MOAN OF THE MONTH - RANT CONTINUATION
So there's some thought going into Pavement Parking. It appears that the driver is really thinking to himself "I must park carefully so that I don't cause an obstruction to other road-users". This is, of course, a perfectly natural and thoughtful attitude. Unfortunately, it is only HALF of an attitude. The two things that seems to go out of the window (so to speak) are:
1) "Do I really need to get out of the way of other road-users? If I parked normally (all of the car on the road), would I really stop other vehicles getting by? They may have to wait briefly for other vehicles coming the other way, but don't all we drivers have to do that from time to time?" and
2) "If I park on the pavement, will all pedestrians be able to get by me without walking in the road, hitting my wing-mirror or being attacked by overhanging branches - including "extra wide" people, wheelchairs, children's prams/buggies, double-width prams/buggies or old people's mobility scooters?"
Undoubtedly the worst example occurred two or three months ago. We were walking in the village one evening and on an otherwise totally clear road, a car had been parked fully across the pavement. The pathetic part was that it was parked facing on-coming traffic and was so close the the house boundary, the driver must have had to exit through the passenger door! We, of course, had to walk in the road to avoid it.
The ironic part is that all motorists are, more of the time, pedestrians themselves. Why can't they empathise ?
MODERN DRIVING TECHNIQUE
When I was learning to drive some fifty years ago, people were quite anxious about travelling too close to a vehicle in front. Drum brakes had their limitations! At that time, a rough rule of thumb was that you should stay back from the car in front one car's length for every 10mph of road-speed. This seemed to work well until some realised that the introduction of disc brakes meant that you could stop quicker. Of course, at the same time, modern cars also began being able to accelerate quicker and maintain higher top speeds. Even more crucially, nothing and nobody could do anything about the fact that reaction times and distances did not improve.
The authorities tried to counteract this by revising the car-length/10mph rule to The Two Second Rule. This was mathematically a good rule, because it, in effect, made it equal to TWO car lengths/10mph. This is much easier to visualise, but the 2-second method is difficult. But, is this method (or any method) taught to young drivers nowadays?
A couple of weeks ago, I was driving back to the village and, from Birney Hill to my turn-off in the village, I was followed at rarely less than two cars' lengths by another vehicle, while doing variously 40 - 55mph. I won't embarrass the other driver by any reference to them* or the car; I have the impression they* were not the sort to be embarrassed anyway, so apparently aggressive were they* . Suffice it to say that, if, as happens fairly frequently on the road to the village, a lunatic pheasant had hopped out of the hedge in front of me, I would have stood on my brakes and the dam' fool behind me would have mangled both our cars. My only small consolation is that it wouldn't have been I who lost my NCB.
Rant over.....for the moment.
* I would not normally be so ungrammatical, but this word does hide gender!
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Left: Scanner for sale-cheap! |
Dealing with Scamming and other Unwanted Mail
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The proposed main gas layout is shown in red on the plan.
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Scamming
Recognition
This article
arose from the receipt by a local lady of a letter which informed
her that she had won thousands on a National Lottery. The fact
that she had not entered the lottery, particularly as it appeared
to be Spanish, made it doubly curious. Fortunately, the lady
concerned knew about this kind of scamming activity, did not
respond to it, but did report it to local Trading Standards
officers. As the letter originated abroad, it is unlikely that
they can do much about it immediately, unless there are better
contacts now in this area of crime.
However, in an attempt to raise awareness of this kind of thing,
this article describes my own experiences.
1. Card
Fraud. A
couple of years ago,we were at a B&Q and our Mastercard was
refused. We paid with another card (useful to have a second for
occasional back-up) and on arrival home found a 'phone message to
call the Fraud Dept of Mastercard. On doing so, we were told that
our card had been stopped because two transactions had been
carried out on it for £2000 each, a couple of hundred miles
away. On confirming that these were fraudulent, we found that the
cash was quite quickly reimbursed and we received new cards. We
believe that our card details were stolen when we ordered
something online from a somewhat obscure firm. So..Hints,etc:
a) Observe all the usual precautions when using your card. For
outlines of these, your bank/building society (B/BS)
almost certainly has a page or two on its website.
b) If your card does get stopped, it is inconvenient and
nerve-wracking until you find out what has gone wrong. When once
your B/BS fraud dept. is on to it, you will almost certainly get
your money back quite quickly.
c) When shopping online, be a bit more aware of the provenance of
the firm you are dealing with. If I have a choice, I will always
go with i) a well-known firm ii) one which gives its address and
a landline phone number iii) I always leave to the end - or
rarely deal with - anybody who gives only a mobile number.
d) If you have a second card ask the issuer to limit the credit
to, say, £250, if they are willing. Use it for online purchases,
so that if details are stolen it limits what the baddie can get
away with. It also means your main card is always active.
2. Postal
Fraud. The
example mentioned above, which set all this off, has variations.
Apart from the Spanish Lottery, others have been noted from
Canada and Holland and there may be other forms which offer you
fantastic deals on all sorts of mechandise. They are fairly rare
but need to be watched for. Hint:
If you have no knowledge of the origin, if it offers you cash, if
it is covered by the modern adage (MA) "If it sounds
too good to be true, then it probably is",
i) if a prepaid return envelope is enclosed, put all the sent
paperwork in it and post it back anonymously. ii) If there is no
prepaid envelope, shred/bin it.
3.Online
Fraud
Emails.
Spam. Messages marked by your
Anti-Virus programme as spam should be checked but ONLY by the
Sender and/or Subject - in other words, don't open the message
unless you recognise the Sender at least. I regularly, if not
frequently, have quite legitimate messages marked as spam, so I
check all Senders and Subjects, just to be sure.Then:
Delete 'em. Don't forget to empty occasionally your Deleted or
Trash folder.(It doesn't happen automatically in OE)
Phishing. These are emails which
attempt to get you to reveal financial information such as B/BS
account numbers, passwords, etc. with a view to raiding your
finances.The latest version of this is the "Secure
Message". Some banks and BSocs.do actually have secure
message systems for contacting their customers. Scammers will now
send an authentic-looking email which says there is a secure
message waiting for you and give you a link to access it. Do not
click on the link. If it purports to come from your very own
bank/BSoc., check wi them by some other method - either 'phone or
go to their genuine website and link back via it.
i) A friendly letter explaining that the sender has the
opportunity to collect legitimately (he says) a large amount of
money, a small percentage of which he will give you, if you
provide your bank account as a facility. This is a classic MA
type (see above). Delete it!
ii) You receive an email which has B/BS logos, B/BS phrases and
links and look altogether quite legitimate - except that the
language may be a bit fractured: this is a good give-away. Most
of the time you will spot these anyway, because you do not have
an account with them. Even if you have one, your B/BS would NEVER
ask you to give financial confidentialities online. SO
a) do not reply to the email or click on any link which it gives.
Clicking on a link in it MAY drop a piece of 'malware' onto your
hard-drive. This may at best simply spy on you, watching what
sites you are accessing online, but could do other damage.
b) Click the Forward button and forward it to the Fraud Section
of the appropriate body. I have the addresses now in my Addresss
Book for quick access and reproduce below some of the ones I have
found (they are not live; you have to paste them into New Contact
for each).
customerservices@abbey.com
ihaveseenascam@co-operativeban
security@hbosplc.com Halifax Bank
emailscams@lloydstsb.co.uk
phishing@nationwide.co.uk
phishing@natwest.co.uk
phishing@rbs.co.uk Royal Bank of Scotland
c) After forwarding it, delete the copies in your In and Sent
folders.
eBay. These emails go probably
to only those with eBay accounts and look totally legitimate.
They usually invite you to submit deatils to somebody selling
something. Immediate instinct is to click on the Reply button to
say there has been a mistake. That's the mistake! Check the
legitimacy as follows: look at the very top line near the topmost
edge of the message . It will say something like "This
message has been sent to....." If it gives your account ID,
because you have an account, be cautious as it could still be an
attempted scam. If, however, it shows your email address, it is
definitely a scam. Forward it to spoof@ebay.co.uk, then delete as usual. Do
not click any links on the page.
Round
Robins.
"Every time you click on this and pass it to fifty of
your friends, a poor African will be cured of
cancer"....etc. Check on a site such as Hoax Slayer home page.
Virus Warnings. Don't just forward it to all your friends!
Check on a site such as Norton Hoaxes webpage. If it's a hoax, delete it;
if not, then you can forward it.
For further information go to Home page and Contact.