More of our Cars
Well, the Lincoln town car has now been returned. In total we travelled nearly 3000 miles in it at an average of 25 (US) mpg. It was sad to see it go but we had to return it to Orlando in time for the shuttle launch (which was delayed by the time we returned). We had booked another 'cheapest-possible' car from the Hilton in Orlando and when we arrived we were offered an upgrade for $10 a day to a convertible. Hmmm, tempting as we were back in the sun. Oh go on then. The guy let us have it for $7 a day in the end and we had a choice of red or blue, Jackie choosing the obvious blue.
We were told it was a new Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder which I had always liked the look of but had Jackie at a disadvantage as I knew what it looked like so could see it when we walked outside. She got a devilish gleam in her eye when she saw what must have been it and quickly took the keys to have first go.
However, the bubble of joy was slightly deflated when we opened the glovebox, sorry I mean boot but due to the internal dimensions it was easy to get the two confused. Our two backpacks went in the boot and everything else went on the back seats.
The Eclipse has a Semi-automatic gearbox but its still only 4 speed and no paddle shift, just movement of the stick which felt very cheap. It was nippy, very nippy compared to the town car but ran very much out of puff around 50mph. Ecconomy wasn't great either as at cruising speed on the motorway, it seemed to be running half way through its rev range.
In short, great to look at and fun to drive but if its your only car I'd want something with better feel and that feels better. Jackie got more than one look and comment of 'nice car' and she'd just grin and say "I know". We left the Eclipse in Jacksonville before getting the Greyhound.
Leaving the greyhound we needed another car so got a taxi ride ($30 for 6.5 miles and I was too traumatised by the greyhound to get a description for the Police). I had spotted the very limited parking lot with only one car in it that seemed to fit the 'cheapest possible' category. While we were sorting out Jackie's credit card, another guy came in who had been pulled in his rental for expired tags so she gave him the last cheap car left. After 25 minutes of sorting, we were presented with this
Jackie wanted me to drive and I was keen looking at the very nice interior. It was quite a new model and the feel of it was much better than I was used to upto then (Town car excluded). I was happy that we would have this car for a few days, or at least, so I thought...
The next day we were driving around trying to get a quote for sending home our first care package of goodies from the trip. On leaving the Fed Ex shop, we were forced onto a feeder road. Feeder roads are there to make things more complicated. They serve no other purpose
Above you will see an example. Here we have a piece of road thats between 4 and 2 lanes wide on each side and two lane feeder roads next to them. Both of the feeder roads have a single lane going each way...to make things even more complicated. If you wish to join a feeder road, thats a simple case of sliding in at the next available opening. However rejoining the 4 lane road from a feeder is more complicated as you have to stop and give priority to the traffic thats behind and to your left and anyone coming the other way down your feeder road.
Now, its difficult to follow so I've marked each road with a dot. Green means traffic leaves, red means traffic enters.
This shall henceforth be refered to as 'the hub of evil'. If you are misfortunate enough to be on a feeder road that terminates at the hub of evil, you are screwed. I wish there was a nicer way of putting it...there is not. You must yield to traffic on the intersection and only go when your light is green. The problem is, you share your light with the 4 lanes on your right and there are a total of 18 lanes of traffic entering the intersection. At any one time, at least 4 of those 16 lanes have a green light. You have only three options.
1)Abandon your vehicle at the end of the feeder road, apologise to the car behind and walk away.
2)Wait for the traffic to clear entirely from the 4 lanes on your right whilst they still have a green (I hope you have a good book to pass the time)
3)Time your maneuvour to the 1 second when all the lights are red. Two of the lights you cannot see from your position, its against the law to drive through when the light infront of you is red and you cannot complete the crossing before one light goes green.
We watched the car infront turn left. We assumed that meant that it could be done so we sat on the Stop line waiting for the traffic to clear. After two full cycles of the lights, it became clear that the traffic would never clear. At some point, either the traffic was crossing infront of us, or the traffic to our right was crossing infront of us, or cars from the other two entries to the intersection was entering the road we were trying to get to. On top of that, with clever uses of left lanes crossing at the same time, the vast flow of traffic was interlaced with single lanes crossing against each other over the entire junction. At that point, a car came up behind us.
So, reversing is no longer an option, we have to cross. We wait patiently until the cars infront stop and the cars to our right (facing the same way we are in the 4 lane section) are moving. Once they stop and there is room we are ready to go.
....
...
..
.
GO!
At a modest speed, with the need to cross the junction but the desire to do so in one piece, we started across the 4 lanes. We could see the lights for them were red so we only had to watch for the cars infront of us and on the other side of the junction to our right. We cross the first couple of lanes, then the 3rd and while crossing the 4th spot a Jeep Cherokee coming up on your left, to the Stop line of the 4th lane. Its no problem though as theres no way he hasn't seen us...
...er...
...no he'll stop, theres no way he cannot have seen us...
...er...
...oh dear...
CRUNCH
He drives straight into the broad side of the car with enough force that he pushes us partially across the junction. There is a noise which sounds like wheelspinning, even once we have come to a hault. Our car is still running so we quickly get it off the junction and into a patch of wasteland that looks like it used to be a car park. I get out of the car and start to walk over to the other driver.
The Jeep is skidding its wheel on the spot and the guy in the seat seems to be wresting with the transmission. He manages to get it into Park and gets out. He looks to be about 70 years of age and has got out of his jeep and is reaching down for something in the road, which upon picking up I recognise as his licence plate. He gets back in his Jeep and drives off to the left, at no point does he turn to look at me. I watch him go, waiting for him to turn around. At this point I feel that it must be our fault as we crossed his path on a green but I'm puzzled why he didn't stop and I can't see how we could have done any more to navigate the hub of evil.
I stand there for about half a minute but he never comes back. I return to Jackie in the car and we wait but he never returns. Left with no other choice we drive to the Avis station to explain whats happened. We feel very bad as the lady was very understanding over the credit card complications and now we are returning her car to her bent and broken. She called the Police who came and took a statement and said that irrelevent of fault, the other guy can be charged with leaving the scene of an accident as he didn't even come to check if we were OK. Below are photos of the damage
We were given another car but as she was so short on them we ended up with a Saturn Aura. Stepping into this car I could see it was something special. It felt like a European car, the controls and dashboard looked modern and it had paddleshift and a 5th gear in its auto transmission (a first in our rented cars since we got here). I did a little research on it when we got back to the hotel and it seems Saturn is the American version of Vauxhall and whilst the cars are not identical, the Aura sits at the Vectra/Insignia level.
It is a nicer car to drive than any of the other cars we have had. Ecconomy isn't great but is pretty good for the 3.6 litre engine fitted to the car. Brakes are excellent, power delivery is very good and if you put your foot right down, it wheelspins quite easily. It is a welcome and pleasent surprise but calls into question yet again what American's are doing with their cars? The Vectra and new Insignia are not considered top quality cars in the UK, they would be midrange at best. Yet here in the USA, they are a clearly better car, better even than the more expensive Lincoln Town car. We have this Aura for a couple of weeks so we will see how it does.
Oh and we drove back to the hub of evil and parked nearby to watch the lights of the 4 lanes we crossed. The right 3 lanes go green about 10-15 seconds before the left lane. So whilst it was possible that those 3 lights turned green as we were crossing infront of them, the 4th light for the left lane could not have. Thus the Jeep driver ran his red light, presumably confusing it with the green lights for the other lanes. The wheelspinning can be explained by an obvious yet hard to believe answer that he was still accelerating when he hit us. He made no attempt to brake or let off the accelerator.
Upon hitting us his foot was forced all the way down causing the car to kick down its auto box into the lowest gear and try and move forward which is what pushed us further into the junction. Eventually the weight of our car in his path caused him to stop but he still has his foot down, presumably unaware that he was doing so.
I'll leave you with that example of the quality of driving in this country.