[Helen F H]

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<font color='#000080'>Ok, you know sometimes you do something silly, or something is pushed upon you and your life flashes before your eyes?  Well it just happened to me.
Coming back from Deep Blue in Tynemouth (bottles filled and ready to go for Mull), we were pootling along at somwhere around 50, coming up to a 30mph and roundabout being the fourth car in a line (red thing, possibly a megane, a corsa, an old volvo and then us).  

Suddenly all i see is brakelights and clouds of grey smoke as the volvo infront of us goes across the road.  We go from 50 to zero in what seems to be bloody miles, missing the back of the volvo and the stone wall of the farm house garden.  We actually ended up past the volvo, on the grass verge.  Scary huh?

Now consider i have two full 10 l cylinders in the boot.  If we had gone into the back of the volvo i dont think i would have felt a thing.  I know that something weighing 10kg in the boot can come forwards with a hell of a force in an accident, you just assume it is never gonna happen to you.
From now on, they go on the floor behing the driver/passenger seats.
When i opened the boot and showed the copper what was in there he said we were very very lucky.

And you know why we stopped?  Cos the woman in the first car wanted eggs from the farm house and had driven past.  She did an emergency stop for frigging eggs!

 

[Helen F H]

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<font color='#000080'>ok just looked, lost a wee bit of paint but thats all - must have been from when they went airborne  

 

[ANDY 64]

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<font color='#0000FF'>Glad to hear ya alright, and got away lightly, how much rubber did u leave on the road ?

Little tip for ya

Get a old fence post, and cut off 2 pieces that are 4" long, then cut them crossways to make 4 lots of little triangles , these are now used as wedges to hold your cylinders from rolling/sliding . Go into HALFORDS and you can buy a pack of 2 rachet straps,,,,,,,, slide the strap under the cylinders and attach to something at the rear section of your boot.


I know of a case some 10 years back, where a diver was driving , skidded and the pillar valve was knocked out and broke, sending it though the side of the car at a VERY high speed into a house wall, he was fined heavily for carrying a load , not properly secured

Andy

 

[Ross M]

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<font color='#0000FF'>Greetings,


Good to hear that you are AOK.

Are the polis going to charge the stupid fecker with something, I can think of several they could get her on.

 

[Bethi]

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<font color='#8D38C9'>Porg
Glad to hear you are ok. Funnily enough just took my twinset out of the back of the car that has been there since Diving with Andy in dover two weeks ago...i commented at the time that it's not so clever to be driving around with them in the boot all the time!
see you next weekend..yeee haa mull here we come!

Jules
x

 

[[email protected]]

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Hi Porg

I'm glad you are ok, please refer to the post on "women drivers" and tut out loud.

James  

 

[Rob Evans]

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OK. It's not big and it's very definitely not clever but.....
Trundling up to Scapa last year with a car full of diving kit. Did I say full? Oh yes.  All the rest of the chaps were flying up, but cos I didn't want to go through the agg of shipping the breather I decided to drive.  And accept a reasonable sum from the guys to take their tins/kit/etc with me so they wouldn't have to rent when they got there.
So I've got 6 twinsets, one YBOD, 10 stages between 3-7l and a mountain of other crap on board.  Tooling along with brain in neutral late at night in Northumberland along an A-road which I knew from the map would be joined by another A-road. No dramas, junction should be coming up soon, the other road joins mine so I won't have to stop. Wrong wrong wrong.
Came over the brow of a hill to find the junction in front of me & guess what..... Panic stamp on brakes, forget cadence braking and all that nonsense, I'm definitely gonna die.  Car comes to a shuddering halt about a foot before the junction (perpendicular to my direction of travel).  Don't thank God, but thank fuck for ABS.  The fact that there were no other cars around cos of the time of night  was a major bonus, cos if there had been a pile-up I suspect the explosion would've got me to Stromness rather quicker than anticipated, in the form of a fine red mist.  Pucker factor of about 11 & the rest of the journey was conducted at a much more sedate and watchful pace.

PS Glad you're OK Porg - I've tended to find having cylinders rammed horizontally and laterally against the base of the rear seats makes most sense in terms of safety- they're close to the hinge of the seats (the strongest bit) if they're fold-down type.

 

[Helen F H]

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<font color='#000080'>Hey guys.



Our car is a working car.  The other half uses it every day to shift huge quantities of watersports kit, plus seems to store his own in there (smells soooo nice on a hot day), buoyancy aid, helmet, dry cags, throw bags, 1st aid kits etc etc.  We still have 4 inches of snow up here (major roads are dry, but back roads are ice) so we have a shovel, blanket etc in the boot.  He is also on call for the Amble to Tyne area for the Coastguard this weekend, so there was also a full set of CG call out gear in there too!  No chance of these things being put on a flat surface for wedges to work.
There are no tie down points in the boot of our car - i have looked.
I only just remembered that the tinnies were empty from stoney and that our clubs compressor was out of action.

 

[Mdemon]

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With my v-weight, the twins weigh 50Kg.  I have thought many times about the sort of situation you found yourself in.

Good idea Andy - I'm going to get the ratchet thing.  It won't take seconds to attach.

Glad you're in one piece Porg.

 

[Mark Powell]

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Glad to hear you are OK.

I had a close call at the end of last year. Driving just that bit too fast and ended up skidding. Luckily I was fine but the car was written off by the insurance company.

The plus side is that I replaced the sporty car with a much more practical ex-police Isuzu trooper which is much better for carrying lots of dive gear. I also find myself driving a bit more conservatively - at least for the time being.

 

[TerryH]

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Quote[/b] (Porg @ Feb. 29 2004,17:48)]Now consider i have two full 10 l cylinders in the boot.  

If its two 10's (not a twinset) have you thought about simply
buying a couple of long plastic toolboxes?

The Wickes ones cost about £15 and easily take a 10lt.
You can get other slightly larger ones that will take a 12lt.

Best bit is that when you are diving all your clothes are dry
and safe in the box. It even has a hole for a padlock.

With the two boxes side by side, its almost the same space
and you can stack other stuff on top.

TerryH

 

[Mr T.]

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No doubt a tanner-half-a-crown-sixpence-dustbin-lid affair and no mistake Porg petal!!  Glad you're back with us safe and sound.

I think some of the above advice is sound, and if you've learnt anything from the experience (as well as walking away from it in one peice), then the event will have had an upside.

Take care,

 

[Helen F H]

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<font color='#000080'>They are twins, but not manifolded which is why they can be stowed behind the seats.  I think if i want to take them in the boot i will empty it of all the rest of the crap in there first, and then try to block them in with everything i can.  The shot pouches should be good to use too.  I have been in cars so loaded down with tinnies that if we had crashed the resultant hole could have been flooded and used as a new dive site.

 

[ANDY 64]

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<font color='#0000FF'>Bren

Quote[/b] ]No doubt a tanner-half-a-crown-sixpence-dustbin-lid affair and no mistake Porg petal!!  Glad you're back with us safe and sound.

Do you think the turtle popped his head out for a quick HELLOOOOOOOO  as well ?

 

[Mr T.]

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Quote[/b] (Andy the Commie 2 @ Mar. 01 2004,09:57)]Bren

Quote[/b] ]No doubt a tanner-half-a-crown-sixpence-dustbin-lid affair and no mistake Porg petal!!  Glad you're back with us safe and sound.

Do you think the turtle popped his head out for a quick HELLOOOOOOOO  as well ?

Not only that, but I have it on good authority that said water-tortoise autographed her gusset to boot!

I'll get mi coat......

 

[louigi]

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<font color='#FF0000'>Have you ever noticed how tight you can grip a seat with your arse.
Perhapse we should run a poll on seat gripping moments.

 

[Helen F H]

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<font color='#000080'>I will have you know my liners were unblemished thank you very much.  I will post them to you if you dont believe me (some men pay good money for that kind of service).  
Mind you, i think the driver of the corsa (in a megane and volvo sandwich - shortened by at least a foot) was wishing he had our waterproof seat covers...........

 

[NeilB]

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Porg,
       how was the life flash back? More interesting on the repeat than the first time around? I would't want my life to flash before my eyes....it's not been that interesting so far......

Glad it all turned out OK.

 

[Janos]

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Glad you're ok.

I once discovered that my stopping distance is much longer when I've got three people with kit in my car.

Fortunately I stopped in time, but only just.

Laters,
   Janos