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A long journey
29 September 2014 22:12


The Prologue

I was away this weekend to a SJA conference in Cheltenham. It's 66 miles from Smalltown to Cheltenham and the journey should take about an hour. It wasn't and it didn't.

The Story

A colleague was going to drive past Smalltown on her way so offered to give me a lift. She had booked a fleet vehicle so we didn't have to take our own cars. What could be better?

First problem surfaced about an hour before I was due to be picked up. Traffic News reported that the road between Winchester and Smalltown was blocked by an accident. Being a man who is ever-resourceful and can be relied upon to come up with a plan in times of crisis, I suggested that we meet at Eastleigh instead. I know the area well enough to find an alternative route. So that was decided upon.

Driving southwards I was able to see where the accident was, so worked out that the easiest and quickest route would be to take two sides round a triangle by detouring via Basingstoke.

When colleague picked me up from Eastleigh, she was very quick to jump out of the driver's seat and say "it's all yours". I should have suspected something. The vehicle was a Kia. Now, dear reader, if you ever get the chance to drive a Kia, please don't. It was awful. It seemed to have more in common with a tractor than a road-going vehicle. You didn't so much select a gear as force the gear stick in the required direction and hope that it might engage something. Even when it was in gear, the stick wobbled as much as if it had been in neutral. There was also an odd smell coming from the engine compartment that my colleague had been assured was caused by oil spilt on the engine.

So off we go on our slightly elongated journey. We got about ten miles, to just north of Winchester, when the car stopped working in a rather alarming "loss of power to the wheels" sort of way. We were close to a motorway service area, so I shoved it into neutral and tried to coast to the junction. We didn't quite make it - by about 50 yards.

So we open up the file of "what to do when you use a fleet vehicle" and found the big yellow sheet of "what to do when you break down" and phoned the number for "phoning from a mobile phone". Third problem of the day. This was the wrong number. We had to use the number for "phoning from a landline but this is really expensive when you use a mobile" instead.

Now, you are all well aware of the safety advice about getting out of the vehicle when you breakdown on a motorway because you are far safer on the hard shoulder than you are in the vehicle. Having been on the hard shoulder with vehicles screaming past at 70+ mph, I can say that they do have a point. Particularly when you are only 50 yards from an exit and you think "if anyone makes a late manoeuvre and causes another driver to take avoiding action, I am right in the firing line".

There is, however, one teeny-weeny flaw with this advice. When you get out of the car, the noise from the motorway is so loud that you can't hear to make a telephone call. So I judged that it would be better to stay in the car to phone the breakdown company.

So I get through to the breakdown company. Before I get to speak to anybody I have to listen to a recorded message giving me all the safety advice that I already know. And then I get to speak to somebody.
"Where are you?" I am asked
"On the motorway just before Winchester Services"
"Are you in a place of safety?"
"Not really, I am still in the car. If I move to a place of safety I won't be able to hear you. If it's all right with you I'd like to get this phone call over and done with as quickly as possible so that I can move to somewhere where I feel a little safer"
"OK. Would you like me to read you the safety advice?"
"No, I really don't think that is necessary. I just want to finish this phone call so I can get out of the car"
"Where precisely are you"
"On the motorway, just short of Winchester Services"
"Is there a marker post nearby?"
"What? 'Winchester Services' isn't a big enough clue?"

All credit to the AA (that's the Automobile Association, not Alcoholics Anonymous), they had a truck with us within ten minutes. And diagnosed a failed clutch and/or gearbox. This could explain the excessive wobble in the gear stick. And you know that smell? I didn't think it smelled like engine oil. That would be because it was clutch fluid. Although the car now worked, sort of (we were able to get it to the service area) there was no way I was going to risk driving it to Cheltenham.

Alternative transport was needed. Plan C, Plan D, and Plan E were all worked through (remember, Plan B had already been used up as the alternative route to avoid the accident). We phoned the Area Manager. We phoned Fleet Administration (it was their vehicle, after all). Fleet administration said "get back to Winchester and we will find you another vehicle". So that was decided upon. Of course, we had to go to the next junction to get off the motorway first. We then drove an ambulance from Winchester to Souhampton (20 miles in the wrong direction), where we swapped it for another car. And just to add a bit more fun, by now it was rush hour.

Eventually we got into Southampton, swapped vehicles, and had a journey with no more incidents. We arrived at Cheltenham some four hours later than expected. This 66 mile, one hour journey had turned in to an epic 182 mile, six and a half hour journey using four vehicles.

But one bright spot. On our way out of Winchester services, we saw a yaffle (green woodpecker).

The Epilogue

The theme of the conference was mental health. As we arrived, the speaker was explaining how one aspect of mental illness can be the inability to work out alternative strategies when plans go awry. On that criterion and based on the day I had had, I must be in A1 mental health. (In another session we filled in a questionnaire to assess our mental well-being. I got such a low score that it fell into the range of "he's telling porkies; no one can be this healthy")

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