The sad case in the news today where a father has been convicted in relation to the death of four of his children when his modified Land Rover crashed and ended up in a river raises a question regarding modified cars which has been common for many years.
The truth is that there are an enormous amount of modified cars on the road which are not safe either for the driver or for other road users.
I was really aware of this problem when I was councillor for Fakenham on North Norfolk District Council and we had (and probably still have) a problem with teenagers driving modified Vauxhall Corsas around the town late at night, very often speeding, and in cars that had been modified in carious ways that rendered them dangerous.
The classic example of this was the group who had their 1.2 litre Corsa's altered to take wider lower profile tires. The problem was that these tyres actually rubbed against the bodywork when they got full lock on their steering. Not happy with this, the cars were sometimes lowered (meaning they caught the bottom of the car on ruts and speed bumps) and to add to the danger, they had an array of flashing neon lights that lit up the road in various patterns which seemed specially designed to distract other drivers.
How did they get through their MOTs I hear you ask ? Well in the first instance they simply reverted to their old tyres when their test was due (a cheap job if you have a few friends who will help you with the tyre change and MOTs are not concerned with things like neon lights.
I'm sure Fakenham is not the only place with such problems. But today's events highlight the need for the police to be vigilant in stopping modified cars, but with the number of police patrols being lower than ever, the chances of them being stopped is lower than ever.
4 comments:
I agree with you Nich. Not only are these cars dangerous. I am plagued by these baseball capped Corsa idiots testing if their 'uprated' cars against me.
As a matter of interest, and this is not to criticise you, but how does someone who lives in Norwich get to represent a Fakenham ward?
I lived in Fakenham for more than four years, I taught there for five years, I won from fourth place the time before winning 65% of the vote (against Tories, Greens, Labour, and a well known independent who was a sitting councillor), and thankfully when I stood down, my seat was held by the Lib Dems.
I liked Fakenham would happily have stayed there but getting married and taking in to account my wife's job a move was the best thing, but we still go to Fakenham regularly to shop as its a lot easier to get to and park than Norwich.
Cool. I like Fakenham. It still has a market town feel without the insane house prices of Wells or Burnham Market.
This idiot is an unqualified mechanic. It is one thing to modify vehicles for the track, and quite another for road use.
I see other idiots with silly little Corsa 1.2 and big exhausts in the ditches.
It should be remembered that cars which might be safe are rendered dangerous by the driver. They are not toys. Four young children never grew up because of their dad's stupidity.
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