Highway Code Changes - Scotland and a New Style Roundabout

 

Courtesy of Hemel Today

Motorists living in Scotland and driving within Scotland, should be aware of advisory rules, which in Scotland are now enforceable through criminal prosecution.

The rules refer to parking and waiting and relate to dropped kerbs and pavement parking.

Rule 243 Do not stop or park where the kerb has been lowered to assist wheelchair & mobility scooter users, except when forced to do so due to stationary traffic. - The Transport (Scotland) Act states you Must Not double park or park anywhere the kerb has been lowered to help pedestrians or cyclists. Exceptions are allowed in limited circumstances.

Rule 244 which bans pavement parking entirely in London, has been amended to add “or Scotland”.  Elsewhere in the UK, pavement parking remains a “should not” rule.  (Courtesy of FBHVC)

Another new roundabout to learn how you negotiate it!

A new “Dutch Style” roundabout has been installed in Boundary Way, Hemel Hempstead.  This reflects the mantra in the latest version of the Highway Code that motorists must give way to pedestrians and cyclists in this instance, on the way into and out of this roundabout.

As you approach the roundabout you have to give way to both cyclists, who have their own cycle lane and also pedestrians who have their own crossing, on the entry of the roundabout approach road.  When you wish to leave the roundabout, once again you must give way to cyclists and pedestrians at your chosen exit.

I think there is no doubt, if you happen to be in this area and approach that roundabout, be very cautious.  All those Dutch ideas of course are ways of slowing the traffic and saving lives.

(Courtesy of the ‘Volvo Driver’ August 2025)

Blue Badge Theft on the Rise – What Drivers Need to Know

Across the UK, thefts of disabled drivers’ Blue Badges have risen sharply in recent years, driven by the growing black market for permits that allow free parking and access to restricted zones. For many badge holders, losing a Blue Badge isn’t just an inconvenience – it can mean being unable to work, attend appointments, or even leave the house independently.
Thieves often target parked cars displaying the badge, particularly in city centres, hospitals, and transport hubs. A broken window and a stolen badge can happen in seconds. To reduce the risk, always remove your badge when you’re not parked in a disabled bay and never leave it visible overnight.
If your Blue Badge is stolen, report it immediately to the police (ask for a crime reference number) and contact your local council to request a replacement. Councils can usually issue a new badge within a few weeks.
You can also reduce your risk by parking in well-lit areas, using car parks with CCTV, and avoiding leaving valuables in sight. A simple precaution today can prevent significant disruption tomorrow — and help protect a vital mobility lifeline for disabled drivers.

How do you make sure that your electric car is actually running on renewable energy

 

or, When Is Your Electric Car Really Green?

Plugging in your electric car feels like the clean, modern choice — and it usually is. But the environmental impact of charging your EV depends less on which tariff you’re on and far more on when you charge. The electricity system has to keep supply and demand in balance every second of the day. Renewables like wind and solar are always used first because they’re the cheapest and cleanest sources available. However, they can’t be turned up or down instantly, so when demand changes — for instance, when millions of cars start charging — flexible gas turbines step in to fill the gap.

That means the extra electricity your car draws often comes from gas-fired generation, regardless of your “green” or “off-peak” tariff. Your supplier may match your usage with renewable certificates over the year, but in real time, your car might still be indirectly using gas power.

So how can you make your charging genuinely greener? The key is timing. Midday on sunny or windy days is often the cleanest time to charge, when renewable output is high and demand moderate. Overnight, especially on windy nights, can also be a good option: wind farms tend to keep running when demand is low, helping to cut the need for gas. Early evening (around 4–8 p.m.) is usually the dirtiest time to plug in, as demand peaks and gas plants ramp up to meet it.

If your charger or energy supplier offers “smart charging,” take advantage of it. Apps such as Octopus Intelligent, ev.energy, and Tesla’s scheduled charging can automatically choose the lowest-carbon and cheapest hours to charge your battery, saving you money while reducing your footprint. You can also check the live carbon intensity of the UK grid using the National Grid ESO “Carbon Intensity” app or website, which shows the best times of day to use electricity with the smallest environmental impact.

Finally, if you have solar panels at home, charging your EV in the middle of the day can make it genuinely zero-carbon. Even without solar, a little attention to timing goes a long way.

Your tariff sets the price, but the time you charge determines the carbon. Choose your hours wisely and your electric car will run on a much greater proportion of renewable power than gas.

Roadside Medical Emergencies

As advanced drivers there is an expectation that we will have at least a rudimentary knowledge of how to act in the event of a roadside medical emergency. But what knowledge or skill do we actually have and what should we have?

I am an IAM full member, having proudly passed my advanced test in 2021. By profession I am a registered nurse with the extra qualifications of Emergency Nurse Practitioner and Advanced Clinical Practitioner. This means I have specific skills and experience in emergency care but these days my job is more akin to a GP. I’ve also published a book on injury management, and crucially here, I’ve stopped to deliver emergency care at a fair few Road Traffic Collisions (RTCs) over the years. I’m not a paramedic and don’t carry their extensive kit but I do believe that I have made a significant difference to outcomes over the years, with one stark case in particular.

RTCs are often chaotic and unpredictable situations. There may be no casualties at all or there may be several in different states of trauma and distress. There is an old adage: “lead, follow or get out of the way” and I’m a great believer in that. Sometimes the situation needs someone to take charge. Sometimes the situation is being well-managed and our assistance in a given task is invaluable. Sometimes we need to realise that we are contributing to chaos and just get out of the way. We would hope that as advanced drivers who make decisions on how to act that we would know which of these three paths to take. In every RTC that I’ve attended I’ve taken the lead on assessing and treating casualties until I’ve been able to hand over to paramedics and I have to add that the police are always very grateful for my actions. I’ve also been grateful for those who help me along the way. As to the “or get out of the way…” rubberneckers are a bigger problem now than they’ve ever been and we need to assume that everything that we do at an incident is being filmed on a smartphone. 

How up to date is your first aid knowledge? You don’t need to know a lot in order to make a big difference, including saving lives. 

Do you know what’s in your first aid kit and how to use it? Is everything in date? Are you familiar with the “DR ABC”* approach? It’s easy, it’s logical and it works. And do you have a way of recording your actions for your own records for any future statements but also to help the police and ambulance?

In addition to this we all surely know how to call 999 but can you describe the location? what3words is an excellent tool for describing your location down to three square metres and the app is free to use.

www.what3words.com

It makes sense to have a degree of first aid or emergency incident training as part of our advanced driving. Courses are readily available and must surely enable us to be better contributors to overall road safety.

Peter Jones BN (Hons.) MSc RN (Adult) MIAM

Full Member, IAM

Author of Ninja Nurse: The Essential Guide to Injury Management in Martial Arts

*DR ABC is a simple memory aid used to guide what to check first when dealing with a casualty. It helps you prioritise life-threatening issues in the right order:

The RAF Falcons Parachute Team - A presentation by Liam Fox, Team Coach

Group Meeting September 2025

Following Chairman Mike Kent’s introduction, Liam informed us of how he arrived at the decision to become part of the display team.  Quite simply, it seemed the best option jumping out of a plane in good weather conditions and every year spending around ten weeks at work in either California or Dubai rather than suffering the weather in Scotland or Wales.

It takes seven years to go through all the systems to become an instructor so not an easy ride.

The RAF’s main customer is the army, however as many of us are aware, their numbers have reduced rapidly in the last five years.  Now with almost a third of their previous numbers and it seems unlikely to increase in the short term, we have a very small army. 

The RAF team consists of only 14 and therefore only 90 ‘squaddies’ per month are currently able to be trained.  The Airborne Delivery training takes place at RAF Brize Norton.  

As Liam says, “we are only bus conductors”.  Their responsibility is to get them safely out of the door!  The soldiers use large sturdy brown canopies and jump out at one thousand feet but as low as 450feet.  Maximum allowed wind speed is 13 knots whilst in training.  They are landing at 20 feet per second and despite all the training around 4% are injured.  If jumping from a higher height such as twelve thousand feet a larger canopy is used.  Liam says there is a tendency to freeze at the crucial time as the landing site approaches and their legs instead of being together ready to roll sideways the feet stay apart - oops!

(Liam did say the attrition rate in the US Army is nearer 20%.)

     

In addition the team works with the commandos to continually raise the commandos standard of competence.

The display team was formed in 1961 and their first displays were held in 1965.

The display team has a rolling three year programme and being team coach is their pinnacle year.

Back to training, having spent five weeks in California’s sunshine  practicing ‘freefall’, the team have, on return, to quickly adapt to landing in tricky conditions in a 75 X 75 yard area.

The team consists of ten ‘jumpers’ and there are three types of display. Jumping at seven thousand feet and two miles ‘high show’ from the display area, five thousand feet is the ‘mid show’ and finally when the cloud canopy is low, their display will be from two thousand five hundred feet when all they are able to achieve is a ‘stack’.  In other words, quickly out of the plane and form up one on top of the other before they have to quickly separate to land safely. Naturally the wind conditions determine whether or not the team is able to jump.  The maximum wind speed for their displays is 20knots.

Questions came thick and fast and having shown us how the backpack is carried and explained the different toggles and pull chords, Liam was asked whether he had ever suffered a malfunction in any of his three thousand jumps.  Much to our surprise the answer was yes, once when he believed he had not packed the parachute correctly.  Thankfully he was able to pull the emergency chord and landed safely.  Just penalised by having to pay the expert’s repacking charge, as they are not allowed to pack their own emergency chutes.  (The reserve is repacked every 6 months and after 500 descents it is replaced.)

Tandem jumps do take place when an important person such as a doctor or specialist has to be parachuted in and there is no time for training, or it would just be inappropriate to do so.

Finally Liam was asked the thorny question of the disappearance of the famous C17’s and their replacement the A400 built by a European conglomerate.  Nothing but trouble over reliability and the fact that the ‘jumpers’ were never asked about their requirements.

The Dornier is their reliable ‘fall back’ aircraft and for those unaware, it is a propeller powered plane with its wings above the fuselage.  Jumps do take place from Chinooks and Pumas.

Our Chairman, Mike Kent  thanked Liam for a fascinating presentation and, as a professional pilot, assured Liam that he had no intention of leaving a perfectly serviceable aircraft during his career.

The Shelsley Walsh Story - A presentation by Max Hunt

 Group Meeting - May 2025

Max Hunt gave a presentation on Shelsley Walsh, covering the history of the  tiny Parish, the Water Mill, which dates back to 1308 that has now been lovingly restored, the church and of course the world famous hill climb course.

St Andrew’s church has inside it a tomb. We were shown a photograph of it and it really looks like it is made of marble, however it is actually constructed in wood.  

The Manor House near the church has a strong connection with the gunpowder plot of 1605. Robert Catesby who was the ringleader met his co-conspirators there. Guy Fox of course was the ‘action man’ whose attempt fortunately failed.

The iron trade in Shelsley Walsh was very important and wood was gathered from the surrounding area within the parish and pig iron was brought up from the Forest of Dean. Shelsley Walsh had a forge and Mr Foley capitalised on that facility and as a result became a very rich man building the nearby Whitley Court. A colossal 30 tonnes of coal were burned each day to heat the house. 

Dudley’s mines supplied the coal via barges on the Severn, then by carts to a 1,500 tonne coal stack and on via an underground trolley system to the boiler room under the south portico.

He sold the court to Sir Herbert Smith in 1837 who installed electricity, cut staff levels and failed to maintain the fire hydrants with the result in 1937, while he and his family were away, a fire broke out and destroyed the central and eastern sections.  It was never rebuilt.  

By 1860 the mill with its overwater wheel was operational and thanks to the restoration work carried out by a small team of volunteers is once again operational and is the only water powered corn mill in Worcestershire.  Visit on a Tuesday to see it in action. On the 11th of January 1901, 50 in number ‘Midland Automobilists’ decided to compete with their vehicles along a stretch of road at Gorcott Hill.  None other than Herbert Austin was first away, at the wheel of his car and others then followed.

Next in 1905 they were offered Free use of the estate entitled Middle Hill in Broadway, however the cars made quite a mess of the twisting driveway and the competitors were later presented with a repair bill.

Soon after that on August 12th, Montague Taylor offered them the use of Shelsley Walsh.  To ensure no cars would be driven up the hill whilst a previous competitor was yet to complete the steep and twisty course, a multi bell system was used with the loudest being bell operated at the top. Males did not have this pleasure to themselves however as ladies were also seen at the wheel of their cars and it was reported that one Dorothy Levitt, a competitor in 1906, gave her fellow female motorists the advice that all you needed in your car was a revolver and a large hand held mirror.  (The revolver to ensure your safety on country roads and the mirror to see whether your competitors were gaining on you.)  Might this be the first use of ‘the rear view mirror’?

Shelsley Walsh as a competitive venue due to its steep and winding track, was becoming well known across the continent.  In1947 a young driver by the name of Stirling Moss applied to be a competitor but was turned down at his first attempt so popular was the venue. After his successes at other venues in 1948 he was on his second application, given a place to drive his Cooper 500 up the hill. 

On the 17th June 1932 Shelsley was so well known that the BBC transmitted an outside broadcast covering the action during the afternoon in between football matches and other events.  At the time the venue attracted many thousands of spectators who lined the length of the track. Some of the visitors we noticed in the photos we were shown were very close to the action even on bends and in those days a number of the cars had difficulty negotiating the top bend at speed. Suspension and brakes were not sophisticated in those days. 

Finally, Mike reminded members that our next meeting will be on Tuesday 2 September and it is our AGM, however we will also have a presentation by Liam Lyons who is a member of the RAF Falcons display team. Come and learn how to prepare for falling out of a perfectly serviceable aeroplane with nothing but a parachute on your back.

Peter McCree

Group Secretary 

Morgan Car Factory - a Group Visit

 Visit to the Morgan Car Factory

Mike Kent, Chairman

On the 26th June, 18 assorted volunteers and members visited the Morgan factory in Malvern for a guided tour of the facility. We were treated initially to a short video describing a brief history of the company, before our guide Nick led us off to see the manufacturing process.
Morgan currently produce three models. The Super 3, Plus 4 and Supersport. There is also a limited edition- the Midsummer - with the final few of the 50 being made about to leave the factory.
    
The Super 3 recently replaced the “3 Wheeler” - the most obvious difference being that the engine is no longer outside the car. The old V-Twin has been replaced by a 1500cc Ford engine as fitted to the Fiesta ST. Basic price is around £43k. The car shown below is a celebration of Donald Campbell’s Bluebird.
  
The most popular model is the Plus 4, which on the surface doesn’t seem to have changed much in the last 500 years! Powered by a 2 Litre BMW engine, you’ll be asked to part with around £76k before you start adding options, which can easily bump up the price by another £20k! The car below is race tuned.

The Plus 6 (basically a Plus 4 with a big engine) was going to be facelifted last year, but was becoming so different that Morgan decided to replace it with a completely new model - the Supersport. With a BMW 6 cylinder engine it’ll set you back £105k plus options. It’s the first Morgan to come with a boot.
The manufacturing process is similar for all models. Every car is made to order, and carries details of its final destination as it moves through the various workshops. A pre-built aluminium tub is married to an ash frame, before the mechanical bits and body panels are attached.

The car above is one of the final limited edition Midsummers. No advertised price for this as they were all very personalised, but £200k wouldn’t be too wide of the mark.
Finally, a shot of those who attended a very enjoyable visit.