Driving stories, love it or loathe it?

I haven't been able to drive for maybe the last year due to vertigo/Meniere's disease. I couldn't take the risk of crashing so now it's lifts for me, public transport, and walking. I haven't had to give my license back, but so long as I have this condition I will never drive again.
That said, I miss it badly, not just the ease of getting around and doing stuff but the actual drive itself. I've only ever had manual transmission vehicles so using that clutch in harmony with the accelerator/gas pedal was a symphony of symmetry with the engine to me...I loved driving!

I never got grumpy with other crap drivers though, never beeped my horn in anger, my dad told me when I was 17, if you had time to beep your horn then you had time to avoid it so just chill.

So, share your driving stories if you are interested at all, do you have a long commute to work? I read that US members drive hours to get to work in some circumstances.

...oh side story afterthought, I don't know if anyone remembers Suzuki Rhino 4WD little vehicles, but they were dangerous if you took a corner too fast and could flip. I got into it, found the limits of the vehicle and used to go on two side wheels at every opportunity...I was young and dumb, but it was great fun. Got seen by a cop and busted but charmed my way out with phony humility lol

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

I like driving across the country. It's a good time. As long as you're not stuck in traffic.

I was stuck in traffic for like 3 hours the other night on a first date with what turned out to be a crazy woman. That was not a good time.

a reply to: watchitburn
Haha cool story
...try driving on the 'wrong' side of the road after leaving Britain, or try driving over here, it takes a while for your head to get round it, especially roundabouts/rotary's. I've driven in France many times and never liked it, always felt weird on the wrong side of the road.

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy
Driving is OK as long as there is just you on the road. I reckon the DVLA has lowered the benchmark for people passing their tests because the amount of idiots on the road now far exceeds the good drivers. Main points. they don't or won't use their indicators, you have to be a mind reader. They think those whitie looking lines on the road do not apply to them and often veer over or just cut across as they see fit. I could go on but that would be a rant.
Just an example, riding my bike a millionaire trying to get to the airport to get his flight back home decides to cut across 2 lanes to get to a slip road and took my front wheel with him. Guilty as sin, but the cops didn't prosecute him but sent him on a safety awareness course. Because they didn't take him to court my insurance company had to fight it civilly. It took 2 years for the bast### to pay £1500.

I'm pretty much in the same boat... my M.S. keeps me from getting behind the wheel. It truly sucks, because I love driving. Four years ago, I bought the car that I always wanted; a Chevy Impala. The car is just flat out fun to drive, especially tearing up the back roads here in the northern Rockies... this year, I put less than 200 miles on her. Total bummer.

I noticed a big drop in my tinnitis with taking a 500 mg Taurine a day. Mine comes from an area of the brain though, not from the ear itself. I also take a small molybdenum supplement in a multimineral pill which actually helps with taurine metabolism. I use the ear noise to judge the state of my temporal lobe epilepsy, if it is high, my seizure risk is higher. I do not get grand mals though, just partial seizures.

I guess that taurine is important in the eyes and inner ear and can help there too. There are a lot of articles out there that state that taurine deficiency or taurine metabolism errors can make tinnitis worse, but most are not scientific in nature, just conclusions people have reached. I don't know if vertigo can be helped with it, I have not seen any evidence of that being helped with taurine. Taurine works as a very bioactive sort of niacin. You can have lots in your body but it does not work rice if you have a sulfite oxydase deficiency and that can be caused by a problem with the molybdenum coenzymes.

The head noise I have is reduced by three quarters when I take that small 500 mg dose once a day. It may work for you, maybe it won't, but it would be worth a try. If you have diabetes and are taking meds, talk to the doctor and watch out that your sugar does not go to low. Taurine actually can be used to treat diabetis, but remember to take a molybdenum supplement with it there too. You can boost foods containing molybdenum in them instead of a supplement, but the supplements are not that expensive, I use the sodium or ammonium molybdate form in my multiminerals.

Ask your doctor about it, taurine is used as a medicine more in European countries than here and has some really good properties.

www.sciencedirect.com...

a reply to: crayzeed

Bloody 'ell mate that is some story!
I've never crashed while legally driving a vehicle. Crashed a stolen car when I was 14, multiple rolls, was horrific but everyone survived. In hospital with multiple injuries, but not life changing.
My son stupidly rolled his car a couple of years ago while drunk. He got banned and had 6 months of blood tests to confirm he wasn't drinking or doing drugs. He refused to give a sample at the crash scene because he knew he was #ed, so he got convicted of 'failing to provide a sample' instead of Drink driving.
...Western Power Distribution are chasing him for the damage to the Electricity pole, took power out for a village for hours, not my son's proudest moment.

I grew up in Wyoming, and everything there is FAR! It's about 80-100 miles between major towns in most places.

Living out in the country where we do now, everything is far also. It's not uncommon for me to put 40k-50k miles on a car in a year. My 2016 Subaru Outback already has 87,000 miles on it.

Driving is just something I got used to as a teenager. It just went with the territory. I don't really even bat an eye at driving 3-400 miles. Some people go through all these preparations for a trip like that, it's almost a "journey" to some. I just hop in the car and go. Just hauling hay sometimes is a 200 mile trip, and I'll haul a couple loads in a day.

I don't love it, and I don't hate it; driving is just normal to me. Now traffic, on the other hand, drives me crazy!! I'm a wide open road kind of guy. I get on the gas and just go. I kind of drive my wife bonkers sometimes because I don't drive with the radio on (or music), I just drive. And I don't stop...I just keep going until I'm there.

Truckers drive a lot further than I do though. I'm not sure I could do it day after day, after day, like they do.

Driving...it's just a way of life in the west.

a reply to: rickymouse
Cheers for that!
I'll have a go. It is the only thing wrong with me right now though, I walk up and down nearly 300 steep stone smugglers steps off the hill to get into town twice a day usually. I have to hold onto the railings sometimes but the exercise is good, keeps me lean.
...so walking is good for the body, but lame as compared to driving lol

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy
The best bit it was on a major junction (A5-M42)rush hour. It happened at walking pace, lovely sunny day and I lay on the road for maybe 10 seconds thinking" what a # on such a lovely day", just enough time for a couple of, should I say first responders, they wouldn't let me get up. Kept say "lay still you don't know what you've done". I'd fell on my hip, didn't know at the time but no damage.
2 ambulances and 3 cop cars roll up. I told them I wasn't badly hurt but the kicker came when they said that they were going to use me as an exercise. I get strapped to a bodyboard, took in an ambulance with 5 medics and a cop, when my missus phones back after the police had told her I'd been in an accident and one of the cops told her that there was 5 medics working on me in the ambulance. That was when she panicked.
I wouldn't even know the guy who hit me as I only saw him for a few seconds as he came up when I was on the floor with wires coming from everywhere, pushed his way through the police and medics to lean down and say "I've given my details to the police", then he fu####off.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk
Thanks for the cool story as well
I always marvel at how far away you have to go for stuff when you've mentioned it in posts before.
You can do the Island of Britain in a day easy driving SW England to NE Scotland.
My world even when driving was no more than 2 or 3 miles away from home generally, maybe 25 miles away working but that would be my personal limit.

originally posted by: CornishCeltGuy
a reply to: rickymouse
Cheers for that!

I'll have a go. It is the only thing wrong with me right now though, I walk up and down nearly 300 steep stone smugglers steps off the hill to get into town twice a day usually. I have to hold onto the railings sometimes but the exercise is good, keeps me lean.
...so walking is good for the body, but lame as compared to driving lol

What do the vertigo events feel like? Does everything spin and it seems like you can't walk or does it just seem like your balance is crappy?

If it is just balance there is a technique where you can lay on your back, then your side, then move your head certain ways. My brother gets that, the doctor showed him how to fix that. It has something to do with the little rocks in the ears.

If it is a spinny head it may be orthostatic hypotension. That can come from a couple of events. I get that and found that if I drink a glass of water down when it just starts, it does not get bad. If I drink juice or eat lots of sweets I get them about an hour later. I also get them if I eat a lot of lettuce or eat a lot of nitrate foods. I researched it and found that nitrogen compounds consumed too much, including smoking cigarettes with my coffee, can trigger the muscles to release a muscle sugar/lipid that contains a nitrogen compound that triggers the veins and arteries to get bigger and this happens if I switch from burning sugars to burning fats too quickly.

If I drink a quick glass of water it restores volume and it doesn't happen. I also found that if I drink mountain dew, I also do not get the spinny head but I do not have a clue why that works when coffee does not work. I have always had hypoglycemia though and a high heart rate. When you go to the ER, they automatically put in an IV and tell you you are dehydrated. I just figured out how it works from researching it a lot. First I had to find out what they called it, all that research on it and I went to the Senior center and they had a pamphlet on it. It does not tell you about what I found out about it with the water though. I guess they can give beta blockers to keep the veins and arteries from doing that, AFIB can result from orthostatic hypotension. By the way, drinking coffee will not stop that spinning head, it has to be water or mountain dew for me. I have always had this problem but when I got worse the symptoms got worse. When I was around twenty one, I worked in a flooring mill and someone gave me some snuff, spin city. The foreman was laughing as I stumbled to a wood pile to lay down. I figured out what caused that event, even though I was not thirsty, I should have drank a glass of water and it would have stopped that. Forty years later I figure out what happened that memorable and embarrasing day at work.

a reply to: crayzeed
Blinking 'eck mate, sounds like you were lucky not to have been killed!
I hit a taxi at 70mph on my 125 motorbike when I was 17...it went all slow motion deciding my options, truth it's the endorphins/adrenaline speeding brain comprehension up, but whatever, I had 1) Mount the pavement on my left and hit people, 2) Go in the other lane and hit an oncoming car, or 3) Hit the taxi and jump at the last second...I jumped, rolled like a stuntman, it is the maddest scary experience I've had, crappy choices all of them.

...I then took my helmet off and smashed his windows for being a dick and freezing when he pulled out in front of me, I know the speed limit was 30, I was wrong that day, but all he had to do was execute his turn into the road and we would never have hit.
...I'm trying to justify myself haha, I was wrong that day, but he was lame for slamming on his brakes when he'd already committed to turning into the road. Basically gave me a steel wall when if he'd carried on with his move we would have missed each other...ah being young and stupid.

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

Our summer vacation consisted of a 5k mile round trip.
Started in Indiana and hit mount Rushmore, devils tower, Montana, Yellowstone, two day stop in utah with my brother, Bryce canyon, grand canyon, crater national park.....etc etc...

Loved every bit of the trip.
Lots of room in my f150 crew cab.

a reply to: rickymouse
I hit the floor mate, it's like a whiteout, I'm aware of my thoughts but lose vision and sound from white noise visually and aurally so for a few seconds I lose awareness of my surroundings. It feels like someone has put two hands in my head and are shaking my brain, if I'm lucky I get a feeling at the back of my head a few seconds advance so can drop to my knees and avoid injury.
My face has been battered this last year, I hate going out with a black eye or whatever, everyone thinks you've been fighting lol

a reply to: Bluntone22
Oh wow, that sounds amazing, proper road trip!
It's mad how big the US is as one nation.

originally posted by: CornishCeltGuy
a reply to: rickymouse
I hit the floor mate, it's like a whiteout, I'm aware of my thoughts but lose vision and sound from white noise visually and aurally so for a few seconds I lose awareness of my surroundings. It feels like someone has put two hands in my head and are shaking my brain, if I'm lucky I get a feeling at the back of my head a few seconds advance so can drop to my knees and avoid injury.
My face has been battered this last year, I hate going out with a black eye or whatever, everyone thinks you've been fighting lol

Sounds a little like my episodes, I have to lay down fairly quickly to return flow to my brain. I'm learning, I don't fear this anymore since I found what is causing it by paying attention to triggers before hand. I think it is sometimes the hypoglycemic spins from the reactive hypoglycemia I have but needed to know how it actually worked. Try chugging down some water right away to see if it stops it. I have a mountain dew or water bottle in the car when I drive. It does give a little warning when it is going to happen, I usually have a minute when I get the symptoms before it takes me down. There is also a slighter feeling that comes about five minutes before hand, I am learning to recognize that but unless your paying attention, you can't identify that feeling.

a reply to: rickymouse
I can't cross the street some days without waiting ages because I had to do slow full body turns to check for vehicles.
Turning my head will see me on the floor lol.
I had some treatment moving my head around something about crystals in my ear the other day, it was horrific, got another session and a brain scan first week of January.

...you can understand why I had to ban myself from driving.

originally posted by: CornishCeltGuy
a reply to: rickymouse
I can't cross the street some days without waiting ages because I had to do slow full body turns to check for vehicles.
Turning my head will see me on the floor lol.
I had some treatment moving my head around something about crystals in my ear the other day, it was horrific, got another session and a brain scan first week of January.

...you can understand why I had to ban myself from driving.

Do you have some neck issues. When I threw out my oxyput, I was having some problems with bad vertigo like symptoms. The second time it happened The Chiropractor stuck it back in place...finally after the tenth visit. I even told him it seemed like the oxyput. I suppose he knew I wouldn't come back if he fixed it the first day. I had that out of wack twice so I knew it was probably the issue and told the new chiropractor. he said he wanted to fix other things first, but with that out it was a nightmare driving back home after he twisted my back. He was out of the office and his helper was there and he told me he would fix my neck up there. He popped it back in and I felt great, but was afraid the owner would keep me coming back so I told the guy thanks a half dozen times that day and never went back since it was fixed.

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

You did the right thing!

If you have access to a general store and a pub within walking distance, then enjoy your life!

Sometimes the simplest things are the best!

In many ways I almost long for a simple life like that. Things can get so complicated sometimes, and then there's all the hustle and bustle.

My wife used to have a mild form of Menere's (sp?). She would get dizzy (and then very, very, tired), but it eventually went away.

ETA - I know it's different, but I am a big fan of Scotch whiskey, and I love to watch U-toob videos by a guy named "ralfydotcom". Not sure if you've ever heard of him, but he is pretty good and has a very interesting background.



I wish you the best, my friend!

Cheers to you!

And I would love to visit some day. You seem to know so much about your local culture. I would love to spend some time, drink a pint or two (or maybe a whiskey...can't drink ale too much anymore, gout you know). A good colleague of mine is from Ireland and we are the best of mates! He always tells me stories of life there which I enjoy very much.