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21-09-2023, 22:41
Visit the Paul Bailey's Beer Blog site (https://baileysbeerblog.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-not-so-smart-road-to-nowhere.html)
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There are some experiences in life that we either wish wehadn't had or, if we haven't had them yet, we don't want them to occur. Unfortunately,last weekend I found myself living one such experience, and whilst it turnedout alright in the end, it is not something I would wish to repeat.I've held a full driving licence since the age of 19, althoughit was several years later that I purchased my first car. Money was tight inthose days, especially during my student years, but living in a city such asManchester, where public transport was plentiful and relatively cheap, therewas no need for me to get behind the wheel.
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Since acquiring my first vehicle, a Mark III Ford Escortestate, purchased second-hand from the company I worked for at the time, I’veenjoyed many years of pleasant, enjoyable, and relatively stress-free motoring.One of my worst fears behind the wheel, apart from the obvious one of beinginvolved in an accident, has been that of breaking down somewhere at the sideof the road. Being stranded somewhere, miles from anywhere during a long roadtrip, with an incapacitated vehicle, and unable to continue and complete myjourney. Even worse would be for the car to suffer a fault whilst travelling infast moving traffic, along a motorway, or other dual carriageway road.
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I wouldn't say I'm a motoring geek, but I do check my oiland coolant levels from time to time and the same applies to my tyre pressures.These checks are particularly important prior to setting off on a long journey.Well, I was on a short car ride on Sunday, when the worst happened, and myvehicle developed a fault whilst I was driving along the motorway. Before goinginto detail, I'd like to set the scene, and explain what I've been doing I'mwhere I was travelling home from, so please bear with, as they say.Early on Sunday morning, young Matthew and I had driven overto Chiddingstone Causeway, in order to grab a breakfast at the village hall. Weleft Mrs PBT's behind, tucked up in bed, as she is definitely not a morningperson these days, and wouldn’t have thanked us, if we’d woken her up. We arrivedat the hall shortly before 9am, where there was already quite a number of eagerdiners sat down inside. We had to waitabout 30 minutes for our breakfast to be served, but it was worth the wait,with several rashers of properly matured bacon, a farmhouse sausage, fried egg,toast, and tin tomatoes.
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A small number of volunteers do the cooking for these breakfasts,which take place once a fortnight. All profits generated go towards the villagehall fund, so with me working in Chiddingstone Causeway, it's nice to put alittle something back into the local community. With breakfast done and dustedwhat should we do afterwards? There was very little that needed doing outside, asthe with the growing season coming to an end, the garden is now more or lesstaking care of itself. Besides with rain forecast there would be no need towater anything either. This is where the kernel of an idea took shape in mymind, and because it involved a visit to a different branch of the hardwarechain store that Matthew works at, he jumped at the idea.
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My plan was to take a drive over to the mid Surrey town of Dorking,take a look around the town, and visit the local branch of Robert Dyas, before headinghome. Prior to parking up in the town though, I told Matthew we would drive theshort distance along the A24 towards the foot of Box Hill, park up at the MercureHotel at Burford Bridge, in the shadow of the well-known local landmark. Wewould then walk the short distance to the point where the North Downs Waydescends from the summit of Box Hill and crosses the busy A24.
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I wanted to take a look at the famous Stepping Stones whichis where the NDW crosses a shallow stream by means of a series of flat and strategicallyplaced stepping stones. I had missed this small, but significant stretch of thetrail, when I walked from Betchworth station to the halt at Boxhill &Westhumble. That particular hike took place on New Year's Eve 2021, and it waswhilst descending from the summit of Boxhill that I took a wrong turn. I onlyrealised my error when I was about a third of the way down, but as the goingunder foot was very slippery, due to the long-wet grass, I decided to keepgoing and eventually reached the bottom, where the footpath brought me out fromjust behind the Burford Bridge Hotel.
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Annoyed at having missed the famous stepping stones, Ipromised myself, for the sake of completeness, to return one day and see thenfor myself. Last Sunday seemed as good a day as any, and it wasn't that far towalk from the car park either. Matthew still managed to complain, moaning that I wasleading him on a wild goose chase, even though it didn't take us long to findthe famous stones, the clue being a small National Trust car park. We walkeddown to the stream and had a look at the crossing.
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The setting was quite picturesque, although the streamdidn't seem as wide as some of the photos I’d seen. This may have been due to thelack of rain in recent months. I took a few photos before walking back to thecar, past the famous Rykas Café (https://www.rykas.co.uk/), and the hordes of bikers it attracts.
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We thenheaded into Dorking, for my first visit in many years. We had a stroll aroundthis attractive town, which allowed Matthew time to call in at the local branchof his store, whilst I grabbed a flat white, from a local independent coffeeshop opposite. By the time I’d received my coffee to go, and met back up withMatthew, it had started raining, so we hurried back to the car feeling a bitfoolish for having left our coats on the back seat.
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It was time to head back to Tonbridge, and although we hadmade our way cross country from Chiddingstone, on the homeward trip I decidedwe would take the motorway. After entering Reigate, we drove up the steepReigate Hill torch towards Junction 8 of the M25 and joined the motorway. Wewere motoring along fine, until we reached the stretch between the Godstone turningand Clackets Lane services. As we were driving along, I was explaining toMatthew what “smart motorways” are, and how in my book, the powers that be had ratherfoolishly removed the “hard shoulder” in order to provide an extra traffic lane.
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This was all well and good, I said, until something goeswrong - not for one moment thinking something would go wrong, but unfortunatelyit did! We were travelling around 60-65 mphin lane 2, when the car started juddering and I experienced a loss of power. itwasn't a complete loss, but what on earth was going on? My vehicle is powered bydiesel, and a warning light had been flashing on the dashboard, indicating afault with the glow plugs, so this was an obvious clue to the cause of theproblem. We’d already passed the A22 turn off, and the next junction was theturn off for the A21. It's quite a complicated junction and was some miles away,so what to do next?
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Being in a vehicle, whose engine was malfunctioning,was not a position I wanted to be in, but equally there was nowhere safe topull over, and stop. Fortunately, Clacket Lane services were not too far away,so I decided we would leave the motorway there, providing the car kept going,and call for assistance from there. On the way, we noticed one of the yellow-painted,so-called “refuge spaces” designed as somewhere cars in difficulties can pullover and stop. Matthew was surprised when we didn’t make use of this area, so Itold him that it was far too dangerous a place to stop. We limped on until wereached the service station, parked the car, and phoned Britannia Rescue.
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Despite the promise of a tow truck within about 20 minutes, weended up waiting a couple of hours for one to arrive. This wasn’t a problem,but it was rather annoying. The main thing was we were both safe, and the carwas physically undamaged. It was an obvious fault – according to Google, andwith the recovery vehicle on its way, the car plus Matthew and I would bedriven to a garage of our choice, where we could leave the vehicle for the faultto be investigated and repaired.It didn’t quite work out like that. Sure, we parked the caroutside the local Skoda main dealership, depositedthe key in the external safe, and caught a train back to Tonbridge. Thefollowing morning, Matthew drove me over to the dealership, and I formallybooked my vehicle in. I sat there and listened to the sob story from the girlon the counter, about how busy they were, and how they couldn’t possibly workon the car for two or even three weeks.
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I explained that I required the vehicle back, in a drivablecondition, by the end of the month, as we needed to drive down to Southampton toembark on a lengthy cruise. That had virtually zero effect on the stony-faced receptionist,so I told her if they were unable to repair the vehicle before the allottedtime, I would have to leave it with them, as me being out of the country didmake collecting it, just that little bit awkward!
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The car is still at the dealership, and Mrs PBT’s has bookeda taxi to drive us to the cruise terminal and back. Not quite what we wanted,but as I was able to cancel, and claim a refund on the overnight hotel stay,and 20 days parking, that goes some way to offset the cost of the taxi. Lookingon the bright side, breaking down where we did was far more preferable than thevehicle malfunctioning on the drive down to Southampton. That’s before even recountthe number of cases my good lady wife is planning on taking.
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As far as “smart motorways” are concerned, whatever governmentnumpty, or treasury official came up with that crazy idea? According to campaigners, there have been at least 79deaths linked to smart motorways, and in January 2022, the rollout of newstretches of “all-lane running” (the type we were on), was paused for fiveyears, in order to collect more information and make existing schemes safer. Ministershave now gone further and cancelled the building of new smart motorways.
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https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf7IMvIfaDydCwug0tDDV-pXPTDHqEXrjrFPq5yhXg5hQPDKYGQebWImQg0drM2hh6NMwYuv 5BzDGaBfOXJydeOKZKv_pmI7ruVhtrP5ILVDGYWQgYNR33RGd_ 9qMEbVwl54PDBmCBl1XpdNOCyf7OLHlNTqkqWnRGhyrOuquSjO wGUnQKd9MHi3SsHtU/w400-h300/Car%20being%20recovered.jpg (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf7IMvIfaDydCwug0tDDV-pXPTDHqEXrjrFPq5yhXg5hQPDKYGQebWImQg0drM2hh6NMwYuv 5BzDGaBfOXJydeOKZKv_pmI7ruVhtrP5ILVDGYWQgYNR33RGd_ 9qMEbVwl54PDBmCBl1XpdNOCyf7OLHlNTqkqWnRGhyrOuquSjO wGUnQKd9MHi3SsHtU/s720/Car%20being%20recovered.jpg)
There are some experiences in life that we either wish wehadn't had or, if we haven't had them yet, we don't want them to occur. Unfortunately,last weekend I found myself living one such experience, and whilst it turnedout alright in the end, it is not something I would wish to repeat.I've held a full driving licence since the age of 19, althoughit was several years later that I purchased my first car. Money was tight inthose days, especially during my student years, but living in a city such asManchester, where public transport was plentiful and relatively cheap, therewas no need for me to get behind the wheel.
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Since acquiring my first vehicle, a Mark III Ford Escortestate, purchased second-hand from the company I worked for at the time, I’veenjoyed many years of pleasant, enjoyable, and relatively stress-free motoring.One of my worst fears behind the wheel, apart from the obvious one of beinginvolved in an accident, has been that of breaking down somewhere at the sideof the road. Being stranded somewhere, miles from anywhere during a long roadtrip, with an incapacitated vehicle, and unable to continue and complete myjourney. Even worse would be for the car to suffer a fault whilst travelling infast moving traffic, along a motorway, or other dual carriageway road.
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I wouldn't say I'm a motoring geek, but I do check my oiland coolant levels from time to time and the same applies to my tyre pressures.These checks are particularly important prior to setting off on a long journey.Well, I was on a short car ride on Sunday, when the worst happened, and myvehicle developed a fault whilst I was driving along the motorway. Before goinginto detail, I'd like to set the scene, and explain what I've been doing I'mwhere I was travelling home from, so please bear with, as they say.Early on Sunday morning, young Matthew and I had driven overto Chiddingstone Causeway, in order to grab a breakfast at the village hall. Weleft Mrs PBT's behind, tucked up in bed, as she is definitely not a morningperson these days, and wouldn’t have thanked us, if we’d woken her up. We arrivedat the hall shortly before 9am, where there was already quite a number of eagerdiners sat down inside. We had to waitabout 30 minutes for our breakfast to be served, but it was worth the wait,with several rashers of properly matured bacon, a farmhouse sausage, fried egg,toast, and tin tomatoes.
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A small number of volunteers do the cooking for these breakfasts,which take place once a fortnight. All profits generated go towards the villagehall fund, so with me working in Chiddingstone Causeway, it's nice to put alittle something back into the local community. With breakfast done and dustedwhat should we do afterwards? There was very little that needed doing outside, asthe with the growing season coming to an end, the garden is now more or lesstaking care of itself. Besides with rain forecast there would be no need towater anything either. This is where the kernel of an idea took shape in mymind, and because it involved a visit to a different branch of the hardwarechain store that Matthew works at, he jumped at the idea.
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My plan was to take a drive over to the mid Surrey town of Dorking,take a look around the town, and visit the local branch of Robert Dyas, before headinghome. Prior to parking up in the town though, I told Matthew we would drive theshort distance along the A24 towards the foot of Box Hill, park up at the MercureHotel at Burford Bridge, in the shadow of the well-known local landmark. Wewould then walk the short distance to the point where the North Downs Waydescends from the summit of Box Hill and crosses the busy A24.
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I wanted to take a look at the famous Stepping Stones whichis where the NDW crosses a shallow stream by means of a series of flat and strategicallyplaced stepping stones. I had missed this small, but significant stretch of thetrail, when I walked from Betchworth station to the halt at Boxhill &Westhumble. That particular hike took place on New Year's Eve 2021, and it waswhilst descending from the summit of Boxhill that I took a wrong turn. I onlyrealised my error when I was about a third of the way down, but as the goingunder foot was very slippery, due to the long-wet grass, I decided to keepgoing and eventually reached the bottom, where the footpath brought me out fromjust behind the Burford Bridge Hotel.
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Annoyed at having missed the famous stepping stones, Ipromised myself, for the sake of completeness, to return one day and see thenfor myself. Last Sunday seemed as good a day as any, and it wasn't that far towalk from the car park either. Matthew still managed to complain, moaning that I wasleading him on a wild goose chase, even though it didn't take us long to findthe famous stones, the clue being a small National Trust car park. We walkeddown to the stream and had a look at the crossing.
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The setting was quite picturesque, although the streamdidn't seem as wide as some of the photos I’d seen. This may have been due to thelack of rain in recent months. I took a few photos before walking back to thecar, past the famous Rykas Café (https://www.rykas.co.uk/), and the hordes of bikers it attracts.
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We thenheaded into Dorking, for my first visit in many years. We had a stroll aroundthis attractive town, which allowed Matthew time to call in at the local branchof his store, whilst I grabbed a flat white, from a local independent coffeeshop opposite. By the time I’d received my coffee to go, and met back up withMatthew, it had started raining, so we hurried back to the car feeling a bitfoolish for having left our coats on the back seat.
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It was time to head back to Tonbridge, and although we hadmade our way cross country from Chiddingstone, on the homeward trip I decidedwe would take the motorway. After entering Reigate, we drove up the steepReigate Hill torch towards Junction 8 of the M25 and joined the motorway. Wewere motoring along fine, until we reached the stretch between the Godstone turningand Clackets Lane services. As we were driving along, I was explaining toMatthew what “smart motorways” are, and how in my book, the powers that be had ratherfoolishly removed the “hard shoulder” in order to provide an extra traffic lane.
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This was all well and good, I said, until something goeswrong - not for one moment thinking something would go wrong, but unfortunatelyit did! We were travelling around 60-65 mphin lane 2, when the car started juddering and I experienced a loss of power. itwasn't a complete loss, but what on earth was going on? My vehicle is powered bydiesel, and a warning light had been flashing on the dashboard, indicating afault with the glow plugs, so this was an obvious clue to the cause of theproblem. We’d already passed the A22 turn off, and the next junction was theturn off for the A21. It's quite a complicated junction and was some miles away,so what to do next?
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Being in a vehicle, whose engine was malfunctioning,was not a position I wanted to be in, but equally there was nowhere safe topull over, and stop. Fortunately, Clacket Lane services were not too far away,so I decided we would leave the motorway there, providing the car kept going,and call for assistance from there. On the way, we noticed one of the yellow-painted,so-called “refuge spaces” designed as somewhere cars in difficulties can pullover and stop. Matthew was surprised when we didn’t make use of this area, so Itold him that it was far too dangerous a place to stop. We limped on until wereached the service station, parked the car, and phoned Britannia Rescue.
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Despite the promise of a tow truck within about 20 minutes, weended up waiting a couple of hours for one to arrive. This wasn’t a problem,but it was rather annoying. The main thing was we were both safe, and the carwas physically undamaged. It was an obvious fault – according to Google, andwith the recovery vehicle on its way, the car plus Matthew and I would bedriven to a garage of our choice, where we could leave the vehicle for the faultto be investigated and repaired.It didn’t quite work out like that. Sure, we parked the caroutside the local Skoda main dealership, depositedthe key in the external safe, and caught a train back to Tonbridge. Thefollowing morning, Matthew drove me over to the dealership, and I formallybooked my vehicle in. I sat there and listened to the sob story from the girlon the counter, about how busy they were, and how they couldn’t possibly workon the car for two or even three weeks.
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I explained that I required the vehicle back, in a drivablecondition, by the end of the month, as we needed to drive down to Southampton toembark on a lengthy cruise. That had virtually zero effect on the stony-faced receptionist,so I told her if they were unable to repair the vehicle before the allottedtime, I would have to leave it with them, as me being out of the country didmake collecting it, just that little bit awkward!
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3M004WK53rXgfJEk4PNG81mMa7XP37CnT9vZ6UXXPef uuzpGxbjQMZmiFsZJJO3kn9mcZzjB-JZX0ZVcfZF41O6i6yfyOutCDtaIBexcvY0RtFp86BCcxlsyLN3 dzQ7fbwoXh29SJEMW95Adf_SpXNyuuj0vNfS-Gr1WUokf4vzCOTIfsp2_zWXILNps/w400-h225/IMG_20220612_155947.jpg (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3M004WK53rXgfJEk4PNG81mMa7XP37CnT9vZ6UXXPef uuzpGxbjQMZmiFsZJJO3kn9mcZzjB-JZX0ZVcfZF41O6i6yfyOutCDtaIBexcvY0RtFp86BCcxlsyLN3 dzQ7fbwoXh29SJEMW95Adf_SpXNyuuj0vNfS-Gr1WUokf4vzCOTIfsp2_zWXILNps/s4000/IMG_20220612_155947.jpg)
The car is still at the dealership, and Mrs PBT’s has bookeda taxi to drive us to the cruise terminal and back. Not quite what we wanted,but as I was able to cancel, and claim a refund on the overnight hotel stay,and 20 days parking, that goes some way to offset the cost of the taxi. Lookingon the bright side, breaking down where we did was far more preferable than thevehicle malfunctioning on the drive down to Southampton. That’s before even recountthe number of cases my good lady wife is planning on taking.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX_HNJ_zS0IFV7xqDEPUJuxOBLY7TOMTJ-VjscbWc1anYZvHCvxmHi98q8V5xQB8HI0FOyc-BT0mzrGbhqFlX_cvXXLcBGAP2xFVRom7355Sw2S7PGeEyz4DCo TsMbBq4D97Fr-X_M-89ee7KJe31rMwW_uR-gsYjWCVtQTcNGeLFsxQoAaYGOkJf3SKI/w400-h225/IMG_20220613_133837.jpg (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX_HNJ_zS0IFV7xqDEPUJuxOBLY7TOMTJ-VjscbWc1anYZvHCvxmHi98q8V5xQB8HI0FOyc-BT0mzrGbhqFlX_cvXXLcBGAP2xFVRom7355Sw2S7PGeEyz4DCo TsMbBq4D97Fr-X_M-89ee7KJe31rMwW_uR-gsYjWCVtQTcNGeLFsxQoAaYGOkJf3SKI/s4000/IMG_20220613_133837.jpg)
As far as “smart motorways” are concerned, whatever governmentnumpty, or treasury official came up with that crazy idea? According to campaigners, there have been at least 79deaths linked to smart motorways, and in January 2022, the rollout of newstretches of “all-lane running” (the type we were on), was paused for fiveyears, in order to collect more information and make existing schemes safer. Ministershave now gone further and cancelled the building of new smart motorways.
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