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Wednesday 29 July 2015

Be in control of your journey, be rewarded

Learning to drive can be daunting. Going out on the roads after passing your test can be just as daunting. With the increasing prices of insurance, tax, MOT and petrol if you could save a little and be rewarded for safe driving would you want to? Of course the answer is yes! More Than insurance have created telematics driving style score for young drivers. It is aimed at young drivers aged 18-24 years. How it works is a black box is fitted to your car out of sight so it won't ruin your beautiful new car, young people can afford new cars right? This then measures your speed and braking. If you are driving safely and don't break excessively then you could be rewarded. You could get up to 10% of your premiums back in the first year! That is a massive saving. I wish I was within the age limit as soon I will be embarking on my own learning to drive journey.
I have done a few lessons and I am not too bad to be fair, it is just scary. My husband keeps telling me I can just go on our insurance and use our current vehicle. I have told him where to go as we don't have a normal car, we have a huge 9 seater mini bus! I envisioned a much smaller vehicle for my first car. One thing I have learnt from him though is I should do long journeys without any of my family as when we are all together our journeys tend to go wrong. We have had a fair few mishaps which all seem to occur on our holiday journey, a few of them I will share with you.

The pesky fly and attack of the giant bumble bee
We were on holiday in Devon and a fly was bothering my mother in law. No matter what she did this fly would not die and it kept appearing in her room of the caravan. She would say "I have hit it, I have put it out of the window and it just keeps coming back". We joked that it would be funny if it flew out of her case when she returned home. Packing up her case she was careful not to pack the fly, we said goodbye to our caravan and headed off back home. About half way through our journey home I noticed my husband was scratching his legs. The scratching became excessive, I was worried he was not concentrating on the driving and asked him what was wrong. He said "I think the fly is in the car" well that was me in a fit of laughter. He pulled over and got out of the car and started hunting for the fly! He found it and evicted it from our vehicle. A few more miles and he started itching his leg again. I couldn't help but laugh when he said "I don't believe it, the damn fly is back!" Again he pulled over, evicted the fly, closed the windows and set off.
A few miles down the road we all started to get warm so we opened the windows again. I opened a pack of cheddars and began eating them. I heard and felt a big whack on my packet. I looked down on my lap and the biggest bumble bee was staring back at me! Well I did the only thing a normal person would do, I screamed and threw my bottom off the seat. Of course the bee now fell between my legs and was poised on the seat ready to sting my rear dare I sit back down. I had nowhere to go, the seatbelt meant I was stuck there and I could not sit back down. I screamed for my husband to pull over, he did, but took his time in doing so. When the car pulled to a pace that I could jump out I did, I would like to say it was a graceful leap out of the car but it wasn't! My husband evicted the bee and I returned to my seat. Nature had it in for us that day and we did the rest of the journey with the windows closed!

The journey with the sick bucket and almost lost teeth!
We were returning from Cornwall, some of us had had a pretty bad sickness bug. The bug chose the day of us travelling back home to hit my mother in law. 317 miles of sickness is no fun at all. Especially when the smell of vomit makes me vomit. It sort of came in waves, one minute she was fine the next she had her head  in the bucket. We lined the bucket with carrier bags so we could just bin the bag of sick every time we stopped. My husband would ask if we needed to stop as we approached every service station or lay by. She would reply "no, I'm fine" and every time just as we were going past a turn off she would start throwing up. My son who was sat next to her would look at her in utter disgust every time. The funniest part came when my husband went to throw a bag of sick in the bin. My mother in law started to mumble something whilst her head was still over the bucket, she seemed distressed. Out of the window she was trying to get his attention as he approached the bin. That is when is dawned on me what she was saying "my teeth, my teeth" whilst throwing up, her false teeth had flew out of her mouth and into the bag of sick. The bag of sick that my husband was about to bin! Thankfully we managed to stop him from throwing away her teeth, the look on his face when he realised he had to retrieve her teeth from the sick was priceless. I don't think he will ever recover from having to retrieve his own mothers teeth from her bag of sick! My stomach still churns when ever I think about that day.

Lastly is our journey that we have just returned from. Travelling from North Wales to Cornwall is one we have done plenty of times. At 5am I asked my husband if he needed the sat nav on but he told me he knew the way. So off we went. We drove past Telford and eventually arrived in Birmingham. I picked up my magazine and started to read about Peter Andre's wedding, head in the magazine I was not being a very good copilot. The next time I lifted my head I was puzzled as I was not seeing signs for Bristol. It is here I should have said something but thought best not, my husband will only think I don't trust his navigating skills. A few more miles down the road I started seeing signs for London, then Heathrow! I looked at my husband, he glanced at me. We were on our way to London! "How the hell have we ended up in London" I asked him in a rather unimpressed tone. "erm, um, erm well you was watching the road too" was his reply! I put on the trusty sat nav for the rest of the journey! He had added an extra 137 miles onto our journey. We arrived late and we were all a little grumpy for the rest of the day. The day before we were due to come home I asked him how much petrol will be needed for the journey home. My mother in law quickly responded with "it depends if we go via London" He did not look impressed so I don't think we can laugh about the time we went to Cornwall via London just yet!

The correct journey on the left and via London on the right!

So what have I learned from my husband?
Drive alone or with just the kids, NEVER drive with grown ups in the car!

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