The Queue for a Takeaway

[Ming the Merciless]

if they had our narrow roads and limited space

Our roads are not narrow, it’s just that cars are wide (and getting larger / wider), and many roads have cars parked on them reducing the usable highway to about a third of their width. Most of the time our streets just look like one big permanent car park.

 

[Drago]

My brother got pulled over by the police in St Louis for walking home.
They made him get in the car as it was unsafe for a white man to walk the streets.
Walking is so rare that if you do it you’re a target for criminals.

I didn't walk home alone, had Walther PPQ to keep me company. That said I had nowhere to secure it at my digs so being safety conscious it got locked in my desk drawer unless I was starting late after the office had been locked.

Fortunately rural-ish Pennsylvania wasnt a hotbed of Amish gangs mugging large, well built, very short-haired males wearing Blackwater polo shirts.

 

[figbat]

Noticed at c1:00 a Ford Fiesta, thought such tiny cars were banned their.

Tiny cars are - the Fiesta is a 'compact' so is OK.

 

[Chris S]

At least they can be bothered to drive to the takeaway. Around here people use Just Eat or Deliveroo, even though they live just a few hundred yards away.

 

[matticus]

McDonalds Didcot is like that on a Friday night, and I’m not joking.

Didcot doesn't have one. Maybe you mean the one on the A34 junction at Milton?
https://www.google.com/maps/place/M....618651!4d-1.3013313!16s/g/1vn_yg7p?entry=ttu

 

[Drago]

The problem with Just Puke or Deliverpoo is that there's a fair chance you'll open the box to find half of it has already been eaten.

 

[rogerzilla]

Didcot doesn't have one. Maybe you mean the one on the A34 junction at Milton?
https://www.google.com/maps/place/M....618651!4d-1.3013313!16s/g/1vn_yg7p?entry=ttu

They're monitoring this thread.

https://www.oxfordshirelive.co.uk/n...-mcdonalds-restaurant-proposed-didcot-8431274

 

[matticus]

They're monitoring this thread.

https://www.oxfordshirelive.co.uk/n...-mcdonalds-restaurant-proposed-didcot-8431274

The Burger King Boys will see 'em off.

 

[presta]

They just didn't get the idea that a short walk might be pleasurable.

I recall the woman at a B&B in Torquay who was baffled at the idea that I'd walked from Dartmouth, she had no idea there was a coast path, so she thought I'd come along the road.

Then there was a guy in the dorm at York YHA, when I told him I'd cycled up from home in Essex he asked why I hadn't just put the bike on the train.

The US office that I sometimes visit is just across the road from the hotel I use. It is a few hundred yards' walk. Except there is no way to walk it so I have to get a taxi or get picked up by a colleague.

It's barking mad, innit. How is anyone going to persuade people to cut down on car use in a neighbourhood like that.

On You & Yours today, there was a bit about cars taking months to repair since Covid because of the spares shortage. Once I'd finished being surprised that there's still a problem, I got to thinking that when the DVLA medical centre had my licence for 5 months, by the time I got it back I'd become used to doing without it, and never put the car back on the road again.

 

[Drago]

The DVLA had Mrs D's licence for over a year at medical renewal time. They issued her a letter confirming she was OK to drive, but as ex coppers we both knew that would not satisfy an officer at the roadside or be appropriate to show if she got a producer.

 

[presta]

They issued her a letter confirming she was OK to drive

They wouldn't even do that with me.

I rang the DVLA naively expectcing advice when I queried whether I have to declare ocular migraines, and got my licence confiscated on the spot by a kid in the call centre who said "what's a migraine". I then got a letter telling me to return my licence, and that it was no longer legal to drive. After I sent it back, they kept referring to the letter as the "options" letter, and telling me that my licence hadn't been cancelled on the computer, but refusing to confirm that in writing.

The only reason I got invovled in the first place was that the GP had refused to advise, telling me to ask the DVLA, and adding "it's not my job to give medical opinions". That was the start of months of playing pig in the middle, because the DVLA kept telling me I could have my licence back as soon as the GP said it was safe, and the GP refused to make a decision, ignoring their letters asking for one.

When I needed to know if I was safe to drive with arrhythmia I asked the Dr at the hospital, and he visibly squirmed like a worm on a hook, then avoided the question. Having learnt my lesson from last time, I tried printing the form off the DVLA website, and posting it to them, and this time it was fine. No letter telling me to surrender my licence, so I kept it until I got a letter telling me I could keep it.

It seems to me that the DVLA are the one and only thing that doctors are frightened of.

 

[Regular.Cyclist]

Walking does indeed seem to be alien to Americans.

After completing New York Marathon a few years ago I walked from the finish, in Central Park, back to the hotel on Times Square. Hotel staff were incredulous, not that I’d ran a marathon but that I’d walked ’that distance!”.

 

[Gwylan]

My brother got pulled over by the police in St Louis for walking home.
They made him get in the car as it was unsafe for a white man to walk the streets.
Walking is so rare that if you do it you’re a target for criminals.

Yea, I got escorted to my hotel
in Dallas. Early morning anti jet lag run. Car pulled over and enquired what I thought I was doing.
My accent seemed to relieve the tension. But the officer insisted on driving me back to my hotel.
Amazed that I wouldn't have thought twice about it in the UK

 

[gbb]

At least they can be bothered to drive to the takeaway. Around here people use Just Eat or Deliveroo, even though they live just a few hundred yards away.

Yup, my scumbag neighbours, on the social, have deliveries several times a week.

 

[Gunk]

Didcot doesn't have one. Maybe you mean the one on the A34 junction at Milton?
https://www.google.com/maps/place/McDonald's/@51.6207766,-1.3124533,13.1z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x4876b9193d1fb21f:0x9519b19034f0f957!8m2!3d51.618651!4d-1.3013313!16s/g/1vn_yg7p?entry=ttu

Bloody hell, alright, the A34 junction at Milton then