Car technology woes
Catching up with blogging….
Almost two weeks ago we were driving back into London on the A40 — three lane urban motorway with no hard shoulder to stop safely — and we suddenly lost all power. I made it into the slow lane, just, and we sat on the grass verge.
Camera fail: I had a real camera with me in my bag, which I left the car with. But the shots below were taken using the cameraphone I had even closer to hand. In the moment, I simply didn’t think to reach for the good camera.
Mobile phones are great. I didn’t need to walk down the carriageway and GPS + Google Maps gave me the name of the road of the turning we’d just passed… which helped the highway patrol people to find us.
The AA were poor to begin with: I started the call saying we were stopped in a dangerous position and had a baby with us. But *after* taking all of our details, only then did they say they couldn’t help and we should call 999 to get the police to tow us somewhere safe!
More car tech fail: When the AA did show they were good, and ended up towing me home. But the AA man’s computer completely refused to talk to the car’s computer. So, the AA could tell one or more coils had blown, as had a fuse, but couldn’t be sure there wasn’t more damage.
Car politics: Apparently we were on the Met’s turf, not Highway. So, there was a delay while we waited for the police to give the OK for the Highway people — who actually turned up — to tow us:-
