It's well known you need something to do in order to keep your brain occupied and your attention levels up. This is why the worlds longest bridges are sometimes curved, as driving straight remove the need to be steering, and can make people sleepy. If I wanted everything to be done for me, I'd take the train. If I'm driving, I like twiddling all the different knobs, changing gear by myself, rev matching, turning indicators off at the right time, adjusting my wiper speed as the rain varies, switching from blowers to open windows depending on my speed, etc. It's all part of what driving is about, IMO.

Exactly.

Also, on Motorways, I never EVER sit in one lane. I try to use all lanes, indicating as I pull out, matching speeds with traffic around me as required. It means I can drive for hours without becoming sleepy, because I'm always doing something.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Also, on Motorways, I never EVER sit in one lane. I try to use all lanes, indicating as I pull out, matching speeds with traffic around me as required. It means I can drive for hours without becoming sleepy, because I'm always doing something.

And cruise control makes this impossible, how? Even if you ignore the proles (because we are all awesome here), you have to admit cruise is a nice feature if you plan on doing lots of motorway miles? Having tried it properly my next car wont be without it...

I use cruise control some of the time. But definitely not when I might get tired, as it's something else that you can switch off from thinking about. Accidents happen when you aren't prepared for them, and by forgetting about driving slightly (i.e. letting the car maintain a speed) you are relaxing your attention on the road.

Nice Orwellian reference though.

Cruise control on the other hand can also help avoiding driving too fast on motorways and getting speeding tickets.

Quote from jibber :

Cruise control on the other hand can also help avoiding driving too fast on motorways and getting speeding tickets.

Tristan is going to go mental on you for that. You are not man enough to drive the precise speed that you intend to drive!

No, I agree with that. I use it a lot on the A14. I'm not totally against cruise control, just an over-reliance on systems that allow the driver to 'switch off' from the act of driving. I also have speed camera alerts on TomTom.

And I still occasionally get caught for speeding - 3 times so far in 13 years, and one of them I got away with by doing a pointless Speed Awareness Course. So I have 3 points on my licence.

(2 of my three speeding convictions were for doing ~34 in a 30 zone in the city, one was for doing 106mph on my bike on a dual carriageway. I admitted to it, so the official speeding ticket said 98mph (a very nice policeman obviously), and hence I didn't lose my licence.)

looking at your photo, id discribe the damage as a "run"

i was a glass cutter for 3 years, and even though i never worked on windscreens, i did work with toughened and laminated glass.

laminated usually does not run. it goes "bang!"

if your screen is laminated, the crack will work its way acoss the screen, each time the car hits a bump ect.

for what its worth, and forgive me if you have done it, its a new screen imo.

cruise control is just for people who live in countries with shit motorways that require you to pootle around at hardly any speed at all for hours on end

Autobahn-envy.


'Autobehnvy' if you will.

Quote from jibber :

Cruise control on the other hand can also help avoiding driving too fast on motorways and getting speeding tickets.

True dat. I often drive 'long' distances on the motorway. I just set my cruise control to 125km/h, verified by GPS, and off I go! Whenever I need to slow down or accelerate I'll do so.

Wow my windscreen cracked the other day and by cracked i mean someone smashed it Just get it done as soon as possible.