Things that annoy you beyond reason...(Vol 5)

[Stan the Bat]

droopsnoot said:

captain_cynic said:

Such little faith in your countrymen?

Any such system relies on people to respect it, by and large, people will.

If everyone was a reasonable as they should be, things would work so much better and things like hosepipe bans wouldn't be necessary. I spent a couple of days at Llangollen recently for the classic transport weekend, and it was amazing how many people I overheard moaning because the railway weren't running steam trains, despite the many, many signs up explaining that it was due to the risk of lineside fires. Sure, it's disappointing, but not as disappointing as the entire valley going up in smoke.

Thought the Welsh liked the sight of a nice cottage going on fire.

[Roofless Toothless]

AppleJuice said:

Roofless Toothless said:

Graduation ceremonies.

In primary schools, secondary schools and sixth forms, yes!

Any.

Half the kids in the country go to college now days, so what's with the gowns and cloaks? It's nothing special.

[bristolracer]

Rubberneckers

Stop it, its a bent car on the opposite hard shoulder and its rush hour on the motorway network.

[GroundEffect]

Roofless Toothless said:

AppleJuice said:

Roofless Toothless said:

Graduation ceremonies.

In primary schools, secondary schools and sixth forms, yes!

Any.

Half the kids in the country go to college now days, so what's with the gowns and cloaks? It's nothing special.

Because real degrees are fking hard?

[Johnspex]

Timmy45 said:

Johnspex said:

Morningside said:

What age bracket are you?

Car insurance annoys me more than anything else. Because it's the law they can think of a number and multiply by 10. Talking to someone from Australia and he was saying because not compulsory they are begging for business and it's very cheap.

Then the comparison sites that oddly exclude everything to make it look competitive.

Am I misreading this? Are you saying car insurance isn't compulsory? What happens if you crash into someone and they die? You could leave a family with no dad and no income. Surely third party cover is compulsory.

Of course it's compulsory. It's as compulsory as it is here, i.e. minimum you must have is 3rd party fire and theft.

So anybody can drive any kind of car? Wish we'd had something like that in my youth. I could never afford to insure the kind of car I wanted. As an example my first car, a Mini, cost £70 to insure TPF&T. Mind you, it was 1970and £70 was a fair whack.

[cobra kid]

GroundEffect said:

Because real degrees are fking hard?

You know what? They aint!

Google has made them infinitely easier to get.

[V8mate]

cobra kid said:

GroundEffect said:

Because real degrees are fking hard?

You know what? They aint!

Exactly. 50% go to Uni. 50% have an IQ over 100.

Which means that a degree needs to passable by someone with a IQ of 100.

And an IQ of 100 is pretty thick.

[Pothole]

captain_cynic said:

Such little faith in your countrymen?

Any such system relies on people to respect it, by and large, people will.

Australia has had water restrictions for the better part of a decade, AFAIK very little policing happens as very little policing is needed. You certainly can be fined there, but I've never even heard of such a thing.

Record numbers in 2016

[Clockwork Cupcake]

Regardless of how difficult or not it is to get a degree, the fact is that graduating was usually the end of your education, unless you chose to continue. So it was kind of a big deal. It was what your whole education had been leading up to and was the culmination of it all.

By having all these lesser "graduations" starting from 'graduating' (sic) from kindergarten (really?????), by the time you get your degree it is just another graduation ceremony. Which is a pity.

[captain_cynic]

Johnspex said:

Morningside said:

What age bracket are you?

Car insurance annoys me more than anything else. Because it's the law they can think of a number and multiply by 10. Talking to someone from Australia and he was saying because not compulsory they are begging for business and it's very cheap.

Then the comparison sites that oddly exclude everything to make it look competitive.

Am I misreading this? Are you saying car insurance isn't compulsory? What happens if you crash into someone and they die? You could leave a family with no dad and no income. Surely third party cover is compulsory.

In Australia, property insurance isn't compulsory.

In most states, medical insurance is collected as part of your registration (road tax).

So the minimum you have to pay for your car insurance is $0. That means companies have to compete with that, as such, charging insane premiums just doesn't fly over there.

I've never paid over A$1000 (£500) for car insurance in Australia, not as a fresh off the test driver, not even whilst owning one of the states most stolen and crashed cars (Nissan 200sx). I've never been quoted under £500 for anything in the UK. Not even a 1L Aygo.

For my first car I paid $350 (£175) for third party fire and theft on a $4000 (£2000) Honda Civic. TP was cheap and allowed young people to build a NCD without breaking the bank.

However I'm sure the resident Insurance Company regional acting-VP of marketing for the south Kent region will be along shortly to tell us how lucky we are to be paying such "low" prices for insurance.

Timmy45 said:

Of course it's compulsory. It's as compulsory as it is here, i.e. minimum you must have is 3rd party fire and theft.

Flat out not true.

The minimum insurance you must have is no insurance.

On the whole, I would prefer mandatory insurance as one of my biggest fears back Oz was having my car wrecked by someone without insurance. Even if I'm fully covered, it'll still cost me my excess and possibly no claims bonus (NCD's in Oz work on fault, not on whose insurance you made the claim on). However if you do make insurance mandatory, the government needs to regulate it better than they do in the UK as we are being fleeced here considering how fewer crashes and fatalities there are in the UK compared to Oz.

[captain_cynic]

Johnspex said:

So anybody can drive any kind of car? Wish we'd had something like that in my youth. I could never afford to insure the kind of car I wanted. As an example my first car, a Mini, cost £70 to insure TPF&T. Mind you, it was 1970and £70 was a fair whack.

Back in your youth... yes.

However in Australia many states have put in power restrictions despite research saying these are fking useless, however they are politically convenient as the please the "old man yelling at cloud" voting demographic. In WA, young drivers (18-25) driving high powered (greater than 130Kw/T) or modified cars were involved in 0.6% of crashes where the police attended.

Back in my last state of residence, Western Australia, doesn't have these restrictions so a young driver could literally get into a high powered car, in fact many young drivers were getting 400HP V8 Commodores or modified import Skylines due to the insane amount of money being thrown around in the mining boom. Even a V6 Commo had 180 KW (230HP IIRC) and they were cheap as chips and common as muck not to mention council as fk (and dirt cheap to insure).

[untakenname]

Getting fed up of people asking what pub is going to not be packed for the match, I live in London so every pub is going to be rammed.
Just want to sit at home with a beer and watch but apparently I need to head out for the 'atmosphere'.

droopsnoot said:

As the house was in darkness, it's probably safe to say that it was going all night, but I admit that's an assumption.

Had a neighbor that did this with a noisy sprinkler leaving it on overnight whenever the weather was nice, one morning was woken by shouting as someone (probably drunk) had disconnected the hose from the sprinkler and posted it through the letter box of the next door neighbours house!

[Shakermaker]

captain_cynic said:

Johnspex said:

Morningside said:

What age bracket are you?

Car insurance annoys me more than anything else. Because it's the law they can think of a number and multiply by 10. Talking to someone from Australia and he was saying because not compulsory they are begging for business and it's very cheap.

Then the comparison sites that oddly exclude everything to make it look competitive.

Am I misreading this? Are you saying car insurance isn't compulsory? What happens if you crash into someone and they die? You could leave a family with no dad and no income. Surely third party cover is compulsory.

In Australia, property insurance isn't compulsory.

In most states, medical insurance is collected as part of your registration (road tax).

So the minimum you have to pay for your car insurance is $0. That means companies have to compete with that, as such, charging insane premiums just doesn't fly over there.

I've never paid over A$1000 (£500) for car insurance in Australia, not as a fresh off the test driver, not even whilst owning one of the states most stolen and crashed cars (Nissan 200sx). I've never been quoted under £500 for anything in the UK. Not even a 1L Aygo.

For my first car I paid $350 (£175) for third party fire and theft on a $4000 (£2000) Honda Civic. TP was cheap and allowed young people to build a NCD without breaking the bank.

However I'm sure the resident Insurance Company regional acting-VP of marketing for the south Kent region will be along shortly to tell us how lucky we are to be paying such "low" prices for insurance.

Timmy45 said:

Of course it's compulsory. It's as compulsory as it is here, i.e. minimum you must have is 3rd party fire and theft.

Flat out not true.

The minimum insurance you must have is no insurance.

On the whole, I would prefer mandatory insurance as one of my biggest fears back Oz was having my car wrecked by someone without insurance. Even if I'm fully covered, it'll still cost me my excess and possibly no claims bonus (NCD's in Oz work on fault, not on whose insurance you made the claim on). However if you do make insurance mandatory, the government needs to regulate it better than they do in the UK as we are being fleeced here considering how fewer crashes and fatalities there are in the UK compared to Oz.

Of course what you don't get is guaranteed service when you need to make a claim, is it? Mate of mine had a car crash in Australia over a year ago, needs some surgery to put him "right" again but the medical insurers are arguing over that with each other, still, whilst the problem gets worse (his words of course)

whereas over here, he'd be guaranteed to have the operation and have a place on the waiting list for the next 2 years already!

[Russian Troll Bot]

Morningside said:

What age bracket are you?

Car insurance annoys me more than anything else. Because it's the law they can think of a number and multiply by 10. Talking to someone from Australia and he was saying because not compulsory they are begging for business and it's very cheap.

Then the comparison sites that oddly exclude everything to make it look competitive.

Mid 30s, and a few years ago I was paying £300 to insure a 406 coupe (hardly a performance car, but still a fairly high grouping.) I am also of the belief they make it up as they go along.

[captain_cynic]

Shakermaker said:

Of course what you don't get is guaranteed service when you need to make a claim, is it? Mate of mine had a car crash in Australia over a year ago, needs some surgery to put him "right" again but the medical insurers are arguing over that with each other, still, whilst the problem gets worse (his words of course)

whereas over here, he'd be guaranteed to have the operation and have a place on the waiting list for the next 2 years already!

Depends what your mate means by claim. Medical issues are not handled by car insurance companies.

Medical insurance is a complete mess at the moment (thanks to the Howard Govt) and I think would be the problem in your mates case. If you're over 30 you must have private medical insurance (as well as paying the medicare levy). So this is likely who is arguing, whether Medicare or his medical insurance is paying for it and who they can stick with the bill at the end as the Australian system is no longer single payer like the NHS.

Claims for loss of income or disability can get a lot messier, especially if you haven't got comprehensive insurance.

All states in Australia have a charge on your rego (road tax) to pay for medical issues from road accidents, CTP, TAC charge, so on and so forth (the system differs from state to state).

I've had to make one claim on my insurance, when my Honda Integra was rear ended. Couldn't have been simpler with RAC(WA), car war written off in 2 business days, money was in my account a few days after (basically the sent it immediately and the Australian banking system took it's time). I was uninjured fortunately.

[Moonhawk]

V8mate said:

Exactly. 50% go to Uni. 50% have an IQ over 100.

Which means that a degree needs to passable by someone with a IQ of 100.

And an IQ of 100 is pretty thick.

Not all degrees are equal though - and there are also a range of results you can get for a degree.

I suspect those with an IQ at or close to 100 are doing relatively easy subjects and getting 3rds.

[V8mate]

Moonhawk said:

V8mate said:

Exactly. 50% go to Uni. 50% have an IQ over 100.

Which means that a degree needs to passable by someone with a IQ of 100.

And an IQ of 100 is pretty thick.

Not all degrees are equal though - and there are also a range of results you can get for a degree.

I suspect those with an IQ at or close to 100 are doing relatively easy subjects and getting 3rds.

Hence my use of the term 'passable', i.e. capable of being passed.

[Shakermaker]

Smokers who stand immediately outside whatever building they aren't allowed to smoke in, rather than in the provided smoking areas 20 yards away. fk off you smelly bds and keep your lung cancer to your own kind

[james_tigerwoods]

Shakermaker said:

Smokers who stand immediately outside whatever building they aren't allowed to smoke in, rather than in the provided smoking areas 20 yards away. fk off you smelly bds and keep your lung cancer to your own kind

Or an ignorant neighbour that thinks using the shared passageway as her own fking ashtray is acceptable.... (My house is on the left of the passageway)

We've had words before about this and my car was "mysteriously keyed" a few days later - that's the kind of person she is...

Edited by james_tigerwoods on Wednesday 11th July 17:48

[Fastdruid]

Searching for parts by part numbers and keep coming up with:

1) Old Ebay auctions where the part is sold / not available
2) Amazon items where the part is "Currently unavailable" and "We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock"
3) US sites *despite* selecting "Country: the UK" in the tools.

While I'm at it... The lack of any UK dealers to do online parts for Mazda (and they're not alone) by P/N.

Come on Mazda, it's 2018 FFS. I can get a price for a Honda part in seconds for example and have been able to for years. Loads of the US dealers do it as well. I could buy online parts from Illinois ffs but not the UK!