Oh The Ignominy

[hilldweller]

Yesterday afternoon being nice and sunny, my wife suggested that I take my trusty 8 mph black noddy-mobile for a spin.

I decided to have a drive around Fulwood and Ranmoor. I had to wait a while outside Fulwood Church while a blushing bride was delivered to the gate in a lovely old Riley car. That's lucky I thought to myself !!!

I wended my way back up Tom Lane and decided to take a detour along Belgrave Road to have a look in the little nature reserve where the Snaithing Brook runs down. It's an area of extremely overgrown woodland which I think may belong to Sheffield University. I sat there looking over the wall watching the grey squirrels and listening to a woodpecker.

All was very still and quiet and very restful. After about 10 minutes I decided to set off back. My scooter had other ideas. I turned the key, pulled on the "wig-wag" ( thats what the instruction book calls it ) and instead of moving off the alarm sounder bleeped at me. I started dismantling the damn thing, pulled all the connectors apart and replaced them. Still nothing.

I had taken out an insurance on the thing, (not compulsary but it weighs 3 CWT and could do a lot of damage to a car) and this included a recovery scheme. I used my mobile to ring the company and was told some-one would collect me in an hour. A kindly passing lady motorist stopped and asked if she could be of any assistance and several passing school-kids and a police car regarded me with suspicion.

I was expecting perhaps a pick-up truck or similar so you can imagine my horror when Twiggs huge recovery low-loader appeared. My little noddy vehicle was placed in the middle of a tennis-court sized area and strapped down and we were whisked back to Lodge Moor in a trice.

Of course all the neighbours came out to see what all the air-brake noise was, as my "vehicle" was deposited by my drive.

My wife now thinks that I shouldn't take the thing beyond the end of the street.

Once I was back home and able to access my toolkit, the faulty connection was located and fixed in an hour.

I shall have to buy a trailer to carry a full set of tools and a multimeter with me in future !

That's Life !

hilldweller

[RichardB]

Thank you for sharing this, amused me greatly, well crafted. Nearly made being forced to watch X-Factor bearable

[DaveH]

Thank you for sharing this, amused me greatly, well crafted. Nearly made being forced to watch X-Factor bearable

I didn't find it amusing at all Richard, I feel sorry for poor old hilldweller.

Typical of all electrical appliances, - they let you down at the least convenient times.

Hilldweller will remember some posts we did last year on an electrical theme which resulted in me having to buy my wife a new steam iron.

I think I said at the time how unreliable I thought many modern electric devices were.

So, - an electric car?

No I don't think so.

I don't think the technology is quite there yet and the infrastructure for recharging / exchanging batteries while out and about certainly isn't.

Then I would always have this nagging worry that the thing would just pack up and leave me stranded.

After all, the majority of problems with petrol driven cars seem to be electric faults anyway.

What about the all electric car that go anywhere in the world, never needs charging and only costs £3000?

Unfortunately the 25,000 mile long mains lead and plug costs around £1,000,000

(OK hilldweller it's a joke, - I know that at 240V the resistance of that length of wire would restrict the current so much that it wouldn't work)

[DaveH]

I had taken out an insurance on the thing, (not compulsary but it weighs 3 CWT and could do a lot of damage to a car)

I find that suprising hilldweller.

As you say compulsory motor vehicle insurance is really intended to cover you against 3rd party liability for damage you do to other people or their property rather than yourself or your own vehicle.

Now as most of these motability scooters you see being driven around are being driven on the pavement rather than on the road that means that you are more likely to hit a pedestrian than a car. Hit a pedestrian with a 3cwt vehicle at 8mph and you could do them a serious amount of injury or even kill them. That would leave the driver liable to a massive claim, - where would they be without that insurance then?

Further to this I have noticed that motability scooters get offered to people like my mum who has just had her knee joint done and my mother in law who has been immobile for several years. Neither of them has ever driven a motorised vehicle before in their lives let alone ever taken any form of test or driving instruction.

It makes me wonder how safe these scooters are, given that ANY vehicle is only as safe as the person driving it.

[hilldweller]

I find that suprising hilldweller.

As you say compulsory motor vehicle insurance is really intended to cover you against 3rd party liability for damage you do to other people or their property rather than yourself or your own vehicle.

Now as most of these motability scooters you see being driven around are being driven on the pavement rather than on the road that means that you are more likely to hit a pedestrian than a car. Hit a pedestrian with a 3cwt vehicle at 8mph and you could do them a serious amount of injury or even kill them. That would leave the driver liable to a MASSIVE claim, - where would they be without that insurance then?

Further to this I have noticed that motability scooters get offered to people like my mum who has just had her knee joint done and my mother in law who has been immobile for several years. Neither of them has ever driven a motorised vehicle before in their lives let alone ever taken any form of test or driving instruction.

It makes me wonder how safe these scooters are, given that ANY vehicle is only as safe as the person driving it.

I'll try to post a link here if I can to the relevent entry on the website of the Department of Transport & Funny Walks or some such.

It alludes to class 3 scooters like mine which can legally travel on most roads.

http://www.dft.gov.uk/transportforyou/access/tipws/codeofpracticeforclass3vehic6165?page=1

hilldweller

[DaveH]

I'll try to post a link here if I can to the relevent entry on the website of the Department of Transport & Funny Walks or some such.

It alludes to class 3 scooters like mine which can legally travel on most roads.

http://www.dft.gov.uk/transportforyou/access/tipws/codeofpracticeforclass3vehic6165?page=1

hilldweller

Thanks hilldweller, link sums up the legal side of things quite nicely.

My main bone of contention however, without getting the soap box out of vox's shed again for one of my frequent rants on the subject are peal cycles.

There seems to be no legislation at all to control them,

No MOT (many of them are amateurishly built from scrap parts), No tax, No insurance (so a heavy liability in an accident), No test, No licence, No minimum age to ride one, No need to abide by the highway code (or so it would appear by observing them on both the road and pavement) and ridden mainly by children and idiots (Repeat message from previous post, - ANY vehicle is only as safe as the person using it)

[hilldweller]

I didn't find it amusing at all Richard, I feel sorry for poor old hilldweller.

Not so much of the poor if you don't mind. I'll have you know that I've got at least six & eightpence in the Bradfield Road branch of the Yorkshire Penny Bank. I took my sixpences to Mr Courage the headmaster every Monday morning without fail.

Anyway it was no big deal, I can think of far worse places to be stranded on a warm sunny day. Hopefully it might not cost me anything unless my insurance premium goes up next year. I shall have to consult the small-print.

hilldweller

[DaveH]

Not so much of the poor if you don't mind. hilldweller

Nice reply hilldweller.

I was expecting you to come back with

Not so much of the old if you don't mind

So that put a neat little twist in it lol

[hilldweller]

What about the all electric car that go anywhere in the world, never needs charging and only costs £3000?

Unfortunately the 25,000 mile long mains lead and plug costs around £1,000,000

(OK hilldweller it's a joke, - I know that at 240V the resistance of that length of wire would restrict the current so much that it wouldn't work)

Can you remember the previous posts about the early transatlantic telephone cable with thermionic valve repeaters every few miles. The hundreds of valve heaters were all connected in series and fed from each continent with several thousand volts. Perhaps your idea is not quite as fancyful as you thought. (It is of course, something very inconvenient called the laws of physics gets in the way). I believe some Swiss trolley buses stored energy in a huge flywheel and spun it up again from a overhead at each bus stop.

I'm not sure that all electric vehicles would be unreliable. When you consider the huge amount of electronics in modern cars and their reliability I think that the concept of battery, power controller and direct-drive motors could be made very reliable.

Back in the early sixties I drove an electric powered BMC minivan equipped with lead-acid batteries in the back. The early chopper type power controller made about as much noise as a jet engine but boy could it shift off the spot.

hilldweller

[DaveH]

Perhaps your idea is not quite as fancyful as you thought. (It is of course, something very inconvenient called the laws of physics gets in the way).

I thought it would be that spaghetti like mass of knotted, tangled, interwoven mains cables down every street that would get in the way! :o

[DaveH]

I believe some Swiss trolley buses stored energy in a huge flywheel and spun it up again from a overhead at each bus stop.

I have come across this before but when I have mentioned it to people they seem to know nothing about it.

However, I thought it was used more on Swiss Railways than ontrolley buses, and in Switzerland due to its steep, mountainous terrain.

On descending a hill the heavy "flywheel" was engaged and this offered some degree of braking to prevent runaway as the decrease of gravitational potential energy was used to overcome the inertia of the flywheel and stored as kinetic energy in the now spinning wheel.

If the wheel was still spinning when it became necessary to ascend a hill it could be re-engaged so that its stored energy could be put to good use.

This is a totally mechanical system and I think it was found that an electrical system, and most Swiss railways are electric (I think, - Stuart0742 or madannie will know) worked better. In this case going downhill used the motor as a dynamo and fed current back into the network, offering some electrical braking, while going up a hill, as expected merely drew more current from the network as the motor had to work harder.

The flywheel system had many problems. To store the maximum amount of momentum it had to be large and heavy. Once spinning it acted as a giant gyroscope and tried to pull the vehicle off its tracks or make it impossible to steer, so in practice 2 identical flywheels had to be used spinning in opposite directions but at the same speed to avoid this.

[hilldweller]

In this case going downhill used the motor as a dynamo and fed current back into the network, offering some electrical braking, while going up a hill, as expected merely drew more current from the network as the motor had to work harder.

The 1500 volt DC Woodhead Railway system used regenerative braking to feed surplus energy back into the overhead system. The mercury-arc rectifiers used in the supply sub-stations were not capable of commutating the power back onto the AC grid and this could cause problems when loadings on the system were low. Diesel-electric loco's got rid of the surplus energy into resistor banks mounted on the roof, they were fan assisted with motors that worked from the surplus energy and speeded up with the amount dissipated. My little "locomotive" uses regenerative braking going downhill and after a long period of downhill travel the battery charge indicator goes up a notch.

hilldweller

[DaveH]

My little "locomotive" uses regenerative braking going downhill and after a long period of downhill travel the battery charge indicator goes up a notch.

hilldweller

A modern eco friendly, energy saving, world saving, global warming beating device then!

[hilldweller]

A modern eco friendly, energy saving, world saving, global warming beating device then!

Here's a picture of the innerds of my eco-friendly transport.

I'm afraid that you would be hard pressed to take the wife and kids to Skeggy

hilldweller

[syrup]

Here's a picture of the innerds of my eco-friendly transport.

I'm afraid that you would be hard pressed to take the wife and kids to Skeggy

hilldweller

You were very lucky they sent Twiggs with their low loader and not an AA Van with a Tow Bar i would not like to have been on that trip.

[DaveH]

I'm afraid that you would be hard pressed to take the wife and kids to Skeggy

Is that because there's no towbar fitted to pull the caravan lol

[hilldweller]

Is that because there's no towbar fitted to pull the caravan

That's right, but you can in fact buy a little covered trailer; but at around £400 I don't think I'll bother.

hilldweller

[hilldweller]

That's right, but you can in fact buy a little covered trailer; but at around £400 I don't think I'll bother.

hilldweller

Where's Vox got to ?

I've been expecting a picture of a Eddie Stobbert trailer being pulled by a mobilty scooter.

hilldweller

[DaveH]

That's right, but you can in fact buy a little covered trailer; but at around £400 I don't think I'll bother.

hilldweller

I don't suppose, as it's intend to be used by people with difficulty walking about, that you can fit it with one of those racks that you can fasten 2 pedal cycles to?

You see a lot of those on cars.

The bikes travel more miles on the back of a car than they ever get pedalled.

[hilldweller]

I don't suppose, as it's intend to be used by people with difficulty walking about, that you can fit it with one of those racks that you can fasten 2 pedal cycles to?

You see a lot of those on cars.

The bikes travel more miles on the back of a car than they ever get pedalled.

It's only 24 inches wide over the tyres, you'd have to fasten the bikes vertically, wouldn't do much for the stabilty. The handbook states that amputees must travel with their false limb so as not to alter the balance ! I know what you mean about the bike racks, usually fastened to the back of an expensive Chelsea Tractor. They probably dare not take them off in case they scratch the paint.

hilldweller

[DaveH]

It's only 24 inches wide over the tyres, you'd have to fasten the bikes vertically, wouldn't do much for the stabilty. The handbook states that amputees must travel with their false limb so as not to alter the balance ! I know what you mean about the bike racks, usually fastened to the back of an expensive Chelsea Tractor. They probably dare not take them off in case they scratch the paint.

hilldweller

Then there's the other sort of bike rack which seems to be an extension to the roof rack and holds 2 bikes, upright, on the roof, in line with the car and facing in the same direction.

Seems like a quick, cheap and illegal way of converting a 5 seater car into a 7 seater. lol