**When** driving along a busy main road and you encounter a stationary queue of cars coming from the opposite direction, created by someone who is waiting to turn right into a side street (across your bow), it **is** considered good manners to slow down, flash your lights ((yes, yes, technically illegal, I know)) and allow them to turn in front of you.
**However**, you should check your mirror first. Because if, against all odds, there is actually nobody behind you for, oooh, a hundred metres, you **will** think to yourself “Hmmm, I look like a **fool**.”
7 replies on “Thought For The Day”
Excellent advice. I’m a bit of a mirror demon, really, I possibly check them too often. I find myself looking in my passenger-side wing mirror in wide roads and then thinking ‘why did I just do that?’.
But at least I don’t look like a fool. 😛
Speaking of passenger-side wing mirrors, this morning I awoke to find that the glass had been stolen from mine.
Grrrr.
Most unfortunate.
What possible good can you get from side mirrors? I mean it’s not exactly a lucrative item.
No, but the piece of glass is worth £10, and the mount is another £20 or so more. If you’ve had yours nicked, you save a fair amount of money by stealing someone else’s rather than paying to replace your own.
On the street where I used to live, I had the side mirrors kicked off my car about 10 times (if not very possibly more). Several times it was both mirrors at once. Being the jury-rigging expert that I am, I managed to lash them back on every time with some electrical tape, but they still needed proper fixing. Which added up to a total bill for mirror-fixing of about €2,000 over the three years I lived there.
It stopped last year after I was advised to talk to a mechanic guy who lived across the road, who said ‘I know who that was, it’ll never happen again’. And it didn’t. He wouldn’t tell me who it was though, which is probably for the best, as if he had told me, I’d probably be either in prison or hospital now.
I think it would be poetic if the mechanic had ripped your phantom-mirror-kicker’s ears off.
Look for the guy with no ears. Call him rude names, if you like – he can’t hear you.
I’ve decided to park on a different street in future – one that gets a little less foot traffic. I’m sick of needing repairs for petty vandalism, though obviously my situation is nowhere near as dramatic as yours.
Glass and mount were £28. VAT and labour increased this by a further £16.