M.O.T.

Upon arriving in the UK, after some negotiating and lobbying on my behalf by my manager at the time, I was loaned a car to drive as part of the "company car scheme" on a temporary basis. Three weeks after receiving the car, when I was still fresh off the boat, I received a letter in the mail notifying me the M.O.T. was coming due. At the time I was barely driving the car, and had many other things on my mind and promptly forgot all about it. The second reminder came and then the third indicating this time my M.O.T. was now expired and my insurance has become invalid. Ooopsies.

What is an M.O.T? Yeah, I asked myself that too and got laughed at when I told my colleagues the story of the notices "slipping my mind" and asked for help. I mean, no one told me so how was I supposed to know? 

M.O.T. is a prescribed annual check-up on the safety of your car.
 

Key info here:
https://www.gov.uk/browse/driving/mot-insurance

What's covered in the M.O.T? Most Americans would be familiar with an emissions test, required every few years in the USA for older cars. This yearly required test covers that, and much more. Including if you are carrying a spare tire, your license plate is readable, brakes fuctioning, your seatbelts are operating, horn works and your windshield wipers wipe.

In the UK, once your car is 3 years old you are required by law to pass annually. 

What?! When I heard all this news all I could think of was how corrupt this system could be if this test was required of every American.

 What happens if you don't pass the M.O.T?  Your insurance is invalid until you do, and you're not allowed to drive your car for the safety of society, unless you're driving to get the test done. For convenience, If an issue is found, people typically get whatever fix is required to pass from the same place they got the M.O.T test done. More money for the garage that got your test business in the first place.

See the problem?  When the work is completed, you then pay again to have another test, going through all the checkpoints once more. Double whammy. 

How could this system not screw over little old ladies bringing their car in? What I'm told is that it is against the car dealership or repair shop's best interest to be fraudulent with the M.O.T results just to collect the repair costs and double test fee. 

The prices of the test are set by the  government and they certify the garages to conduct the M.O.T, running regular check ups on their results and processes. If you're certified to do M.O.Ts, you make a lot of money on that service with a steady stream of customers.  There are massive fines if they're found to be dishonest and the license would be revoked. Bye bye endless guaranteed business. In some ways, if a place is certified to do an M.O.T, it is one indication to a consumer that it is a trustworthy garage.

I bought my own car last year and took it in for its first M.O.T in my hands. 

The results: 

001 nearside front lower (rear) Suspension arm rubber bush deteriorated but not resulting in excessive movement. (Never heard of this brush, but sounds important)
002 offside front lower (rear) Suspension arm rubber bush deteriorated but not resulting in excessive movement.
003 Wiper blades deteriorating (yeah, I knew this and hoped I'd get away with it... Have since bought new ones).
004 Offside rear seatbelt slow to retract (eh... Rarely have rear passengers...)
005 Nail in offside rear tyre (Really?! Surprise!!)
006 Both rear tyres perishing and have minor cuts in tread (Sad...££ in my future)


Even with the above, I PASSED

Portugese Toll Roads

I'm going to Porto, Portugal this weekend with some friends and it reminded me that I may be an outlaw in this country.

Last summer, my friend Josselyn and I road tripped across southern Portugal in a nice little rented 1.1 liter Renault Clio that struggled with the hilly terrain but got us from point A to B. We cruised around pretty successfully with an old school foldout map, going from Lisbon to the Algarve and back.

Where to next?

Beach on Atlantic

Upon arrival in Lisbon on Wednesday, the car rental company asked us if we would like to rent a toll transponder or pay for the tolls that we'd pass through in the Algarve at a any post office before leaving. They notified us of our options and this all sounded well and good, so we decided to not rent the €18 toll transponder and pay our tolls in the post office, as we would return from the Algarve to be in Lisbon, Friday- Monday, and able to pay in person on either of those days.

What the rental car agent did not tell us as we were signing the waiver saying the rental company is not responsible for our tolls, is that it takes 2+ days for the tolls to turn up in the system. Hmmm...

You see the Portuguese have built a really nice toll road in the touristy southern tip of Portugal called the Algarve, vastly improving on the local roads to get around the area. however, there is absolutely no way at all to pay for them any other way, other than the 2 options above. Transponder or Post Office. Not with cash at any check points and not online.

Algarve Toll Cameras

I went to the Post Office on Friday, upon arrival in Lisbon and they said they had no record of my tolls. This is when I learned it takes 2 days to show up in their system. Just for good measure for my guilty conscience, I went to the post office in the Lisbon airport on Monday before my flight, and still no tolls in the system.

After returning home, I read about this a bit more (foreign cars) and it sure is an inefficient and ineffective system they have going on.

Basically, the locals are not using the nice new highways the government built because they can't afford to drive on them, so the toll roads are nice and empty. Instead locals are still using the local roads, which take them twice as long to get to their destination and those old roads are deteriorating at a rapid pace. The tourists are not paying the tolls either, unless they have rented the pricey transponder. If they do attempt to pay at the Post Office, they need to stick around and not drive anywhere with a toll for 2 days, in order to pay in person and only Monday-Friday. Sometimes people even end up in arguments at the Post Office because there are unpaid tolls on the rental car's license plate number from the previous renter. Pick your car up on Monday afternoon, and you've got the tolls from the person before you who has been driving around all weekend.

From what I've read online, people in other countries are receiving massive bills with fines from the Portuguese government at their home addresses that are passed on from the rental car companies from that nice waiver you're required to sign. I haven't gotten one yet, and from what I know, they have no way of making you pay. Hopefully they let me back in the country on Thursday.

The whole system here is absolute brilliance. No wonder Portugal is broke?

LHR Delays

On theme of my last post... my friend is at Heathrow today. She says her flight is delayed because the sun is too bright. 

I need say no more...

I'll be back

Dear loyal blog followers,

I'll be back. I haven't forgotten.

November was a crazy month of business and personal travel taking me to Stockholm, Brussels, Dublin, Paris and Madrid in about 4 weeks.

Its not as glamorous as it sounds though. Lots of airports, conference rooms, hotels, planes, trains, buses, passport control lines and early morning wake ups at ungodly hours.

During the month of craziness I did have some down time and my highschool friend Susie came to visit.  We did some London touring and headed to Dublin for the weekend. Guinness just tastes better in Ireland. Fact.

Guiness Factory, Dublin, November 2012

Nobody Beeps Here

Its rare to hear a car beep in England. Maybe it is just Oxford, but in 15 months of driving I could maybe count the number of times I've heard a honk on one hand.

Not surprisingly, people courteously chose to flash their lights when they need to get your attention, rather than beep. The British citizens actually use the horn as it was designed, to warn of danger. How refreshing and a change from living in downtown Chicago where cab drivers obnoxiously honk their horns at every stoplight, no matter what and for no real reason at all.

• When you are trying to make a right turn across traffic, cars will flash their lights to indicate they'll stop and let you turn, so that the cars behind don't have to wait for you.
• When you're tailed by a car in the fast lane and they want to go faster than you, they will flash their brights to say - get out of my way.
• When you're not paying attention and a light becomes green, lights will flash behind you.
• Even the electronic key fobs to lock car doors don't sound the horn, but only flash the car's lights when you hit the lock button. It seems all the car manufacturers have chosen to omit this feature.

Living in this honk free zone is easy on the ears.

Driving on the Flipped Side v1.0

My blog got its name the week I got behind the wheel in the UK for the first time. 

Apparently the English drive on the left because:

• Back in the day you kept your sword in your left side, leaving your right hand free to pull out the sword across your body, and your left hand to use the shield
• Soldiers marched on the left for this reason - if you passed someone you passed on the left so you could draw your sword easily.
• A horse is mounted on the left
• To make my life more interesting

This article in the guardian gives a whole bunch of "I heard its because" statements  http://www.guardian.co.uk/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-19385,00.html

I don't know... there is no right answer and I'm sure plenty of historians will give you a different answer related to battles and Napoleon. I'm not sure I really need to know, but for me, this historical evolution into driving motor vehicles on the left hand side meant I had to reorient myself. And quickly.

Many people back home have asked me how I find driving on the left. Before I could drive a company car (which I have only temporarily which is a whole other story) I had to take a 3 hour "UK Driving Orientation Course" with an instructor.

Getting in the car for the first time last summer was definitely an odd experience. First thing my strict "I love the rules" supervisor for the afternoon asked was if I knew how to drive a manual car. Thanks to my Dad for making me learn 10 years ago, leading me to drive a manual car for the past decade. (Yes, I'm admitting you were right about this life skill, Father!)

We went over the basics of roundabouts on a piece of paper before he unleashed me into the left side driving world. Of course, the weirdest part of the switch is your sense of depth perception. As evidence I very promptly ran over the curb (spelled kerb here - odd?) driving out of the parking lot and my instructor sighed in a very "oh, here we go..." fashion.

I came out of the 3 hour session being labelled "medium risk"(!). Apparently my hands weren't at 10 and 2 enough even though I was extra conscious of it, I approached the roundabouts too quickly and tended to drift to the left with this depth perception issue...  Well then. I was just trying to remember to shift with my left hand in the opposite direction than I'm used to, while concentrating staying on the left side and looking in the rear view mirror where it looked like there were headless drivers in the cars behind me because they weren't in the spot I was accustomed. I thought I didn't do too shabby.

After 2 weeks I was pretty comfortable and after 2 months it felt natural. Now, I'm a completely ambidextrous driver, but I still don't have my UK license. The law is that my US license is good for one year, expiring soon, and I'm completely dreading this process.

Step 1: Obtain Provisional License (a permit)
Step 2: Pass the theory test
Step 3: Pass the driving test
Step 4: Obtain UK Driver's License (apparently they're going to take away my U.S. license which I don't understand at all...)

I plan to take a lesson or 2 with a driving instructor on "how to pass the driving test" which I'm sure will be expensive but probably less expensive than taking the test multiple times. There are all kinds of crazy rules during the driving test that you would have no idea about if you didn't learn how to pass with an instructor. More on what I learn later... with an average 40% FAIL RATE... I think I'll take the studying seriously.

I feel like I'm 16 again.

It Says It's Not You

Apparently, I should be a criminal.

As part of the UK visa process, applicants are required to have Biometric Data including fingerprints taken at an official site prior to applying. I did this at a designated location in Chicago where officials barked orders at foreigners who didn't have the appropriate paperwork in hand at exactly the right moment and everyone was lined up like at the DMV. They took my photo then I sat and waited in a chair while the man in front of me had all 10 digits done, one by one. It took just a few minutes. When it was my turn, it took a few minutes just to get my right thumb to read. After several failed attempts on each finger, the process seemed to take a half hour until all of them had been accepted by the computer. Two people at the stations next to me came and went as I was helplessly annoying the woman attempting to get a read as she rolled each finger left to right and scolded "don't press too hard".

Passing though UK passport control at Heathrow for the first time, my right thumb and forefinger wouldn't read. The lady looked confused and said, "sorry you seem to have very faint fingerprints." I started to get remotely concerned as we moved on, but after what seemed like hours, a match was found with my ring finger and I got a nice big stamp on my visa admitting entry for the first time.

For the past 6 months my travels have been by train or car only, so I didn't have the opportunity to test this again until December. Last week, I arrived at Heathrow from a business trip to Rome and the border control official frowned after taking my thumb and forefinger and said, "mmmm it says it's not you." Gulp.

That faint sense of panic set in again as he tested the same fingers and once more he said "hmmm. It says its not you again."

Pause.
Pause some more.....

"The good thing is they took your picture when they took your prints and I can see that it is you. I have some level of discretion here. Welcome back to the UK." PHEW.

In those brief seconds of waiting I started to run through scenarios in my head and think of what I would tell my boss about being detained by border control. Do they give you one phone call?!?

4 days later, the same thing happened at Gatwick when returning from Madrid. My first test failed but I suggested to the border control agent that this happens often and she offered to do the left hand and I passed on the first try.

After seeing the movie Gattaca, where the characters switch identities with one of them literally cutting off his fingertips so the other will have his prints, I'm a bit weary of attempting to go up to the border control agent each time I come back to the country saying "only these 4 fingers work please try only these". Ummmm that might raise a few eyebrows. I think I might have to fail once and then make subtle suggestions...

Alas, there could be a solution... next up... attempting to register for IRIS, an option at UK border control for residents and visa holders, where they will identify me with a photo of my eyeballs versus my fingertips. As an added bonus, the line usually only contains a handful of people, and I won't have to go through that hour long "Non-EU passport control" nonsense every single time I fly.

Perhaps I'm in the wrong line of work. I would be an excellent criminal, able to foil any computer from connecting me to a set of fingerprints.

Poor eyesight, bunions, allergies etc... These are some of those things that people realize they just have to live with, but never would I have ever thought that having a faintly printed epidermis would be a nuisance in this life.

Lost on the Flipped Side

One thing about living in a city founded in the 8th century is of course that it's streets can be quite narrow, winding, claustrophobic, and overall, pretty confusing.

For a brief history lesson...Oxford grew up around a priory with its settlement name "Oxenaforda". This city is a place where the Oxen could ford the river Thames. And some of its streets are still about as wide as they were back then. Yet, this is to be expected.

What I didn't realize before actually living in England is how common it is to name a street something different every few blocks.

To the foreign visitor, the city centre can be so unnecessarily confusing. Pick a name and stick with it!

• George Street becomes Broad Street turns into Holywell St.
• Abingdon Road turns into St. Aldates, then Cornmarket, then Magdalen which turns into St.Giles which splits and becomes Banbury and Woodstock roads.
• Parks Road is Catte St is Magpie Lane is Merton

I know it isn't just me. I've passed tourists standing on corners with maps in front of them and have eavesdropped on conversations such as: "Wait. We are going the right way. Look - George Street is the same as Holywell over that way."

Last week I wanted to cut through the center of Oxford via Marston Ferry Road. I had been on the road before, but hadn't driven it myself and had apparently only paid attention to the street name when entering it starting from the west. Coming from the east, I drove down Headley Way because it looked like it might turn into Marston Ferry and it looked familiar but then I wound up turning around when I couldn't find it. I should have known better. Headley Way becomes Marston Ferry in the middle of the Marston neighborhood, halfway through.

I'll admit, that once you do know all of these short street names and where they are, it is convenient to know which "section" of the street you need to go to.

The other thing is that while the city centre has decently labelled street corners, if you are elsewhere in Oxford and you come out to an intersection, half the time you will not see the name of the major street you have come across. You may need to walk a block or two either way to find a street sign telling you which road you're on.

Sigh. I miss you, grid system.