Road resurfacing is an annoying but effective way to slow drivers down

IT WAS the ping-ping of my Mazda’s paintwork being repeatedly bombarded which made me realise it. Sefton’s powers-that-be have inadvertently won the war on speed!

I can’t have been the only motorist left last week in the peculiar position of struggling to keep within a 20mph speed limit but unwilling to venture above the pace of any half-decent cyclist on the Formby Bypass. A strategy of having every major road resurfaced almost simultaneously turned seeing friends and family into a game of rat-running roadworks and crawling along temporary surfaces, listening to the crackle of my MX-5’s surfaces being chinked and chipped away by the stones being chucked up.

It is, of course, better than the alternative – a North West criss-crossed with roads so badly potholed they’re suitable only for the Lunar Rovers last deployed on NASA’s Moon missions. However, I still pondered which clot had signed off resurfacing the Coastal Road in Ainsdale, stretches of the Formby Bypass, Altcar Road in Formby, and several of Southport’s more important thoroughfares almost simultaneously. Surely redoing ALL of them wasn’t a particularly bright idea?

Then it hit me. The combined threat of destroying the paintwork on your pride and joy and skidding to a fiery death if you drove one of these resurfaced roads at speed had succeeded in reducing the average pace – even on a dual carriageway – to the sort of speeds I normally do on my mountain bike. The roadworks have succeeded where that favourite strategy of the Speed Kills lobby – 20mph speed limits – failed.

Not convinced? Well, nationwide research by the Institute of Advanced Motorists into the effects of dropping 30mph limits by a third showed that the number of accidents actually went up by over a quarter, with less severe accidents increasing by 17%. Logically, you’d reason that the nation’s go-faster drivers are utterly unmoved by a lower speed limit, but I bet they’d think twice about ruining the optional metallic paint on their Audi A4s.

I’m sure I can’t be the only person a bit peeved with the policy of redoing roads with noisy, slow, paint-removing substances en-masse, but you can’t deny it got even the most ardent of speed freaks to back off for a change.

The conclusion’s a simple one. A rubbish road is a safe one.

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Mondeo takes on the Lake District

 

THEY criss-cross the Cumbrian mountains around Derwent Water, chucking in plenty in the way of tight corners and challenging inclines. They give just about any car 23 miles of some of the most challenging motoring in Britain.

They are the Honister and Newlands Passes, and they turned out to be the perfect place to put the Mondeo to the test.

Earlier this week you might have read that I've added a 51-plate Ghia X - bought for a grand - to the Life On Cars fleet, meaning I've got more in-car gadgets at my fingertips than I've ever normally been used to. Admittedly, one of them's aready given up the ghost, with the six-CD autochanger refusing point blank to either play shiny musical discs or go hunting over the airwaves for BBC Radio 2, but replacing it with a single-CD job means I can at least take advantage of the superbly crisp speakers. I'm also particularly loving the cruise control system, which meant the blast up the M6 up to the Lake District was astonishingly easy work.

 

Yet once I'd peeled off the motorway and found some proper roads to play with, it was one thing in particular which really stood out on the Mondeo. The 145bhp from its 2.0 litre, 16 valve engine.

Out on the really demanding roads between Keswick and Buttermere, the leather-lined family favourite was an absolute revelation. Admittedly, the best thing I've ever piloted along these mountain passes was a brand new Lotus Elise S, closely followed by an original Mini and my old, much-missed MX-5, but the Mondeo impressed me hugely through its combination of mid-range torque to blast you up the steep straights, and Focus-but-bigger dynamics to keep me entertained through the bends. How could something so big and so heavy, I wondered, be so much fun?

It might not be the definitive gospel of driving fun - for that, you've really got to go for something lighter, smaller and more specialised - and pushing on is only ever going to give you mild understeer, but the Mondeo more than survived trial by Cumbria, with the tough and twisting roads showing it's got a fun streak running through its steering and handling.

The best bit about visiting Cumbria, however, is that when you've finishing haring around the mountain passes you can go to the Lakeland Motor Museum, which I've already mentioned is a superb afternoon out even if you aren't a petrolhead.

Among the highlights, for me at least, was checking out the Land Rover Series One used as a support vehicle during Donald Campbell's world speed record attempts on land and water, fittingly finished in Bluebird colours.

Even though the Mondeo's impressed me hugely with its speed, its handling and its gadgets, I know which I'd rather have in my dream garage!

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2012 has been a year of great motoring moments

STRANGER things, I guess, have happened, but I’ll share it with you anyway. As the clocks chime midnight and drunks everywhere usher in a New Year, the most popular Life On Cars piece of 2012 was about the Raleigh Chopper. Which isn’t a car at all.

Still, there were plenty of proper motoring moments – you know, ones involving cars – which I’ve enjoyed over the past 12 months. Here’s ten of my favourites:

1) Doing an advanced driving lesson... in a Lotus Evora S 

2012 marked the year when I took the plunge with the Institute of Advanced Motorists and did their advanced driving course (thoroughly recommended, by the way). I did all of the lessons in my Mazda MX-5 – which was fun in itself – except for the one week when I had a supercharged Lotus Evora S at my disposal. There are probably more sensible choices for what’s basically a driving lesson than a mid-engined supercar, but I used it anyway. Big fun...

2) Setting a blisteringly fast lap time in a Wigan cotton mill 

Literally, as the sharp pain in my hands – shot to bits from fighting furiously with a tiny steering wheel – proved for hours afterwards, but a karting race organised a birthday treat for Yours Truly was well worth it. If you’ve ever fancied flinging a go-kart around a two-storey track crafted from an old cotton mill, give Elite Karting in Wigan a bell. Then again, the three seconds my mate shaved off every lap over mine meant he lapped me twice in our 40 minute race. He still hasn’t let me live that down...

3) Driving a Rover which refuses to give up 

The MGB GT and the MX-5 are undoubtedly the glamour models of the Life On Cars fleet, but when the going gets tough it was always the ancient Rover 214 that’d be called upon – and it delivered, time after time, without a whisper of complaint. In February, it drifted its way across a Cumbrian snowdrift which had defeated a much newer BMW 1-Series, a MINI and a SEAT Leon. Then it sailed right the way across the country to deliver two people and a week’s worth of camping gear safely in Norfolk, and got back again, without a hiccup, and only last month it freed a far heavier Mondeo Estate from a muddy campsite. Not bad for a car costing £300. Rover and Honda engineers of the late Eighties... I salute you!

4) Pitting sports cars against hot hatches in Mid Wales 

We took four performance hits to the utterly wonderful A44 and found four very different ways to get your motoring kicks. Given the choice between a Volkswagen Polo G40 (ultra rare hot hatch from the people who brought you the Golf GTI, with added supercharger whine), a Rover Metro GTi (affordable, rev-happy and goes like stink), a Mazda MX-5 (slowest of the bunch but the only one with rear-drive and the option of driving al fresco) or a Ford Racing Puma (pretty, rare, quick and controversial – see number nine) which would you pick?

5) Going back in time 

Obviously not literally but on the few occasions when I brought the MGB GT to the right road, on the right day, it really was like driving in a simpler bygone age. This heady blend of high-octane petrol, 20w50 oil and Rostyle wheels - which proved a big hit at this year’s Ormskirk MotorFest – provided a nostalgic treat, which is best expressed in moody, monochrome pictorial form. Like the shot you see above.

6) Discovering that you don’t need four wheels to make a great car 

 A couple of people have already asked me how a three-wheeled car with a 1920s body, skinny tyres, a motorbike engine bolted to the front and an absence of any doors, windscreen, windows or roof can possibly be good enough to be named as the best thing I’ve driven in a year that’s produced such hits as the Toyota GT-86. But it just is. Take a Morgan Threewheeler out for a blast down on a country lane on a sunny day – in fact any day, come to think of it – and you’ll know exactly what I mean.

7) Capturing the moment at the Ormskirk MotorFest

The special online magazines made by Life On Cars are, by and large, quite well received (which, given it was only ever meant to be a one-off originally, is a good thing). The edition I wrote with the cooperation of the Ormskirk MotorFest organisers, however, went a bit further than that, being read not by a few dozen or even hundred people, but by thousands of people. I just hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I did researching, writing and producing the thing!

8) Driving Britain’s best roads... in an MX-5 

 The Buttertubs Pass is great in any car but when you’re in something as delicately balanced as an MX-5 it feels a little bit extra special (although the bright evening sunlight didn’t help). But even that wonderful moment couldn’t top the occasion when what seemed like a farm track in the middle of nowhere eventually brought us out onto the road between Pentrefoelas and Ffestiniog, which is one of the most spectacular bits of tarmac I’ve ever encountered. To have discovered it any car would’ve been fun but it was even better being behind the wheel of a great little sports car.

9) Discussing whether the Ford Racing Puma deserves its classic-in-waiting status 

Just one of the many pub arguments I’ve had with the small-but-dedicated group of petrolheads who hold Life On Cars’ automotive assertions to account. Other topics to get The Farmers’ Arms treatment include whether or not off-roaders are stupid and pointless, whether a Toyota GT-86 is better than a top-of-the-range MX-5 and if in cash-strapped 2012 MPG was more important than MPH. For these endless hours of entertaining discussion, I thank this small group of people who know who they are.

10) Raising £126 for charidee

Finally, there was the night when Life On Cars and the region’s petrolheads came together to help support a very good cause by taking part in a pub quiz with a difference – all the questions were motoring-related. Even though there was a broken sound system, a very drunk Nigel Mansell fan and a slight mistake in a motorbike question to deal with, the night still managed to raise £126 for the National Autistic Society. You never know, there might even be another one in 2013...

Make no mistake, 2012’s been a great year for motoring moments and Life On Cars will continue giving you a petrolhead perspective throughout 2013. Happy New Year!

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Rover to the rescue in the Lake District

THE glamorous motoring missions don't usually get thrown the Rover's way.

While the MX-5 gets tasked with tackling the tricky mountain roads and the MG gets to strut its stuff at shows, my 1995 214SEi is usually doing the dowdier jobs, trundling to the shops and taking bits of unwanted furniture to the tip.

Yet on a weekend away in the wilds of Cumbria, it's more than proved its worth.

Having decided to spend a night away with a few friends in a camping pod near Ullswater (well worth a try, by the way) I pointed the Rover's square-rigged nose north up the M6 for the dash up to Cumbria. When I tried exactly the same journey in the MGB earlier this year it was genuinely hard work - not only was it slurping a gallon of premium unleaded every 25 miles, but it was noisy, heavy and, thanks to a firing problem, not all that fast either. The MX-5's motorway manners are far better but its tiny boot meant it was a no-no for the camping trip, and, still haunted my memories of a hairy moment with it on the wet Cumbrian roads this time last year, I decided its tail-happy sense of fun and country lanes covered in mud and wet leaves made no good mix.

Not that taking the £300 Rover was a bad bet, because what it lacked in excitement it made up for in comfort, its parsimonious take on drinking petrol and its sheer determination to plod on, no matter what I threw at it. I threw it at mountain roads. I forced it up steep hills. I caked it in mud. I loaded it up with clothes, clobber and camping gear. Not once did it complain.

I knew it wouldn't - this being the same Rover that refused to be beaten by snow in Grasmere, the Evo Triangle in North Wales or the enduring feat of getting to Norfolk in back in baking sunshine - but by far its finest hour was last night, when a mate's much newer, much heavier Mondeo Estate got stuck in the mud on a boggy campsite. Even though there was a Land Rover Defender parked nearby, nobody was around to drive it, so it was down to an ancient, front-drive Rover to tow the stricken Mondeo out.

Even though the Rover's clutch gave off a distinctly evil smell and the tow rope eventually snapped under the strain, the £300 hatch eventually managed to free an estate car weighing nearly twice as much and save the day. We toasted our success of a few pints of the local brew in the campsite pub later that night, but we couldn't have done it without the plucky little Rover which refuses to give up.

Great car.

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Calling all Scottish petrolheads

NOT SO long ago I got my first invite to a fully-fledged car launch. Champion commitments meant I couldn’t have taken two days, but it was a tempting offer – flights, accommodation, grub and the chance to drive a new car.

Most tantalisingly of all, it would have offered me the chance to put a car through its paces in a place I’ve always wanted to drive. The Highlands of Scotland.

Having lived just over the border in Carlisle for three years, I’ve ventured into Scotland on a string of occasions, most notably in 2007 when I used the Caledonian Sleeper as part of a feature to travel the length of Britain using public transport alone. I’ve also sampled some of Scotland from behind the wheel, but thrashing a Renault 5 to Dumfries and back is only scratching the surface.

Anyone who read my piece on Skyfall will already know the remoter bits of Scotland are a wonderfully scenic place to take a car, but with places like Glencoe and Aviemore being a long, long way from the Champion’s circulation area and petrol currently at a crippling 138.9p a litre you can understand why I’m a little reluctant to follow in Bond’s footsteps and take my own Sixties GT car on the same journey.

That’s why I’d like to go all Guardian on you and crowdsource a solution; what is the best, and most affordable, way to get your motoring kicks in the Highlands?

Taking your own car is the easiest and most convenient way to do it, obviously, but aside from the wear ‘n’ tear there’s the hours on the motorway and the petrol involved. As much as I’d love to see the shot of my MGB GT overlooking a misty loch, it’d take eleven hours and £150’s worth of premium unleaded just to get there and back.

Nor is hiring a car for the long trip up especially appealing either – sure, you’d save big time on fuel and it’d be a much comfier, quieter and less stressful drive, but when you’re presented with somewhere like the A82 as it winds its way towards Fort William you want to be something a little more memorable than a Chevrolet Aveo. A stage as grand as the Highlands ought to be experienced in something a little more agile!

The romantic writer in me loves the idea of boarding the Deerstalker as it screeches into Crewe at midnight, sleeping as it chugs its way through the Scottish countryside, and hiring a car at Fort William, but it’s a lot of money when you risk being lumbered with a diesel Vauxhall Corsa. Another option, until not so long ago, would have been to fly up to Inverness Airport, but the Liverpool flight I used to get back five years ago is long gone and Easyjet have dropped their Manchester flights.

So I’m stumped, haunted by an appealing idea which sounds like great full-throttle fun but which, thanks largely to the price of petrol, I’d struggle to do on a budget. That’s why I’d love to hear from anyone who’s ever ventured up there to find out what’s the best way to experience a stunning stretch of the British Isles.

The Dales, the Lakes, Snowdonia, the windy lanes of Cornwall and the Cat and Fiddle Run – I’ve driven them all and loved every mile. I’d love to add the Highlands to that list.

Life On Cars readers are also reminded that the PetrolheadPub Quiz takes place in Southport on Sunday, November 18. If you’d like to take part, it costs just £2 per person and starts at 7.30pm...

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Great car, great road: tackling the Buttertubs Pass in a Mazda MX-5

NO WONDER I was a bit knackered. I had, after all, driven nearly 500 miles yesterday in my bid to get to Yorkshire, drive some new cars and then get back again.

But at least 50 of those miles I could have avoided, had I not insisted on going the long way home, and heading north up the A1 in a hunt for the Yorkshire Dales, rather than driving south in a vaguely homeward bound direction. When you're in North Yorkshire and you've got a sports car at your disposal, it'd almost be rude not to take it over what arguably is the most exhilarating stretch of road in this part of Britain.

The Buttertubs Pass.

It's a route I'm more than familiar with - once you're off the A1, you head to the picturesque village of Leyburn, and then dart over the tops of the hills past a tank training ground to Reeth, and then work your way west along the windy little road through the Swaledale valley, until you reach Muker. This is actually quite an enjoyable drive in itself - although at gone 5.30pm yesterday evening driving straight into the autumn sun made it surprisingly hard work - but it's only then you reach the start of the Buttertubs Pass, which takes you back over the hills towards Hawes.

It is an absolutely incredible stretch of road, and while I've enjoyed it before at the wheel of a Renault 5, a Rover 214 and - best of all - someone else's Suzuki Swift Sport, I felt yesterday as though I'd brought a car which was in its element. The MX-5 could have done with a bit more power on some of the steeper bits, but in terms of precise handling, communicative steering and open air thrills the little Mazzer was a joy. Big, big fun.

I came down - in more ways than one - from the thrilling Buttertubs Pass and pointed the Mazda's pop-up headlights towards the very-nearly-as-good Cliff Gate Road, which runs past the Ribblehead Viaduct towards Ingleton. It was getting dark. My hands were numb from the cold, wintry air rushing in from all directions. I was more than seventy miles from home, in a particularly remote bit of the middle of nowhere, and the effects of driving hundreds of miles in a string of different cars was beginning to catch up with me.

Not that I cared much. Piloting a great car over the Buttertubs Pass has got to be one of the best motoring thrills Britain can offer.

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Petrolhead heaven in North Wales

TWO rather tidy Rover SD1s, several confused-looking sheep, a charming countryside cottage ironically called The Ugly House and a disused viaduct stuck halfway up a mountain.

These are just some of the sights I’ve clocked on a bit of a petrolhead tour of North Wales, which saw a Mazda MX-5 (driven by Yours Truly), a Ford Racing Puma and a diesel Saab 9-3 (it’s the economy, stupid) pitted against some of the windiest roads I could find in the AA road atlas I’d bought three days earlier.

More importantly, what I saw a lot of on these trips is mile after mile of deserted tarmac, criss-crossing remote bits of moorland in the middle of nowhere in particular. If you’re really, really keen on driving then the words Croeso i Gymru should bring a smile to your face!

Admittedly, the staff at the bar in Betws-y-Coed we always stay at on these trips are probably getting familiar with our faces by now, but I’m always happy to chuck a few quid at the Welsh economy given what we always get in return. In this case, it was heading up the back road towards Ffestiniog, turning a corner and being greeted with a glorious panorama of the countryside stretching out for miles below us, a faint blue sky above us and the Irish Sea somewhere in between.  Staggeringly beautiful scenes like these are what motoring through Wales is all about.

Then of course, there’s the driving itself, which as long as you stay beneath the speed limits and keep an eye out for the real troublemakers of rural driving – sheep and hairpin bends – is truly good fun. At one point on the Evo Triangle (if you haven’t heard of it, Google it) we got overtaken by a souped-up Subaru Impreza, a MINI Cooper GP and a Porsche Boxster S and I don’t think any of us were particularly bothered, because even at sensible speeds we were loving every minute.

These roads were enjoyable even in a diesel Saab (especially if you’ve got the smug factor of overtaking just about everything and getting 50.3 to the gallon while you’re at it) so you can imagine how much of a ball it would have been in a Ford Racing Puma and an MX-5 with its roof down.

I know I’ve said it before but it’s worth saying again - if you like your driving there really are some stunning roads that aren’t a million miles away. Get out there and give them a go – you won’t regret it!

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Mr Honda Concerto ought to agree with my take on rural speed

THE Honda's rear haunches have never looked so frustrating. Even though it was the crack of dawn on a dry weekend morning, Mr Concerto was dawdling.

Bikers among this column's readers will already know why the Cat and Fiddle road, between Macclesfield and Buxton, is worth seeking out - and why it's such a regular visitor to all those accident statistic surveys as a result. It is, carefully driven, a stunning route across the Pennines well worth seeking out. If you've brought a car - and not a superbike - the 50mph speed limit is plenty, but Mr Concerto was having none of it. He was determined I'd be doing 28mph, and not one measly mile an hour more. A great drive ruined by someone dangerously determined not to be overtaken.

Anyway, it was all part of my quest to answer a question I left hanging a couple of weeks back - is it better to head somewhere the fun way or the quick one? The answer, unless you're absolutely insistent that every journey must go via the Buttertubs Pass in the Yorkshire Dales, is emphatically the quick one. On a really long drive motorways are infinitely preferable to getting lost in Mansfield's one way system.

Besides, little country lanes are going to get slower still if the Coalition gets its way; successive governments have struggled to deal with rural accident rates, and now Cameron and Clegg (which, by the way, sounds like a dodgy estate agent) have hit on a solution. Rather than a blanket reduction, they're considering making it easier for local authorities to lower limits as they choose. It is The Big Society versus speed.

For what it's worth, I reckon it's a good idea - there are far too many winding lanes which you could technically shoot down at sixty, but to try would be lethally dangerous, and chances are your local council knows more about accident hotspots than Whitehall does. Great power, however, comes with great responsibility.

If I head to somewhere like Lincolnshire or Yorkshire behind the wheel of something sporty, it'd comfort me greatly to know that the speed limit's been considered locally by folk who know the roads. What I emphatically wouldn't want - and what a lot of the nationals reported last weekend - is a blanket lowering of rural limits to 40mph from the current sixty.

I'm not a speed freak - a proper petrolhead values good handling over doing a million miles an hour anyway - but what I reckon motorists want is education rather than punishment. We want to know people are actually thinking about road safety rather than just blindly and blanketly laying down the law.

Hopefully, Mr Concerto agrees with me.

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