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weirdweb
1. How old were you when you got your drivers license?
23. I actually held a provisional license from my 17th birthday onwards, but I never had the money (or inclination) to learn. I finally bit the bullet in September 2001, when it was becoming increasingly irritating for me to have to bum lifts off my mother or friends to get to places (mostly hockey matches). Took my test six months later and past first time!
2. Did you get your own car right away, use the family car, or bum rides from friends?
I had a share of my dad's car but as he needed it for his job and I had nowhere to park it at my old office, I didn't really take ownership of it.
3. What was your first car and what was it like?
1984 Ford Fiesta that ran on leaded petrol (!!) It was creaky, it was leaky, it was hell in cold weather (the heater didn't work for the first twenty minutes of the engine running) but it had four wheels, it went (mostly) and it got me from point A to point B (apart from the occasion the battery died in the middle of rushhour, with me stuck in the middle of a very busy junction...).
4. How old were you when you got your first traffic ticket and what happened?
I'm sure I'm tempting fate to say this, but SO FAR I have yet to be ticketed. I know that if/as/when it does, it'll be for speeding, though!
5. What is your favorite car story, be it an accident, road trip, etc?
Has to be the occasion I went to Swindon by way of the M5. For those of you not acquainted with British geography: I'm in Bristol. Bristol sits at the junction of two motorways; the M5, which runs North/South from Birmingham to Exeter and the M4 which runs East/West from Swansea to Londonish. Swindon is about an hour east along the M4 from Bristol. The M4/M5 junction at Almondsbury is hideous. It's been the downfall of a great many tourists and non-natives because the signing doesn't actually start (on the M5 heading north, at least) until the road starts to divide. I was being held up by someone dithering just ahead of me, so I pulled out, intending to overtake, not realising just how close I was to the junction. Next thing I know, I'm heading north on the M5 instead of east on the M4 and the next junction on the M5 isn't for ten miles...
Fortunately for me I was not alone in the car AND I had a comprehensive road atlas in the car. With one of my two passengers navigating, we cut across country from that M5 junction to join the M4 ten miles from Swindon. It was certainly an interesting journey along single track roads, some of which were actually rather worryingly flooded (!!), but thanks to Michelle's map reading, we actually arrived in Swindon no more than fifteen minutes late and still thirty minutes early for the hockey match!
weirdweb1. How old were you when you got your drivers license?
23. I actually held a provisional license from my 17th birthday onwards, but I never had the money (or inclination) to learn. I finally bit the bullet in September 2001, when it was becoming increasingly irritating for me to have to bum lifts off my mother or friends to get to places (mostly hockey matches). Took my test six months later and past first time!
2. Did you get your own car right away, use the family car, or bum rides from friends?
I had a share of my dad's car but as he needed it for his job and I had nowhere to park it at my old office, I didn't really take ownership of it.
3. What was your first car and what was it like?
1984 Ford Fiesta that ran on leaded petrol (!!) It was creaky, it was leaky, it was hell in cold weather (the heater didn't work for the first twenty minutes of the engine running) but it had four wheels, it went (mostly) and it got me from point A to point B (apart from the occasion the battery died in the middle of rushhour, with me stuck in the middle of a very busy junction...).
4. How old were you when you got your first traffic ticket and what happened?
I'm sure I'm tempting fate to say this, but SO FAR I have yet to be ticketed. I know that if/as/when it does, it'll be for speeding, though!
5. What is your favorite car story, be it an accident, road trip, etc?
Has to be the occasion I went to Swindon by way of the M5. For those of you not acquainted with British geography: I'm in Bristol. Bristol sits at the junction of two motorways; the M5, which runs North/South from Birmingham to Exeter and the M4 which runs East/West from Swansea to Londonish. Swindon is about an hour east along the M4 from Bristol. The M4/M5 junction at Almondsbury is hideous. It's been the downfall of a great many tourists and non-natives because the signing doesn't actually start (on the M5 heading north, at least) until the road starts to divide. I was being held up by someone dithering just ahead of me, so I pulled out, intending to overtake, not realising just how close I was to the junction. Next thing I know, I'm heading north on the M5 instead of east on the M4 and the next junction on the M5 isn't for ten miles...
Fortunately for me I was not alone in the car AND I had a comprehensive road atlas in the car. With one of my two passengers navigating, we cut across country from that M5 junction to join the M4 ten miles from Swindon. It was certainly an interesting journey along single track roads, some of which were actually rather worryingly flooded (!!), but thanks to Michelle's map reading, we actually arrived in Swindon no more than fifteen minutes late and still thirty minutes early for the hockey match!
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Date: 2005-02-05 01:51 pm (UTC)*waves* Thanks for friending me! Isn't LJ great? *bouncy*
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Date: 2005-02-05 05:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-05 06:27 pm (UTC)