I'd work on the assumption that the 'sample' is going to end up on a scanner, loaded into photoshop and pasted onto something incriminating. If they asked me I'd tell them no

I saw a sign in Kingston Upon Thames that claims that the landowner will sue the parking company if you park in their private parking area, and they will then recover that loss from the driver. That's really not going to fly, is it?

unfortunately I live down in London, so it'd cost me more than the fine in petrol and time. That and I did stop short of the tramgate, assess the situation (albeit wrongly) and then drive through, so I'm 99% sure I don't have a leg to stand on. I think I'd have had more of a chance if I'd just driven straight through to be honest...

dammit - I now know exactly which tram gate the OP means because I turned left into it due to the signs being obscured by building works around what used to be the Nottingham Trent Uni student union building. The problem is that I stopped *just before the gate*, passenger told me there's no way to back out now, and you're already screwed so you might as well go and I agreed and kept going. I only realised walking back that way he was completely wrong. D'oh - I'm guessing that although the signs are obscured and confusing the fact I stopped, looked at the situation and then carried on is just going to look far too bad to get out of paying this one so I'll just have to cough up...

I wasn't there, obviously, but the sentence '...but did gear down as the alternator belt was yelling' could tie up with 'Vehicles used in a manner causing alarm, distress or *annoyance* '. I can't really think of anything more annoying than a screaming fanbelt, although I'll admit someone doing 15mph down the outside lane is possibly a close second...

Am I the only one who thinks it's ridiculous that a defence to not losing your licence for driving like an idiot is to claim that you *actually spend more time on the road* or you are a *professional driver*?

maybe it's to get obsessive compulsive types to put another quids worth in to try and hit it again... ...and again... ..etc...

it's an old trick - cut & paste something relevant in an attempt to gain standing, so you can come back and spam later. I'd kill that account.

I knew that was the case legally speaking, but practically speaking if you get stuck in a situation you can't get yourself out of the common sense thing would be for the other driver to take control of the car for a bit, which wouldn't have been possible without them being insured on the car. So although it's not legally required it does make sense

ahh - sorry about that. I missed the part about being 18 and was concentrating more on the new driver element. You can really tell it's a monday morning...

I've had a full licence for 10 months and I also have 3 years no claims bonus. You can still insure yourself as a main driver on a provisional licence, fail the driving test a few times, end up waiting 3-6 months between attempts and drive around in the meantime with a qualified driver who is also named on the policy.

That's exactly what I've been seeing - it doesn't usually just die - it just ends up with no power and then picks up slowly or just feels like it's doing nothing and will pick up a short time later. It can be incredibly heavy on fuel - once I got through 1/4 tank in about 30 miles, but that is an extreme case. Since posting that it was fixed it did it again - was doing 20 mph in heavy motorway traffic, tried to move one lane left in a fairly limited gap in anticipation of the upcoming exit, realised nothing was happening and I was just flailing around halfway between lanes and used the remainder of my forward momentum to just give up and return to the lane I was trying to leave. It's generally good at motorway speeds though. I'll try this later.

Well that was confusing. The issue was back, so I left it with the garage for 2 days. I had to chase them for updates and I was eventually told 'we can't find any fault with it' and 'we've fixed it' in the same breath. I went to collect the car and was told that it's done about half my daily mileage over 2 trips and been looked at with the computer again and no faults were found in the computer or noticed by the engineer. Then I got the usual 'bring it back if it happens again, remember it is a low-spec car', it was heavily implied that I should have a wander around the forecourt should I feel the need for more power, etc. I've been driving it for a few days since then (about 150 miles) and sure enough it is absolutely 100% fine with no issues whatsoever (I would've expected it to have reoccurred by now if it was still a problem), and the only other noticeable thing I can see is that this time the presets were wiped from the radio. I'm happy enough to have a working car without having to pay out even more to get to this point, but for curiosities sake - does anybody have any idea what happened there?

I'm fine with that - tailgating gets on my nerves no end. The fact that 'careless driving' seems to be defined in such a loose and subjective way worries me though - If one person is going to be judge, jury and executioner by the roadside then I'd want something a bit more specific.

Back again... D'oh! It doesn't seem like it's going to die any more, but it's definitely not right. On the day of the repair it was great, and the first morning commute (just over 30 miles) was fine, but then it all started to go to pot on the way home. From hitting the sliproad (junction 20 of the M25) at just under 50 with my foot to the floor I was almost at 19 when I finally reached 70MPH and pretty much everything overtook me on the way. at another point the engine just seemed to struggle and I dropped about 10mph a couple of times. This morning when I'd been in the car for about half an hour I tried to pick up speed from 20 to 30 in traffic and it hit 25, wouldn't accelerate for a few seconds then finally reluctantly went up to 30. So I'm guessing that the sensors may have been a partial result (I hope - engine stalls were about 2-3 days driving apart and with the bank holiday it probably wouldn't have reoccurred by now without any action), but it's still bad. I've not had any dashboard lights on, so I have no idea where that leaves me in terms of logs Time to get it booked back in for another look I think - what kind of thing should I be expecting this time?

Just for completeness and closure - it turned out to be the camshaft position sensor. nicely dealt with, seems to have solved the problem and they did at least try to get VW to chip in some goodwill as it's barely out of warranty (unprompted - I hadn't thought about that), but they refused as it's not in their list of known issues. I'm no expert but it drives a lot better now and sounds a lot smoother so I'm happy with that.

If I could use public transport I would, and likewise I wouldn't choose to pull up in or otherwise occupy a bus or bike lane. Sometimes things happen though. Currently my car is off the road (just lost power and died - does that make me deserving of a ticket if I end up in a buslane due to that?) so I ended up using the train and to say it's not pleasant would be an understatement! I was an hour late leaving Clapham Junction because the train physically couldn't hold the amount of passengers and although I got on someone physically pulled me off the train and climbed into the vacant gap so they wouldn't be late. I saw this happening yesterday too but I was too far into the train to be affected. Worse still I end up paying twice as much as it costs to drive for the privilege and Since then I've found out that I could've just hired a car for the same cost as my ticket! If they really want to make life difficult for drivers to get them to adopt public transport they should at least have a viable alternative in place first because as it stands in some areas there just isn't usable public transport for people to use instead.

So it's not a worst-case scenario then? that's slightly comforting... Since then I've had no warning lights, but it is sounding a bit rough at times and sometimes it has just coughed and spluttered in 1st-3rd and just not responded to the accelerator unless I take my foot completely off and try again. Get it up to 40 and beyond and it's mostly okay, although the 'like trying to push a boulder up a hill to get it down a sliproad' issue still stands sometimes. I suppose I'll have to see what the VW dealer suggests it might be, see how that ties up with the suggestions made here and work out where to go from there... EDIT: Not to self - don't post words like 'it's working okay now' - tempting fate has rather predictable consequences... D'oh!

Hopefully this is just paranoia on my part after reading the other VW thread... I have a 2009 Polo 1.2l e60 (1 previous owner, about 13k miles on the clock when i got it in feb 2011, now 28.5-ish) which is the second car I've ever owned, so I don't have much to compare it with but generally it feels okay to drive. Some days it just feels sluggish and laggy when accelerating though - especially when trying to get up to motorway speed on a sliproad, but this isn't every day - just most of them these days. I originally put this down to possibly being my imagination or just being overly familiar with the car (and it not being a shiny new toy any more) because I'm no expert, but yesterday I was doing just under 30mph, tried to accelerate and the engine, epc and another light came on. I'm not sure because I was more concerned with the fact that I'd have understood a 'loss of power' to mean it would stop accelerating and coast, but this felt like someone had slammed the brakes on and there was a bus right behind me. The car just juddered along for a couple of seconds and then the lights cleared and it seemed to pick up speed slowly until it hit 30, and started driving just fine. Do any of these symptoms sound like the problems people have been experiencing with their similar spec Polos? Or failing that does anyone have any ideas what kind of diagnosis I should be expecting? I've got it booked in to a VW dealer next week, but I would prefer not to go in completely ignorant. On thing I'm sure of is that with a 70 mile round trip commute to work each day, taking in the delightful sights of the M4 and M25 I could do without this...

only the examples you give there involve leaving the car so if the car became an obstruction you wouldn't be there to do anything about it. On the odd occasion I've had to pull over in this kind of way for some reason I've always had one eye on the mirror and been completely prepared to move if needed - if you didn't do that then you'd be causing an obstruction and at that point as far as I'm concerned you're fair game. Aren't slow-moving cars dawdling along at 15mph looking for the correct turning or directions also an obstruction? Not one that would trigger a speed camera or get a PCN admittedly...

I know it doesn't help in hindsight, but this is why I have a satnav. Some people see it as 'Lazy driving' - but if it stops 1 speeding fine for a limit change you missed, a PCN when pulled over asking for directions like this or a turn you shouldn't have made then it's paid for itself the first time. I'd have hoped they would've had a bit of common sense and saw the situation for what it was though.

I disagree with speed cameras, because there are plenty of people who tailgate, don't signal, cut you up and shoot down the wrong side of long lines of traffic, causing a danger for oncoming traffic, ignore zebra crossings with pedestrians trying to cross and generally act in a dangerous way that *never trigger a speed camera* (especially the ones that fly down the road, cut in front of you and then damn-near do an emergency stop because the are onto the telltale white lines). I stick to the limits but other drivers speeding around me are often the least of my problems. If safety really is the issue then that little laundry list of issues needs to be looked at.

damn! I had a missed call from that number the other day. I'm a software engineer and an ex-callcentre loudmouth (you have to pay for the degree somehow...) so I would've loved a play with one of those idiots.

Unconditional agreement with every word they say I'm assuming...

how about 'stop being a selfish and lazy and walk that last 10 metres'? You'd curse everyone else for being a hazard to your kids, so what exactly gives you the right to do it to everyone elses?