Car Trouble

I’ve twice been accused of being involved in a road traffic accident, and failing to stop afterwards. Fortunately on each occasion I had absolutely cast iron alibis – not for myself, but for the vehicle allegedly involved. In both cases the vehicle was off the road at the time the accident was alleged to have occurred, and not in my possession at all. In one case it was in the possession of professional repairers, and in the other case it was in pieces in the University car park, where University security personnel were only too well aware of its presence.

Who would accuse an innocent person of such a crime? Once might be a mistake – although to get the registration matching the make, model and colour of the vehicle (in the first case a bright yellow Land Rover) would be unlikely in that case. Twice?

I don’t know anything about the person who accused me the first time. Maybe I should have made more efforts to find out – made more of a fuss at the police station, tried to get them to investigate whether it was really a mistake, or something malicious aimed at me personally. It never occurred to me to push the matter once the police had accepted that I really hadn’t been involved in any accident.

The second time, I did find out who’d accused me. Surprise, surprise, he was a known National Front supporter. Whether he was actually a member, I don’t know. And of course I was an outspoken opponent of the National Front.

I’m jolly glad that I did have a cast iron alibi. At that time, the local police force themselves weren’t exactly friendly towards opponents of the NF. (Whether they are now, I simply don’t know.) Trying to get the police to prosecute the miscreant for making malicious false accusations was a non-starter.

In over forty years of driving, I’ve never been involved in a road traffic accident while I was moving. I’ve managed to avoid quite a few, mostly by swerving or braking hard or both, but on a couple of occasions by driving my Land Rover off the road to get out of the way – never by “accelerating out of danger”! People have run into the back of my car three times while I’ve been stationary, however. It’s harder to get out of the way when you’re stationary, especially when there’s something right in front of you.

September 1971.

The first time, there’d been an accident. Two lorries had sideswiped each other on a narrow road somewhere near Abergavenny. The police were already there, controlling the traffic, letting a single lane through, first in one direction, then in the other. I stopped at the tail end of the queue. I’d been stopped long enough to have turned the engine off by the time the next vehicle arrived behind me, but he’d come sailing round the bend too fast, and didn’t manage to stop before hitting me. He punted me into the back of the car in front of me. Fortunately I had a policeman as witness to the fact that I’d not hit the vehicle in front until I was pushed, so all the costs were paid by his insurance, and I didn’t lose my no claims bonus.

Well, I say “all the costs,” but that’s not really true. The write-off value of my ancient Morris Minor Traveller was less than the cost of repairs would have been, so all I got was the write-off value. The car was still road-worthy, so I continued to use it for another few months. I had to replace the radiator with one from a breaker’s yard, and I had to chain the back doors shut, because the locks no longer held. Overall, I was pretty annoyed, and I reckon I was out of pocket really.

December 1973

The next vehicle I had was a Bedford Crewbus. That was also finished off by someone driving into the back of it, but I was asleep in bed at home at the time. It was parked round the corner from the house, on the hill. I used to park it there so I could bump start it down the hill. It didn’t seem worth getting a new battery for an ancient wreck that I was planning to scrap when its tax ran out in a few weeks’ time.

As I say, I was asleep in bed. I dreamt that someone was banging the dustbins outside the back door.

The house I was living in was a shared one. There were ten of us living there at the time, if I remember correctly. Some of my housemates burst into my room and woke me up, shouting, “Someone’s crashed into your van!”

I got dressed quickly and rushed out. My friends were already there. One of them had rung the police. The driver of the car that had run into my van had somehow managed to get out of his car and was ranting and raving and seemed ready to beat someone up, or try to. He was extremely drunk.

His car was a mess, with the engine pushed back into the middle of the front seat. It’s a wonder he wasn’t badly hurt, and that he’d managed to get out. The police station wasn’t far away, and the police were on the scene pretty quickly.

It was all a bit of a laugh, really. He tried to tell the police that my van had pulled out of a side road right in front of him, but there isn’t a side road there. There is an entrance to a school, but it has big gates right by the roadside, and they were locked. My van was rather foreshortened, the doors were jammed firmly shut, there was no-one inside, and the engine was stone cold. Hmmm. Driven out of a non-existent side road? The policeman wasn’t convinced.

Luckily he was insured. His insurance paid me the write-off value for the van, no arguments. I wasn’t complaining – I’d been going to scrap it very soon anyway. What you lose on the swings, you gain on the roundabouts. Well, I did that time, anyway. My Dad used to say that the only way to make money out of an insurance company was to be a shareholder, and I reckon that’s mostly right.

The final laugh was what we found in the road in front of the van: a dried-up chappati, covered in purple paint on one side. Most of us were very puzzled, but Alf enlightened us. Months earlier, we’d all been out for a curry, and he’d taken a left-over chappati and slapped it on the roof of the van, where it had stuck unnoticed until the crash. It had stuck to the paintwork better than the paint had stuck to the van.

There were a couple of other stories concerning that Crewbus.

December 1972

The first was moving a friend, Carolyn, from Merthyr Tydfil to Yorkshire. All her stuff pretty much filled the Crewbus. Weight-wise, it was probably a bit overloaded, but I’d got no means of telling.

Only a few miles after we set off, on a blind bend just after Storey Arms at the summit of the A470 in the Brecon Beacons, there was a dreadful noise from the back axle and we ground to a halt. I investigated, and discovered that a rear wheel bearing had failed completely, and the weight of that corner of the vehicle was pressing the brake shoes firmly onto the brake drum.

I always had all my tools with me. We had to unload a bit to get at them, but such is life. I stuck some rocks in front of the other three wheels, jacked up the corner of the vehicle, stuck some rocks under the axle and lowered the weight back onto the rocks. I took off the wheel. I removed the bolts and pulled the halfshaft out, complete with the dead bearing.

I hitch-hiked into Brecon, which was nearer, carrying the half-shaft, but I couldn’t find anywhere that had the right bearing. Ho hum. I hitch-hiked back to Merthyr, and managed to get the bearing, but the place that sold it to me couldn’t press the old bearing off the shaft, or press the new one on. I found a place that could, and they did.

All this time poor Carolyn was sitting in the van, not having a clue where I’d got to! I didn’t want to get my lift to stop for a chat on our way back to Merthyr, but I did get him to hoot. Carolyn heard the hoot, but didn’t see me in the car, and at first wondered why he’d hooted. Later on, when I’d been gone such a very long time, she guessed that it might have been me hitching back to Merthyr for some reason.

I hitch-hiked back to the van, reassembled everything, and off we went. All this had cost about six hours. I doubt if the RAC or AA would have attempted a road-side repair. They’d have put the van on a car transporter and taken it to a repair garage, and we wouldn’t have got it back for days and days, or depending on our contract, taken us to our destination and then let us sort the repairs out ourselves later. Either way, it would have cost us a lot more delay, and a lot more money, too.

We arrived in Yorkshire very much later than planned, but without further incident.

Are you wondering about a tiny woman, who looked about sixteen, hitch-hiking on her own? I was carrying a large piece of metal, over two feet long with a heavy lump on one end...

But I used to hitch-hike anyway in those days. I suppose I was taking a bit of a risk, but I never worried and never came to any harm. Hell, I crossed roads on my own, too! I probably got lifts more easily than blokes or couples. The villains never got a chance to pick me up, because someone else had already taken pity on me before they turned up.

The nearest I came to any harm hitch-hiking had nothing to do with me being small and female. I got a lift in an Irish lorry. The driver was a lovely man, very friendly and an absolutely perfect gentleman. Not much bothered about the letter of the law though! He was exceeding the speed limit by a considerable margin going up the M6. We were just about to overtake a caravan that was also, I’m pretty sure, exceeding his speed limit by a fair bit and snaking somewhat, when the snaking suddenly became violent, the car driver lost control, the car slid sideways onto the hard shoulder, and the caravan collided with the front of our lorry.

There was a fantastic bang. The windscreen shattered all over us, and there were little bits of caravan all over the road.

Nobody was badly hurt, fortunately.

August 1973

The other story about the Crewbus was an occasion when I took a crowd of friends out for the day in the Yorkshire Dales. We had a really good day, with a picnic somewhere well up into the Dales. I don’t remember exactly where, but maybe somewhere near Muker.

We were on our way back, when a sheep ran out into the road right in front of us. I slammed on the brakes, and almost managed to stop in time, but we’d definitely hit it. It didn’t get up and run away, so we got out of the van and looked. It was on its side, trapped under the front bumper, struggling to get free and failing. My friends held onto it and shouted instructions to me as I reversed off it very slowly. It scrambled to its feet and ran off, apparently none the worse for the experience. I hope it didn’t curl up and die in a corner later, but I’ll never know.

I’m normally quite good at retaining my composure in such circumstances. What happens, happens, it’s no use crying over spilt milk. Especially when it wasn’t even spilt as far as we knew. But I was really disturbed by it, and felt very weird for several hours afterwards. I managed to drive home okay, but I wasn’t at all happy doing it.

It was only several weeks later that a friend, whom I still regard as a friend despite this, although we’re rarely in contact nowadays, revealed that the mushroom omelette we’d had on the picnic had been full of little bits of psilocybin mushrooms. It’s the only time I’ve taken non-pharmaceutical drugs, as far as I know. I don’t really like taking pharmaceutical drugs, never mind others.

June 1974

The second time someone ran into the back of me while I was actually in the vehicle, I was driving my old Land Rover through the middle of town. There was a queue of people waiting for a bus on my left, close to the edge of the pavement. I was driving quite slowly, as I always do when passing pedestrians close to the road, or anywhere where pedestrians might be close to the road but unseen. As I was passing this queue, a pram suddenly appeared just beyond it, pushed into the road not far in front of me. I slammed on the brakes hard, and stopped with a few inches to spare.

I pulled on the handbrake, and turned the engine off to get out and check that everyone was okay. Just as I was opening the door, therefore at least a couple of seconds after I’d actually stopped, there was an almighty bang and the Land Rover bounced forwards. I leapt out and ran round to the front – where fortunately there was still a gap of a couple of inches between the Land Rover and the pram. The Land Rover hadn’t moved much.

Then I ran round to the back, where the car that had hit me – much smaller and lighter than the Land Rover – had itself bounced back and left a gap of a foot or so. I looked at the back of the Land Rover. There was a bit of pale blue paint on the rear chassis member, but there didn’t appear to be any damage. I turned to the fellow who was just getting out of his car, and said, “It’s all right, mate, you’ve not done any damage.” I may have been a little shaken. I don’t think that was necessarily the most appropriate thing to have said anyway, but I hadn’t at that point taken in who the chap was, what the car he’d been driving was, or how badly his car was damaged.

At that point, a large hand descended upon my shoulder, and another on the shoulder of the young policeman who’d been driving the police car that had hit me. “Don’t worry, kid,” a kindly voice said to me, “I saw it all. We’d better go into the station and take statements, but you’ve nothing to worry about. As long as you’ve got a driving licence!”

We were right outside the police station. The kindly voice was that of a middle-aged officer who’d been standing on the police station steps.

Several years later, I was in a pub with some friends when a chap walked in whom I thought I recognized, but I couldn’t place where I knew him from. He was obviously having the same experience, but at first neither of us said anything. Later on, however, he joined us at the pool table, and we got talking. It turned out that he was the policeman who’d run into the back of my Land Rover. He was very friendly, and told me that he was glad he’d not damaged the Land Rover or pushed me into the pram, and that for him it had turned out to be a good thing. He’d not been happy as a policeman anyway. He’d been moved into a different job in the force where he was even less happy, and had finally left the force and got a different job. I forget now what he said his new job was.

My friends Dilip, Brendan, Kay and Mary went down from Yorkshire to Lowestoft to look at an old boat they were thinking of maybe buying. They went in Brendan’s Ford Capri. It was going to be a flying visit, but I couldn’t go, because of my work. Dilip left his old MG Midget with me for me to do some repairs.

On the Saturday morning, I was upside-down in Dilip’s driving seat, with my head down among the pedals pop-rivetting a new floor panel that I’d made into place, when I heard a voice asking, “Excuse me Madam, are you Miss Lane?”

I extricated myself. It was a policeman. He told me that my friends had had an accident in Norfolk, and that they were all in hospital in Bury St Edmunds.

I completed the repair, telephoned the hospital, and set off in Dilip’s car. It was much cheaper to run than my Land Rover, and we all borrowed each other’s cars all the time in those days. It was really more like a commune than just a shared house.

Fifty miles down the road the engine faded out. I coasted for a way looking for somewhere to leave the road safely, and pulled off. Bonnet up. No petrol getting to the carb. Plenty in the tank. Petrol in the pipe to the pump – which was a pig to get to, high up in the tunnel over the rear axle. Electricity getting to the pump okay. Knock the pump with a big spanner. Tick, tick, tick! Aha! Stuck pump. I was off again.

Another fifty miles. Same thing again. Ho hum. Straight to the trouble with the big spanner up over the rear axle. Off I go again.

Another forty miles. Not again! Aha! The other side of that tunnel is just behind my back. Will banging my fist on the panel do it? Yes! I didn’t even have to stop. I had to do it every forty or fifty miles all the way, but that wasn’t difficult and I had no further trouble.

Dilip had been driving, late at night. Brendan was asleep in the front passenger seat, Kay and Mary asleep in the back. Dilip nodded off, and was woken by a blaring horn. They were on the wrong side of the A11, and a heavy lorry was approaching. He swerved violently, and narrowly missed a head-on collision, but couldn’t hold the car on the road. They must have been going pretty fast.

At that point the road is on a bit of an embankment. They left the road on the left-hand side, and hit a wooden overhead power line post several feet above the ground, leaving a cylindrical dent a foot deep in the left hand side of the car. Mary was catapulted over Brendan’s head, out through the windscreen, and landed in the field. Kay bounced upwards and hit her head on the roof, but remained in the car. Dilip got a dreadful bruise in the shape of the steering wheel, right across his chest; Kay had two dreadful black eyes; the other two had cuts and bruises. Miraculously, that was all.

The car was a write-off. But it was Brendan’s car, and he was Irish. The car was registered in Ireland, and had been imported temporarily without paying import duty. It had to go back to Ireland, or Brendan would have had to pay a lot of import duty on it.

Back in Yorkshire, I bought the rear axle of a large van, and a hitch assembly off a caravan, from a vehicle breakers. I made a car trailer, and several of us set off in the Land Rover, towing the trailer, to go and get Brendan’s car. We loaded up the car, and set off for Fishguard. We’d not got very far when the brakes failed on my home made trailer. I knew they’d failed by the change in the way the Land Rover handled when I braked. I got out and checked, and could see the problem. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be easy to fix.

At this point, we weren’t very far from the village where my old friend Nick had set up a car repair business. I rang him, and arranged with him to fix the brakes for me. We agreed that as long as I drove slowly, it’d be safe enough for me to drive to his garage. It wasn’t the nearest place I could have got the brakes fixed, but it wasn’t all that far.

Driving down the A11 at 20mph, I got quite a queue of traffic behind me. I pulled off the road whenever I could, to let everything past, but I soon got another queue. Just before the place where I was going to turn off to go to Nick’s village, I was stopped by the police.

“Why are you driving so slowly?” they asked. “Because my trailer brakes have failed. I’m on my way to the garage to get it fixed, I’ve arranged it with them.”

The trailer looked very home-made, and the Land Rover and its six occupants were pretty scruffy – all legal though, as far as I knew, apart from the failed brakes. The police went over the whole outfit with a fine-tooth comb, and searched me and all my passengers for drugs, but found nothing. There was nothing to find. But they cautioned me, and took a statement about the failed brakes.

I drove on to Nick’s garage, where it was decided the brakes would be too hard to fix in time for us to catch the ferry from Fishguard. Nick rang round a few other local garages, and found a car trailer we could borrow. We took the car to Fishguard and loaded it onto the ferry. Brendan’s father in Cork organized for someone to take it off again at Rosslare.

We had to go back via Nick’s village, to return the borrowed trailer and pick up mine. Nick hadn’t repaired it by then, but without a car on it, it weighed less than the limit for an unbraked trailer.

The police actually took me to court for towing a trailer with defective brakes. I pleaded guilty by letter, but sent a letter from Nick informing the court that I had indeed arranged with him to get it fixed, and that he considered it safe as long as I drove slowly, and asked that this be taken into consideration. It was: the magistrate clearly thought the case should never have been brought. I was fined ten pounds, a nominal sum, and didn’t get any points on my licence, with costs in my favour. I didn’t have any costs in fact, since I’d pleaded guilty by letter, but I didn’t have to pay the police costs.

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