Category Archives: Cars

Stuff about the cars

Cars, Web/Internet

My DVLA Online Vehicle Registration Experiences

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The Vehicle Licence Application form for the Golf turned up in the post today, however since the last time we taxed a car, it seems that the DVLA have taken a step forward. Rather than have to go and queue up in a local post office to get a tax disc, the envelope and renewal form were plugging the chance to pay your car tax online.

It has to be said that in typical fashion the URL they are putting all over the renewal document is currently wrong – http://www.direct.gov.uk/taxdisc producing a ‘Document contains no data.’ error. However it looks like this is only a problem with the redirect, a bit of digging around located http://www.vehiclelicence.gov.uk/, which is the site itself. (www.direct.gov.uk is the central site for government services, but it is really just a collection of links to the individual departmental sites.)

Anyway, the one obstacle I thought there would be to an online service is that the trip to the post office to tax a car has a second purpose, which is for someone official to check that each vehicle has valid insurance and if over three years old, has passed it’s MOT test. However these checks are actually done automatically during the online process by checking details against the Motor Insurance Database run by the Motor Insurers Information Centre to combat the problem of uninsured drivers, and the MOT details can be validated as a result of the new computerised MOT testing processes.

It’s a lot quicker, and is also available 24 hours a day. Essentially all you need to do is type in your reference number or car registration number, select 6 or 12 months tax, and type in a debit card number, so no more queues in the Post Office at lunchtime for me!

Cars, General, MobLog

Stopped on a Hill Top

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This morning was one of those crisp winter mornings that you sometimes get, with a hard frost picking out the branches of the trees, and almost everything covered in a layer of white. The weather also resulted in mist collecting in the valleys, and any smoke, such as the smoke from chimneys, just hanging in the air. In most places the temperature was hovering around freezing, but made it down to -2½°C going through Alton.

Having said that, whilst it looks pretty, when you’ve got a 44 mile drive ahead of you down country roads, you never quite know what you’re going to find! Since this is the third winter I’ve been driving down to Havant, I’m starting to learn the blackspots. There are several corners that I take especially carefully, where the Focus has started to slide. Whilst the Golf so far seems better in winter, it is still the standard British set up in that it is using summer tyres. (For anyone elsewhere in the world who is suprised by that, established British wisdom is that because our winters are pretty mild, there is no point in swapping over to winter tyres. More than that, most cars are supplied, and stick with standard summer tyres rather than all seasons. As a result, on the occasions that the temperature does drop a bit, the majority of the people on the roads are driving on tyres that, if the manufacturers are to be believed, serious underperform.)

Anyway, I got to Alton without any particular problems, however, heading up over the hills between Alton and Selbourne, on the B3006, everything ground to a halt. The B3006 is probably the most difficult road on my route to work. It is the most direct route from Alton to the A3, however it is very narrow along it’s entire length – buses and trucks have to pass each other very carefully – and at one point in Selbourne there is barely space to pass two cars. The general direction the road planners are going in is to try and discourage use, signing the A32 and the A272 as the route to Petersfield and the A3, however anyone with local knowledge knows that it takes significantly longer, even with the chicanes and speed limits. As a result, especially during rush hour, the road is pretty busy, mainly with cars, but including buses, as the main bus route from Liss to Alton goes straight down the road too.

Not surprisingly the road does seem to be one of the more frequent places that I come across accidents, probably once every two to three months. This morning was one such day. I also tend to sit it out if we come to a halt, unless the Police are explicitly turning people back. Whilst there are other ways around, invariably I end up either stuck in another queue on an alternative route, or on a road that is even more narrow!

This mornings accident was actually on a straight bit of road, but again one of the really narrow bits. I came to a halt not too far back, and within sight of the rescue vehicles and police cars, so I assume that the accident had only recently occured. In the end I was stuck for about 20-25 minutes whilst they loaded the wreckage and cleared the road.

However looking at what was loaded and drove past whilst I was waiting, it was one of those situations where there was a depressing familiarity to what I saw. In fact a couple of days ago I’d narrowly avoided similar accident. What went past was a Renault Scenic with a crushed front wing on the drivers side, and a rather mangled looking BMW motorbike – nothing else. A few days ago, and many many times before, on that particular straight, I have narrowly missed motorbikes, that despite the fact that the road is barely wide enough to pass two cars, line run – overtake traffic by riding down the centre line of the road. What makes that stretch worse is that before and after there are a couple of dips in the road, and slight wiggles that can hide cars, so this is one of the few straights where they can pass, so they take risks, sometimes trying to overtake just one more car. The accident was just at a very slight bend. I’ve been lucky enough to miss them, some unfortunate driver this morning had one of them crash into their front. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been into motorbikes, but I can never understand why people do it, surely they must be aware of who would come off worse, but still the number of bikes that weave between traffic, ride close to my back wing at speed, or push it when overtaking is truly frightening.

Cars, MobLog

Phoney Surveys

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I’ve just got hit by a Halfords rep trying to get me to sign up to their new credit card using a tactic beloved of a number of parts of the Energy Industry – the phoney survey.

I went into the Halfords branch in Havant to get a replacement headlight bulb as (much to my satisfaction) when the drivers side bulb blew last night, I managed to replace it myself using the bulb from the spare bulb kit I keep in the car. Anyway, I found the bulb without a problem, and paid for it, however hanging around by the door was a girl with a clipboard.

She said she was promoting the new Halfords credit card, and did a speil about how it could earn points to spend at Halfords (looking at the deal it is a £10 voucher for every 1000 points), and she was surveying for eligibility. Now I’m not in the market for another card, as we have two already, one gives us a cashback that we can spend anywhere, and the other is clocking up BMI miles, which are going to take us over to Canada next summer. Anyway, we went through a list of pretty general questions, basically making sure I was a UK resident, had a bank account, good credit history and so on, however rather than then telling me that I could have a card, she handed me the form she’d been filling in to sign on the bottom. Reading above the signature line, in bold it said that by signing the form I was agreeing to take the card – basically the usual agreement under the Consumer Credit act that all credit card applications include.

At that point I said I wasn’t signing as I didn’t want the card, so she told me that that wasn’t what I was signing for. Even when I pointed out the line in bold, she still continued to argue the point until I basically told her that I didn’t want the card and left.

I’m assuming that she was being paid on commision for every customer she signed up, the same reason it is tempting for energy salesmen. That coupled with the fact that a lot of people won’t read what they sign (how many times have you read the small print on a form?) and the fact that it will be a month or two down the line when the card turns up that people will realise, and she gets a nice commision. Having said that, what she is also doing is breaking another part of the Consumer Credit Act by mis-selling a card, which I guess she hasn’t realised.

Cars, Focus Grumbling

The Problem With Rain

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Well the windscreen guy has just been and gone. As the weather is so poor today – varying between heavy rain and mild drizzle, and there is nowhere under cover that I can put the car at the office, he can’t do the windscreen here. (Note the clear blue sky in the picture of the crack I took yesterday!)

The only option he could offer is to take the car down to their depot, which is in Portsmouth, but as everybody else will be doing that as well, he can’t say when it will be done. Even once it is complete, it will take several hours before the car can be moved to allow the windscreen sealant to dry. He has offered to rebook it for next week, when hopefully it won’t be raining, and he has also said that they will talk to Reading depot and see if it can be booked in there tomorrow. Of course although it would be tight, the other option might be to put the car into the garage at home and they could do the work there.

He did say that the windscreen was perfectly safe, as the problem is not with the glass. Although there is a small hole in the glass near the edge, the crack is not in either of the glass layers in the laminate, it is in the inner layer of plastic, so no danger of the windscreen falling out!

Oddly enough, it was also the same guy who came out earlier in the year, hence when he called, he’d already found the car in the car park, recognising it from last time! First thing he said when I came out was “You’re not having much luck with windscreens are you!”