with a fatal kind of cancer, doesn't increase my chances of getting such a disease. Cancer me up, God, if you're listening, you incompetent moron.

I don't believe in fate at the moment either, but I know I will in the future.

It would be lol-tastic if I did now die from cancer, but it would be entirely coincidental. I can't fathom the people that think otherwise.

Or if you died from thousands of hire cars slightly bruising you.

You probably will die from cancer, it's the biggest cause of death in the UK.

Cheery thought for a Friday afternoon!

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/14/mortality-statistics-causes-death-england-wales-2009#]
No it isn't[/url].

-edit- no idea why that url tag isn't working.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... ales-2009#

Nah - heart disease, isn't it?

Locusts.

In Scotland you're at a high chance of dying from everything, not least of all being knifed by a Glaswegian.

Weird

http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer ... emp#Cancer

This completely contradicts that. I wonder which is correct?

It's just the way they are grouped. The cancer research chart shows all cancers grouped together and circulatory diseases split into different conditions.

Sure, that's what I thought, but adding the circulatory diseases on the CR chart together still doesn't get it anywhere close to the cancer figure, let alone pass it?

I think it does. I've only added the figures for men but if you add CHD, strokes, other heart disease, and vascular diseases it comes to 85440.

The UK's biggest killer is dogs. Evil things, with their cold, dead eyes...

I thought it was reavers.

On the CR chart, I can't find the source data to add anything up that precisely?

And I wouldn't put strokes in as heart disease.

If you roll over each bar it gives you the figures. Strokes obviously aren't heart disease but they are circulatory which is how the Guardian's chart groups them.

Ah, so it does



Indeed. The Guardian chart isn't showing that heart disease is the biggest killer, it is showing that all circulatory diseases combined put that above cancer. Which if we are doing that, then I would put a combined measure of "stopped breathing" as above everything

My manager's car caught fire last night at 2am. Fire people said it was possibly due to an electrical fault. It'd be fine, only the car parked next to, which it was his wife's, also went up in flames as a result.

Collateral damage is a bitch - send her some flowers.

Just get a grenade in the sink hole and you'll be fine.

I had to drive to Newcastle and back today in a hire car - a company arranged, excess waiver paid Kia. It was super fast and had 6 gears. I managed to get it clear of the ground on some crests on the A68 and properly sideways on the twisty bits after switching the ESP off.

What were those statistics again?

Fuck me mate, "super fast"...? What have you been driving the rest of the time?

Some interesting stuff here about the best and worst performing car marques, in terms of their first MoT pass rates (3 years from new obv.)

Yet again, French manufacturers come out by far the worst; Jap stuff by far the best.

"By far"? Do numbers mean different things to you than they do to me?
Interesting to see that Fords have the best pass rate near Dagenham - I can't really see why that would be the case.

Dagenham Motors, innit?

Meganes will fail on bulbs because of the front ones being impossible to get at and the dealers charging 170 to replace one. Who'd bother until they had to?

Yeah, and?

[edit] @ Curio

twingo has an 84% pass rate, 20% better at passing mots than other cars of the same year. God Renault are shit.

Stats are fun!

It helps illustrate that these statistics have little or nothing to do with the actual car design or build quality. Dagenham local ford owners will be 'proud' - possibly employees, so look after their cars better.

Small cheap French cars will be a second car used by the 'missus', and generalisation says things like bulbs won't get spotted or rectified.

RIP Carroll Shelby

Well, this is what the piece that I linked to had to say about it:



But anyway, here's the breakdown (no pun intended):

http://good-garage-guide.honestjohn.co.uk/mot/2008

A Suzuki, Lexus, Honda or Toyota (very diverse vehicle types and prices) typically passes its first MoT 90% of the time, so for all of these Jap marques, only one car in ten fails, obv.

Now, your average Fiat, Peugeot, Renault or Citroen only manages a 70% first time pass rate (sometimes even worse), so that's three cars in ten failing - three times as many (200% increase), even after only three years from new.

So yeah, I feel quite comfortable with "by far". Besides, this study of some 24 million vehicles is only telling us - or at least strongly inferring - what we already know from countless other reliability surveys from Which, JD Power and innumerable car mags over recent years.

No, it only illustrates that whilst there may well be localised anomalies like this, these are most certainly evened out when you've a massive data set of 24 million cars. By way of example, it's not as though Ford comes out of this very well, despite this 'Dagenham effect'



Even if that were true (and I don't think for a minute it is btw), how come equally small, equally cheap, equally common Jap cars (not least the Suzuki Splash, Nissan Micra, Mazda 3 etc.) come out so much better...? These too, according to your theory, would be "cars for the missus" (and presumably women are incapable of spotting or changing a bulb anyway Don't mention this to Mrs Caveman or the Teen Angels if I were you mate lol).

Gutted. What an absolute Legend.

RIP man; thanks for the AC Cobra.

Hah, I said it was a generalisation!
Could make another about the Suzuki, which strikes me as a retiree's car, which are normally low milage and well looked after.

Regardless of whether you agree with the results or not, I just think it's a very vague metric. I mean, at the first MOT you'll have fails that are either basically the user's fault, or normal wear items like brakes. What does that tell you about the reliability of the car? Not an awful lot.

Perhaps it's more a measure of the dealership, also. Nissan, Honda etc all have dedicated dealerships don't they? With some incentive to keep the customer happy with that make. Whereas French cars are sold through dodgy multi-brand franchises like A***** C*****, who are going to be mainly out to gouge you at the first MOT.

Yes, I appreciate it was a generalisation. I'm not suggesting that you thought every small French car was driven by someone's wife and/or that all women can't spot, less still change, a blown light bulb.

I just don't think it holds water, even as a generalisation, not least for the reasons I identify: the propensity of equally small, equally cheap Jap cars for being far, far less likely to fail their first MoT for one thing, even if we accept that most of these cars are "for the missus", which I certainly don't anyway.



Partly, yes, but not wholly, as that Honest John piece makes clear. There are plenty of manufacturer-derived defects and reduced longevity/quality issues that can also lead to MoT failure, too.



Well, it probably does tell us something about the reliability of the car; we can all agree that a huge bunch of cars that fail their MoT, as compared to another huge bunch of cars (the same age) that all pass, is likely to be less reliable statistically?

But actually, I believe it does tell us something about the mean *quality* of these cars.



Eh? There are loads of Renault, Citroen and Pug main dealerships!

Hahaha there are Land Rovers in the top half!

Well done mate, perhaps they are really improving their quality now.

Porsche didn't do very well though!

EDIT my bad, yes they did.