The nanny state

Well today was a waste of time. My brother had organized a wrecked lancer to donate an engine to replace the slightly ill one in my lancer. I organized to have the day off, went over their on three cylinders and in a blue cloud, to meet the towie with it. Very bent lancer. Right engine.. cept it wasnt. Faced the wrong way.. had a fuel injection rail and a distributor at the wrong end.. and worse when I checked the vicroads site, the car was not stolen.. but had finance owing. I would have rung the finance company but vic roads wants you to pay $26 to have information like that. Which strikes me as insane.. assuming they want their car back surely they should pay vicroads. Or me for recovering it Why would I pay to help them out? So .. got it towed back to where he got it from. Sigh. That was a waste of time and money I left my Lancer (and apparently my wallet) at my brothers workshop where doubtless.. like other cars I have left their over the years it will gradually vanish from human knowledge.

Not a good day at all.

But in breaking news the terrafugia-transition flying car has passed its FAA approvals and is now legal as a light sports aircraft.. and presumably road legal somewhere.. probably not Victoria. Which as an Australian F1 driver is on record as saying recently truly is the nanny state.

But mostly where car driving is concerned. By coincidence a friend turned up here last night with her son. She is in the process of teaching him to drive. And out of curiosity I wondered if she was going to buy him a Terrafugia-Transition, as of course you would

But here is the thing.
In order to get his license her son has to comply with the following lifted from VicRoads

You must be at least 18 years of age and a Victorian resident to be eligible to apply for a probationary licence. You will need to pass a Hazard Perception Test and Drive Test at a VicRoads Customer Service Centre.

Learner permit holding period requirements and supervised driving experience
There are different requirements you must meet before applying for a probationary licence, depending on your age and when you obtained your learner permit:

* if you are under the age of 21, you must have held your learner permit for at least twelve months and completed a minimum of 120 hours (including at least 10 hours at night) of driving with an experienced driver before you take your licence test. You must have recorded these hours in an official Learner Log Book signed by you and your supervising experienced driver.


What are the requirements to fly you ask? Well I am glad you bought that up. From the Horsham flying club in Victoria it states the following

Age Requirements
The minimum age to learn is 15 years. There is no maximum age. Students under the age of 18 must have written consent from a parent or guardian.

Hours Required for a RAAus Pilot Certificate
Student without previous flying experience
MINIMUM of 20 hours for Restricted Pilot Certificate. A further 5 hours is required for a Cross-Country Endorsement .

In other words its a heap easier to get your pilots license than your probationary car license. And what this means is of course that at 15 its perfectly possible for you to be allowed to take off and fly and land your flying car. But absolutely illegal for you to drive it on a public road. Cos of course in Victoria that is the dangerous bit.

I want one anyway.. I want to take it out.. and swoop at speed camera's with it.

Speaking of speed camera,s; its not impossible to have a win with even them. On Thursday evening I was riding home on the pushie down Whitehorse road.
Of all things a Lancer forced its way past way too close at one set of lights.. middle aged couple in it. Caught em at the next set.. gave them 'the look' whearas they went past again.. very close.. way over the limit.. obviously deliberate; a high speed buzz of the sort that appeals to a certain very stupid kind of bogan that usually does not make it to middle age. (Even the road toll occasionally has an upside if one believes in evolution)

Flash from the roadside ahead. RAV 4 parked on the median strip. Engine running.. camera on the dash. Karma (Carma) . :D