A Week For That?!

These temporary lights have been the bane of my life this week.

Much has been said about the way private companies carry out roadworks in the UK – the vast majority of it immensely negative. There has also been talk over a number of years about making roadworks more time efficient, as well as safer with better signposting and more clearly visible company contact details and so on. 

But from where I’ve been sitting this week – in my all too stationary car, waiting for temporary traffic lights to turn green so I can go to work – very little has changed. Work on seemingly small sites still takes forever, and the bigger the site, the more months companies need.

To my mind, there is a fundamental problem with how these companies and their employees go about work. Let me give you an example. The picture above was taken at 8:50am on a Friday, and as you can see, there isn’t a worker in sight. Why is that, exactly? There should be a swarm of blokes in high-vis jackets drilling and hammering away. And they should have been there at the crack of dawn, trying to get the work done before rush hour really kicks off.

The chaos these roadworks have caused in the surrounding area is truly unbelievable. They’re on the A232 on the edge of Wallington in Surrey, and each morning and evening, every possible rat run is teeming with cars, their drivers trying to escape the glut of metal on their usual route. As you can see from the picture, I've long given up on finding a faster alternative route – there just isn't one. Safer roadworks you say? How about getting the job done quicker so those behind the wheel aren’t forced to use narrow side roads in built-up areas, where pedestrians are more easily obscured.

The 20- to 30-minute delays these particular roadworks have caused have been going on for a week. And I wouldn’t mind that so much if a new bridge was being installed or new tarmac being laid, but there’s only a hole in the road about four metres long. What could possibly be going on down there that requires so many working days to fix? Of course, I call them working days, but then no employee seems to be at this site on time…

Sorry for the rant, but when I hear about what goes on in Germany where companies are prepared to work through the night to get any type of job done, it makes me wonder why firms digging up our soil can’t be like that.

Being The Victim

My Focus' damaged wing mirror without its plastic cover.

Recently, I was the victim of a crime. A crime, I suspect, many car owners have suffered. Tucked up in bed on a frosty night, I heard an almighty crack outside, followed by the skittering of what sounded like plastic on tarmac and then a hastily stoked engine. Something inside my brain somehow recognised it as the sound of two wing mirrors coming together, but another part of my onboard computer – the lazy side – was in denial the commotion outside could possibly involve my car. And so I went back to sleep.

Of course, after waking up the next morning, the reality of the situation hit me like a slap across the face, and I cursed myself for not jumping out of bed and peeping through the curtains, to see just what exactly had gone on in the night.

Up on the kerb across from my house, my Ford’s driver’s side wing mirror looked, well, odd. Relieved of its Sea Grey cover, the ugly, black, hole strewn plastic innards were exposed. And things got worse lower down – the indicator lense strip had vanished, leaving the orange indicator bulb dangling in the air, and the black plastic body which attaches to the car was askew and shard like. Bollocks!

Quickly dressed and muttering yet more expletives, I wandered across to my car, the victim, and surveyed the damage at close quarters. This didn’t help things, nor my mood. Then I noticed my car’s body coloured wing mirror cover lying in the gutter, completely in tact. The indicator strip was nearby, although hadn’t fared so lucky and was cracked badly.

And then I spotted the perpetrator’s mirror glass, smashed but still within its surprisingly small frame. Evidence. I even managed to recover the criminal’s manual mirror adjuster springs, which had obviously shot out of their mounts on impact. More evidence. And so began my fruitless prowling to catch the bastard that defaced my car. I live on a quiet and rather lovely housing estate, so I figured I had a good chance of finding the vehicle, but sadly, it was not to be.

Removing this tweeter speaker exposed the wing mirror bolts.

Out of this whole sorry episode, small consolation came in the form of pure, unbelievable luck. After being quoted a ridiculous £217 for a complete new wing mirror unit from Ford, and trawling eBay without a satisfying result – I didn’t fancy paying £55 for an aftermarket item that may or may not look the same as the passenger side OE wing mirror – as I last resort, I tried Gumtree. Tapping in the area I wanted to search, almost immediately popped up an ad for a complete and fully functioning, driver’s side wing mirror for a facelifted Ford Focus II. It had a silver cover but that didn’t matter because I could just swap it for mine which had somehow survived its brush with death. Best of all, this replacement was going for just £30.

This connector plug was a bugger to take out of its socket.

A seedy meeting with the seller three days later, and two hours of labour (it would have been 45 minutes had I not dropped a connecting plug into the door, necessitating the door card’s removal to extract it), and I had a car with two, fully formed ears again.

What have I learned from all of this? Firstly, that you should always tuck your car’s wing mirrors in, no matter how quiet the road you’ve parked on looks, and that you should never trust your neighbours. If indeed that is who got too close to my pride and joy. I also discovered, much to my surprise, that salvage companies aren’t that cheap – the best online quote I received for a complete Focus II mirror was £52. And I had no clue what it looked like.

Replacement wing mirror fitted, complete with old Sea Grey cover.

But perhaps the most shocking revelation of all, is that I am completely powerless to bring this criminal to justice – because that’s what they are, after all. I had the time and date the collision happened (about 4am on January 16 2013), I had evidence in the form of the wing mirror and adjusting springs, but no car or indeed motorbike, and no driver to pin them to.

I’ve put it all behind me now, though, and on a plus note I’ve learned another DIY job on my car, potentially saving me precious beer tokens in future. But not too soon, I hope, as there aren’t any replacement OE wing mirrors on Gumtree right now.