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Re: Women Drivers & Parking


Gardian
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[quote user="You can call me Betty"]I think that "I could (just) get in refers to the ability to get into the car that had been parked there already, prior to the Land Rover arriving. Logically.

[/quote]

Thank you Betty.  Yes indeed, when I arrived I had acres of free spaces all around me ... but as above, they all, including the land rover (who must have driven in the wrong way because of the angle he was parked at) had arrived whilst I shopped and were determined to park close to me.  If he'd been there when I arrived, do you really think that I would have tried to squeeze into such a difficult spot, when there were plenty more available?   Logical - encore.

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Upon retirement we got rid of a car. We simply do not need more than one car usually and frankly IF we ever really needed a second car, I suppose we would simply rent one for the specific purpose......cheaper than buying one.

I park best these days, I'm pretty good at it really. However, with the trailer on the car, I still cannot reverse well, or even park it in anyway accurately, not that I usually have to try............ M. Idun is ace at such manoeuvres.

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'His' car! yes and I think that in some homes you'd think it was 'his' telly too when sport is on!

Can't be doing with such blokes myself, but I know too many who put up with such behaviour. [:-))]

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Whilst we have only one car now I would really love to get a second one, It would have to be something like an MGB or an MX5 or even a Fiat Barchetta.

Unfortunately that idea goes down like a lead balloon due to the fact that Mrs PD would not be able to get out of one, even assuming she had got in. All a bit too low for a less than flexible back.

Reversing a trailer is an acquired skill, small trailers are very difficult, the bigger the trailer the easier it is. It's the distance between the towing vehicle and the trailer axle that matters.
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Agreed. It is often far easier with a small trailer to unhitch it and push it by hand. Well it is for me, anyway.

A large 4 wheel trailer is a different story. I used to help out on a farm and never got the hang of reversing the trailer loaded with hay bales. No matter how I steered the tractor, the trailer snaked in every direction bar the one I wanted it to go. And yet the farmer's son could make it look easy.

And yes, my wife can park a car better than I can, but don't let her see this.
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  • 2 weeks later...
Just going slightly off subject, Mrs G & I have just been watching one of those recent UK parking problem programmes which we recorded. Horrendous and exemplifies the nightmare of driving in the UK.

Anyway, we found ourselves wondering what would happen if they ever employed somebody to try to regulate parking in our local village.

Its quiet in the off season, but quite 'touristy' in the summer. Parking can be difficult, but somehow it works. If they tried to regulate it though? I could imagine the sight of the individual hanging from one of the plane trees by his nether regions.

Lesser things regularly happen to the (happily few) speed cameras in these parts - shot at, slurry poured over, and more permanently, half a load of ready mix dispensed as an appendage.
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Gardian said:Horrendous and exemplifies the nightmare of driving in the UK.

Now you have me scratching my head, you really have. There are some bad drivers in the UK, bien sûr there are, but my there are in France and the UK is a far more relaxing 'drive' than France.

And parking well, I really have seen horrific parking in France, the like of which I have never seen in the UK.

Did I live in the wrong part of France and now the wrong part of the UK?????

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In my old dept in France we were one of the rare places where a speed camera was put, at the most ridiculous of places,and not a dangerous road, although there were about three very dangerous places within 5kms.

This speed camera was decorated with paint, tar, capote anglais and someone took a marteau to it too. It gets cleaned up and working again every time someone has a go at it, it was put there years ago and is still there.

When there were fetes warning notes would be put on cars that were badly parked, the garde champetre did that. I can never remember anyone being fined.

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It's a nightmare driving anywhere where there's a lot of traffic. Parts of the UK are undoubtedly bad, but is Paris, for example, any less of a nightmare? Having spent many an hour of my life that I'll never get back, sitting on the Peripherique in the back of a taxi and not moving, I can't say that it's any less prone to bad driving and traffic snarl-ups than London.

The M25 may have its moments, but there doesn't seem to be quite the nightmare scenario that happens on just about every autoroute in France each summer, when almost the entire population seems to set off on holiday together in a 2-hour window....

I'm sure if you're driving to (or around) some far-flung village in the wilds of Suffolk, you'll encounter next to no problems with parking or driving from A to B, just as you can enjoy an open road and a stress-free journey with parking at the other end in some godforsaken backwater in rural France, but comparing apples with tomatoes isn't really fair, is it?

I would guess that there's a large cross-section of French society who would swoon at the very suggestion of making a TV documentary to poke fun at the problems faced in the battle between parking enforcement officers and people who just want to park their cars. Just 'cos the UK is a bit more capable of self-criticism, this isn't necessarily illustrative of a greater problem.

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[quote user="idun"]UK is a far more relaxing 'drive' than France.

Did I live in the wrong part of France and now the wrong part of the UK?????[/quote]Without question !

If  you wanted one word to highlight the difference between UK drivers and French it's aggression.

Too many UK drivers seem to be one toot of the horn away from road rage whereas the French are rarely aggressive but do seem to be congenitally stupid and unaware of what's going on around them.

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I'd certainly concur with  that last sentence. Driving, as I do on a daily basis, in one of the most densely populated areas of the UK, I regularly encounter aggressive driving, but then I think some of it stems from the fact that many drivers just assume that nobody is going to be polite to them, so why should they be polite to anyone else. In deepest rural France, I've had my wing mirror removed by an overtaking vehicle on a completely empty road with ample room, and I was very nearly killed (good job I'm used to reacting to aggressive drivers!) by an idiot who decided, from two cars behind, to execute an overtaking manoeuvre when I had slowed down to turn left. Had I not been able to quickly abort my turn, and drive my car onto the hard shoulder (luckily on a small part of the verge which had no ditch), I would either have been rammed from behind by the following car, or t-boned by the overtaking vehicle. Oh, and then there was the time I stopped at a stop sign behind a woman in a sans-permis. For whatever reason, I stopped a good 3 metres from her bumper. Which was just as well, as, when she set off, she did so in reverse....

Mind you, I reiterate my previous comment. It's not really a fair comparison unless you've driven (or been driven) regularly in a big French city. Certainly, I haven't noticed any appreciable difference between the levels of aggression in Paris and London.

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Boy oh boy, if you think that french motorists lack agression then you do not live anywhere near where I used to live. It is even worse than it used to be and it was always bad. The last time I was back, it was worse than I had ever seen it, awful and frightening, because it was just plain dangerous, I can think of about ten incidents when I was out with my son's girlfriend.

Motorists were not even letting the buses out into the circulation, WHICH, I must say was something that was always the 'done' thing when I lived in France. Chacun pour soi reigning.

As I said, I obviously lived in the wrong bit of France, Nullepartville-en-Pleincampagne is obviously a very different kettle of fish, but does not mean that 'my' France is not France too!

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  • 1 month later...
Going back to the subject of parking.. Stroud, where I ued to live, had the right idea about people who parked on the line betwee parking bays. They checked to see if there was A valid ticket and then gave the driver a fine because he/she had only paid for one space and were taking 2.

Great idea !!

I have always wondered if folk who park on the line do it because they had left their guide dog at home [8-)]

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