Euphemisms

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Blaketon
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Euphemisms

Post by Blaketon »

Things sometimes seem to be given silly names, presumably designed to take attention away from their deficiencies. As an example, the Smart motorway. What is smart about having nowhere to attend to a broken down vehicle, fix a puncture or even to where the results of an accident can be moved? In this case, I think "Smart" could be a euphemism for "On the cheap" or just plain "Daft".

I think cars, if maintained, have been essentially reliable for a long time. However they still break down, tyres still get punctures and accidents still happen. I recall leaving the M4 (I generally try to avoid motorways and dual carriageways) and the layout of the road meant that I came to be in the outside lane of the road I joined. I hadn't gone far, when the Traveller cut out. I couldn't get to the inside lane so I managed to get most of the car on to the central reservation, tight to the barrier. As it wasn't too far from the junction, traffic wasn't going too fast, though most of it was accelerating. Had I not made myself visible and waved at oncoming traffic (Being ready to jump the barrier if necessary), I am sure the car would have been hit. Some people seem to be half asleep. I had called the RAC and at about the time they arrived, so did the Police. We then shifted the car to the hard shoulder. I was sure it was a low tension fault and this had been passed on to the RAC man. He soon confirmed that the coil had failed, so he took me to Halfords and we got a new coil. He remarked that when he got the call, he smiled, as he was sure this would be a roadside repair, not a recovery. This took place in 2004 (Oddly enough I had been to the rolling road, to set the car up with the newly fitted gasflowed, lead free head) and back then, most breakdowns were not fixed at the side of the road; most of it was take to main dealer and plug it in. That won't have changed and recovery, with no hard shoulder, won't be an easy or safe task, flashing lights or not.
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Re: Euphemisms

Post by Banned User »

Surely ‘smart motorway’ is an oxymoron rather than a euphemism? Like ‘army intelligence’ ?
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Re: Euphemisms

Post by KeithL »

I suspect I am going to get some feedback but if you think of the cost of the alternatives (new motorways or widening existing motorways) I think Smart motorways are quite a clever solution.

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Re: Euphemisms

Post by Blaketon »

What price safety or someone's life?
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Re: Euphemisms

Post by Banned User »

Blaketon wrote: Mon Jan 06, 2020 2:33 pm What price safety or someone's life?
They’re catering for the majority of current motorway users. That means, in general, more reliable cars. I choose not to use motorways in my van as I don’t feel that it was designed for the type of traffic that use them these days.
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Re: Euphemisms

Post by KeithL »

I agree with Banned User. We rarely take the Traveller on the motorway unless we have too and only then with a support car acting as rearguard protection.
Last edited by Admin on Fri Jan 31, 2020 4:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Remove name

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Re: Euphemisms

Post by simmitc »

Blaketon
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Re: Euphemisms

Post by Blaketon »

I'm not aware of any of the casualties, on so called "Smart" motorways, being drivers of historic vehicles. I would also add that my three cars are all over forty years old and they are all reliable. I don't subscribe to the assumption that modern cars are reliable and old ones unreliable. I had three Minis (One of which was new), dating from the 1970s and 1980s and they were all very reliable. In point of fact, I had occasion to drive a modern car in November (It was a 19 plate) and that seemed to be full of what I presumed to be electronic faults. At one point I turned off the engine and when I released the seat belt it started :o , on another the radio suddenly came on (I think it was controlled by a touch screen which I left alone) and it even changed channels. More worrying was the indicator, which I couldn't get to cancel. It was flashing left and I couldn't get it to stop. I pulled over and eventually, after a bit of fiddling, it cancelled. I kept a very close eye on it after that and didn't signal unless there was someone who would see it. I mentioned it when I returned the car.

I generally try to avoid motorways and dual carriageways. I try to pick my times and pick my routes and I am lucky to be in a position to do so (Though setting off for work, on the bike, when it's dark and wet, isn't great but by virtue of my route to work, I am usually the only idiot about). I drove on the A465 dual carriageway/3 lane road (Ongoing dualling project) before Christmas, for the first time in ages and I noted that people were generally driving more slowly, than was once the case. Whether this was due to it not being rush hour or to the greater prevalence of speed cameras, I can't say. The three lane section was covered by SPECS.

In 2014, I drove from near Civray, in France, back to Caen. I had been to Le Mans and then on to visit friends. On the way down, I stuck to the "Old" roads but owing to having to catch a ferry and in the interests of easier navigation, I used the motorways to return. I was pleasantly surprised at how quiet the motorways were. They reminded me of the Brecon bypass, which is a generally quiet dual carriageway. I seemed to be a bit behind schedule, when I got back to Le Mans (Fuel and toilet stop), so I upped the speed to 85mph (Still only just about 3000 rpm) and I arrived in Caen with three or four hours in hand. I didn't feel like I had just driven 400 miles :D and it was one of the most pleasant motorway trips I have ever had.
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Re: Euphemisms

Post by KeithL »

We took the car (not the Morris) to France for the first time a couple of years ago and, as you say, even the motorways were nice to drive on. A bit of a shock when you arrive back in the UK though.

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Re: Euphemisms

Post by jagnut66 »

Hi,
I agree with Blaketon's posts too.
Since when is it smart to remove the safety lane from busy major roads.
Traffic is heavier these days, so someone came up with the idea of making motorways four lanes wide instead of three, to alleviate the problem.
However this was going to cost money they probably didn't want to spend or couldn't justify, so someone came up with the bright idea of introducing 'smart motorways' without a safety lane, as this was now going to be the inside lane, which just happened to be a much cheaper way of creating a fourth lane!?????!!! :evil: :roll:
Like all great political schemes no one is going to admit they were wrong, not even when there is the inevitable major pile up and many lives are lost.
Even if the resultant enquiry reveals that had there been a safety lane it could have been avoided........ (though that point would probably be suppressed, not in the public interest etc. etc.)...........
I don't know about an 'oxymoron', I think 'smart' motorways are just plain moronic!
Best wishes,
Mike.
1954 Series 2: 4 door: "Sally" -- Back on the ground with (slave) wheels and waiting to be resprayed......
1970 Triumph Herald 1200: "Hetty" -- Driven back from Llangollen in Wales (twice.....)
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Re: Euphemisms

Post by irmscher »

Smart motorways are supposed to help the motorist but I cant work out how they are usually gridlocked :evil:
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Re: Euphemisms

Post by Banned User »

irmscher wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 1:33 am Smart motorways are supposed to help the motorist. But I cant work out how, they are usually gridlocked :evil:
Is that what you meant?
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Re: Euphemisms

Post by irmscher »

:-?
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Re: Euphemisms

Post by POMMReg »

If we had a cheap public transport system.etc.

Safety comes second when there's a cheaper, short term answer.
Further investigations uncovered it was an inside job!!
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Re: Euphemisms

Post by SteveClem »

Public transport is surely the answer in towns and cities.
Hopeless out in the countryside.
myoldjalopy
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Re: Euphemisms

Post by myoldjalopy »

Nowadays, yes. But rural public transport used to be good before Beeching and mass car ownership decimated it......
jagnut66
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Re: Euphemisms

Post by jagnut66 »

Nowadays, yes. But rural public transport used to be good before Beeching and mass car ownership decimated it......
Ahhhh Dr. Beeching, the man who did for the railways what amputation would do for a long distance runner.......

As a side issue but related to the above, if you are into old railways type in 'Martin Zero railway stations' and take a look at his 'youtube' posts, they're quite good.
There's an old steam shed in one, now lost in the woodland around Manchester, amazingly it's survived virtually intact and really wants dismantling and moving to a heritage line, to be rebuilt and preserved, before it's lost to vandals etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGcVsp8rGMw

Best wishes,
Mike.
1954 Series 2: 4 door: "Sally" -- Back on the ground with (slave) wheels and waiting to be resprayed......
1970 Triumph Herald 1200: "Hetty" -- Driven back from Llangollen in Wales (twice.....)
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Re: Euphemisms

Post by simmitc »

What's the translation for "Your call is important to us"? So far as I can tell, it's: "We exploit too few staff to do the job and don't give a [insert your choice of expletive here] about your call or business".

Didn't we have a topic about a ginger bush a while ago. No, stop it, don't go there. :wink:
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Re: Euphemisms

Post by Admin »

simmitc wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 11:07 am What's the translation for "Your call is important to us"? So far as I can tell, it's: "We exploit too few staff to do the job and don't give a [insert your choice of expletive here] about your call or business".

Didn't we have a topic about a ginger bush a while ago. No, stop it, don't go there. :wink:
I had cause recently to get in touch with the complaints team at British Gas, where my call was met with "we're experiencing unusually high volumes of calls at the moment and it may take us X minutes to answer you", where X is a multiple of the amount of times you've previously called over what percentage of people are awake now in the UK minus the number you first thought of. When I finally got through, I mentioned this automated dribble and questioned just how many times they could experience this volume of calls before it ceased being 'unusually' and started instead being 'standard', since it was my experience that they were always having sufficient volume of calls to trigger the automated dribble. I further opined that, having narked your customer to the point where he decides to invest the requisite time to complain to you, making him wait twenty minutes first isn't likely to improve his disposition :P .
As a result of our conversation, I'm now an ex-customer of British Gas and they now have to pay £550 to the Ombudsman to have him look at my complaint instead. Still, I'm sure they know best...
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jagnut66
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Re: Euphemisms

Post by jagnut66 »

I had cause recently to get in touch with the complaints team at British Gas, where my call was met with "we're experiencing unusually high volumes of calls at the moment and it may take us X minutes to answer you", where X is a multiple of the amount of times you've previously called over what percentage of people are awake now in the UK minus the number you first thought of. When I finally got through, I mentioned this automated dribble and questioned just how many times they could experience this volume of calls before it ceased being 'unusually' and started instead being 'standard', since it was my experience that they were always having sufficient volume of calls to trigger the automated dribble. I further opined that, having narked your customer to the point where he decides to invest the requisite time to complain to you, making him wait twenty minutes first isn't likely to improve his disposition :P .
As a result of our conversation, I'm now an ex-customer of British Gas and they now have to pay £550 to the Ombudsman to have him look at my complaint instead. Still, I'm sure they know best...
:lol: Like it! :wink:
1954 Series 2: 4 door: "Sally" -- Back on the ground with (slave) wheels and waiting to be resprayed......
1970 Triumph Herald 1200: "Hetty" -- Driven back from Llangollen in Wales (twice.....)
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