Top Gear!!

Don't think such thoughts didn't immediately flash through my mind within nanoseconds of pressing the Send button...

The message from Mike Tomlinson contains these words:

And that's /after/ she's flipped 'em over each shoulder.

Or the litre of petrol still in the tank, the forgotten CD in the glove compartment, pack of imperial mints...

Yeew, quite. I'm surprised the brake vacuum dissipated so quickly. They used to say it was enough for a couple of full stops even if the engine had cut out.

Judging by the audience figures they've got the mix about right. And I doubt you could find the budget for a one hour prog with more cars given that it would be for a much reduced audience.

Personally, I find it an excellent mix. At least they don't test baby seats etc. ;-)

Yep, there's summit wrong there mate! MOT fail at that.

Naah - not surprising - I would guess that Clarkson was thrashing the Volvo, previous owner may have never seen 3000 rpm. Hamster will have been keeping up in the honda-powered rover and they are well capable of being thirsty when thrashed.

The law about hand held phones specifically excludes 2 way radios that cannot be used as a telephone...

IIRC the 1.6 GTi was shorter geared than the 1.6GSi and was as quick as the

How do you thrash a modern(ish) car on the motorway and keep your licence? Stay in 3rd gear?

I won't go into detail, but the general idea is that you arrive at green lights and it's easy to overtake etc when you're not up somebody's bumper.

Peter (petermcmillan snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Because you don't understand.

Very dependent on the phasing of the lights, and only where there's a long series of lights, such as the A4/Bath Road through Slough.

Erm, how does that equate to "driving a bit slower"?

Just don't get caught - quite easy on most motorways outside wales or northamptonshire

Cop out intended for the cops.

-- Peter Hill Spamtrap reply domain as per NNTP-Posting-Host in header Can of worms - what every fisherman wants. Can of worms - what every PC owner gets!

Peter wrote on 24 May 2004 11:47:15 -0700:

But if you'd already overtaken them before the lights, you'd get there faster still, surely?

The message from "David Taylor" contains these words:

Not necessarily. If you overtook in advance and got stopped by a red light the person who'd hung back could arrive at perhaps 30 mph just as the lights change while you're at a standstill.

I suspect I annoy a lot of the Nova brigade by passing them at junctions where they've raced ahead and stopped and I've arrived at a more auspicious moment. Roundabouts are a gift for this. Once you've stopped it's harder to merge with the flow. If you arrive too fast you can't make a judgement about whether to go or not and have to stop. Arrive at a well chosen speed and you'll often slip past waiting cars because you can join more easily from a flying start.

For all that - it's marginal, but I reckon I can get through traffic /as fast/ as more aggressive drivers by being sneaky and thoughful.

Oh, I didn't realise that. Of course they're much safer than mobiles aren't they ;-)

It depends. When I used to go to work I could arrive at a green light and overtake about 5 cars in the LHL. The 5 cars would've previously been going faster than me and I just shoot past (not too fast though) the sport cars etc in my 899cc Sei, it's very rewarding :-D I beat all of the sports cars etc up to the speed limit with a 25mph head start :-)

Well, the term they used was 'driving like a maniac'. That's where I've got that from, but I didn't explain it properly before.

the key to 'making progress' is to maintaina good average speed , through anticipation and so on

i don't care if you can hit 60 mph down the high st , if you get stopped at every set of traffic lights

make them drive a milk tanker or a gutless diesel minibus for a few hours !