Let me begin by reminding everyone that our AGM takes place at Lostock Parish Centre before the Group meeting on Tuesday May 6th – start time 7.00pm prompt. After a short break we look forward to hearing from David Roughley, with his talk entitled “A Trip Down Memory Lane” – see page 8.
Those of you who were at the April meeting will remember that speaker Brian Topping was raising funds for “Friends of Frankie” – Frankie was his grandson who died in his sleep aged 3 years. Brian has sent a "heartfelt thank you" for the generous donations given after the meeting in his collection box – a remarkable £31.01.
I hope everyone will agree that our meetings at Lostock Parish Centre continue to be a success, and it seems that the room layout functions quite well. We thank Geoff Baker who supplied us with some delicious cake at the April meeting!!
I must be a glutton for punishment!! You will remember from previous Chairmans Chatters’ that I said I had abandoned using Adaptive Cruise Control (or Intelligent Speed Assist if you prefer!!) in my 2023 VW Arteon as not yet being ‘fit for purpose’. On a recent trip to Guildford/Farnham I thought I would give it another chance to redeem itself. It turned out to be just as stressful as before – but worse in some cases. I found that there is another ‘random’ 40mph limit in the online mapping system for the M42 between J3 and J3A (where M40 joins the M42) which must be a remnant from Smart Motorway construction. The last thing you need is to have the car braking harshly to 40mph for some phantom speed limit when the posted limit is 70mph, so it was lucky that there was no following traffic close behind. Another poor ‘feature’ is that the system does not use acceleration sense to slow down, it always uses the brakes (thus showing repeated brake lights), which must be disconcerting for following drivers. Just resting my foot lightly against the edge of the brake pedal showed the brakes were being applied.
So will the system cope any better in slower moving and queueing motorway traffic? Junctions 10 to 8 on the M6 south are often a combination of slow and stop/start so should have been within the capabilities of the system. Nope!! The car/system waits till the last minute to brake (as I have said, it doesn’t use acceleration sense) which is very unnerving if the traffic has come to a standstill. My foot was always over the brake ‘just in case’, and twice I braked because I thought it wasn’t going to brake in time. All in all it made for very stressful driving. It also doesn’t handle vehicles changing lane and ‘cutting in’ well at all. Finally, on Smart motorways it is guaranteed to get you a speeding fine if the speed limit is reducing, as the system only reacts to the lower speed as you go under the gantry. That’s too late, the camera is behind the gantry – you need to be at the lower limit AT THE SPEED LIMIT CHANGE. So, to conclude. If this is the future for automated driving it has a long, long way to go. For me it’s switched off until there are improvements to the system/car/maps/car cameras. And also read page 10!
Recent news items regarding poor eyesight, and in particular self-certification from age 70 onwards, has given a much higher profile with Coroners reports following the deaths of four people who were killed by drivers with failing eyesight. Some of the articles makes very upsetting reading. But whilst these are making the headlines, there are also many younger (than 70) drivers on the roads who should be using eyesight correction!
Roy Sammons