Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Hot Wheels loop-the-loop
Remember Hot Wheels? It was a brilliant game that you or your brother or a friend of yours is likely to have owned at some point during their childhood. It might even still have a place in your heart and under your bed, secretly.
Well, two drivers in America have recently got into the Guinness Book of World Records for performing a double Hot Wheels loop-the-loop.
What’s so impressive about that you might ask? Me and Dave had our little cars going round those loops all the time!
Well, the thing is that in this case the loops were more than 60 feet high and the drivers went round them in real vehicles.
One of the men who performed the stunt said that he experienced extreme G-force on his way round the giant section of Hot Wheels track, and struggled to avoid blacking out.
The other driver involved is reported as having said, “I tell you what, I'm at a loss for words. That was absolutely the coolest thing I've ever done.”
The previous holder of this record was a Chinese driver who drove round a 42ft loop in September 2011.
The Hot Wheels set that I have in the attic doesn’t seem so exciting anymore…
Photo © dougww via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: cars, drivers, Guinness Book of World Records, Hot Wheels, loop, stunt, vehicles
Friday, June 8, 2012
Road closed due to a lot of hot air
There’s a strong likelihood that at some point in your driving career you’ll encounter something on the road that you weren’t expecting, be it a family of ducks crossing to the nearest lake, or a children’s football game down a quiet residential road.
If you’re driving safely, these odd surprises shouldn’t be a problem, but it’s true that some may become stories to tell for years onwards if the incident was unusual enough.
Over the Jubilee weekend many motorists will have picked up a great story.
A hot air balloon with sixteen people on board began flying so low – because of a lack of breeze – that the balloon’s operator had to contact the police to explain that he had to land on the road or else risk hitting people’s houses.
Thankfully, everything went smoothly. One of the people who had been riding in the balloon’s basket stated, “When we came into land I think we hit a tree and a road sign which probably softened the landing.
“When we touched down we all cheered. No one was panicking and the police grabbed the basket to stop it dragging or blowing away and we all got out.”
Phew! That was a close one – I bet a hot air balloon landing near the road is not something drivers expect to see every day. Now that’s a story!
Photo © Eric Lim Photography via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: crossing, drivers, driving, hot air balloon, Jubilee, motorists, police, residential, road
Monday, March 12, 2012
Littering motorists grind our gears
No one at the Hoot offices enjoys seeing litter on the ground, so we’re welcoming the news that soon there may be a fining system coming into effect for drivers who drop rubbish out of their car onto the road.
As difficult as it might be for the car-proud among us, it is important that we keep the UK’s highways clean by keeping the rubbish we’ve made in our cars until we arrive at our destination and can throw litter away in a bin. By the end of the month, authorities in London will be able to fine littering motorists up to £100 for their offence, and we’ve got our fingers crossed (like the Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman) that authorities all over Britain will soon be able to fine drivers who litter too.
It isn’t fair that some road users think it’s alright to make a mess of our roads and have councils and other authorities clean it up, usually at a cost to all tax payers.
The Highways Agency has said that if all of the rubbish thrown on UK roads annually was collected and put into bin bags – 700,000 of them would be filled.
So, it you never litter the roads we applaud you – and if you do, don’t.
Photo © riverofgod via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: bin, clean, councils, drivers, fine, highways, Highways Agency, litter, littering, motorist, offence, road, rubbish
Friday, March 9, 2012
The friendly woonerf
Apparently, in about ten years’ time, the UK government may begin using a traffic calming measure already in use in Amsterdam.
If I write ‘woonerfs’, you might think I didn’t check my blog through for typos, or perhaps you might think that I’m about to tell you about some strange woolly animal.
Well neither of those thoughts would be correct, because a woonerf is a type of road layout which is slowing motorists in Amsterdam down to about 12mph without much work.
Meaning ‘road for living’, or ‘living road’, a woonerf provides motorists, cyclists and pedestrians with a more equal amount of space.
Drivers are forced to slow down by strategically placed plants, play areas, buildings, and an unnerving lack of pavement kerb, making it difficult to tell where you should be driving and where pedestrians should be walking.
The Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) undertook a survey and out of 4000 people, only 27% were against the appearance of woonerfs in Britain.
Unfortunately for the individuals who’d happily see them in the UK right now, it might not happen for a while yet. The executive director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety has explained that at the moment councils just haven’t got the money to be introducing these new road layouts.
However, he believes that when the UK starts building things again, as our economic situation improves, woonerfs may begin to help reduce the number of accidents on our roads.
Well we can’t wait to see these woonerfs, they sound friendly.
If I write ‘woonerfs’, you might think I didn’t check my blog through for typos, or perhaps you might think that I’m about to tell you about some strange woolly animal.
Well neither of those thoughts would be correct, because a woonerf is a type of road layout which is slowing motorists in Amsterdam down to about 12mph without much work.
Meaning ‘road for living’, or ‘living road’, a woonerf provides motorists, cyclists and pedestrians with a more equal amount of space.
Drivers are forced to slow down by strategically placed plants, play areas, buildings, and an unnerving lack of pavement kerb, making it difficult to tell where you should be driving and where pedestrians should be walking.
The Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) undertook a survey and out of 4000 people, only 27% were against the appearance of woonerfs in Britain.
Unfortunately for the individuals who’d happily see them in the UK right now, it might not happen for a while yet. The executive director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety has explained that at the moment councils just haven’t got the money to be introducing these new road layouts.
However, he believes that when the UK starts building things again, as our economic situation improves, woonerfs may begin to help reduce the number of accidents on our roads.
Well we can’t wait to see these woonerfs, they sound friendly.
Photo © La Citta Vita via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: accident, Amsterdam, cyclists, drivers, government, IAM, Institute of Advanced Motorists, motorists, pedestrians, road layout, slow down, traffic calming, UK, woonerf
Friday, December 16, 2011
More than your five-a-day
At a traffic junction in Coundon, Coventry this week something very strange occurred.
Motorists in the UK always have to be prepared for precipitation, but drivers in this area were witness to a very different sort of rain. Out from the sky fell – not water – but apples.
Yes. Apples.
One road user stated, “The apples fell out of nowhere. They were small and green and hit the bonnet hard. Everyone had to stop their cars suddenly.”
There have been two theories presented since the fruity downpour. One involves a plane losing its cargo, and the other involves a mini tornado sucking apples from an orchard somewhere and then letting them go over Coventry.
Well, you’ve heard the stories about raining frogs and fish – now you’ve heard of apple-rain.
We’d quite like it to rain money next. We’re carrying buckets around with us just in case.
Photo © Grey World via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: apples, Coventry, drivers, experienced motorist, fruit, junction, precipitation, rain, road user, traffic
Friday, November 18, 2011
Lollipop lady stops charging horses
Lollipop men and women have to be quite brave, we think, what with some of the reckless drivers there are on the road.
So we definitely take our hats off to one 53-year-old lollipop lady who stopped a group of charging horses on her watch!
She stated, "I looked up the road and thought that's a lot of horses.
"I stood there and held my stick out as they ran towards me and they must have been startled by my jacket.
"It was lucky the horses didn't come running along 10 minutes earlier as they would have killed some children.
"It's not something you expect to see"
Guiding the horses into a garden, she kept them off the road until the police and RSPCA came to take over and the owners arrived to return the animals back to the field they had escaped from.
The headteacher of the school for which the lollipop lady works applauded her quick thinking, and we do too!
Photo © Joybot via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: drivers, horses, lollipop lady, police, road, RSPCA