driving logs #1

This is the first of my driving logs. I used to keep regular logs of my trips my road, rail and air, but got to the point in my business life that I was just doing so many journeys I couldn’t keep up. However, I’ve had to keep one form of log for my back to the floor driving and have just re-read a book from my personal collection that covers a number of road trip logs, both of which have inspired me to start again.

The basic principles of the logs are that the time is taken from the dashboard clock as I put the car in gear to start, as I join, or cross, each new road and as I apply the parking brake at each stop. I carry a voice activated recorder slung round my neck for recording random thoughts, so the waypoints are recorded using that and I do not include the odometer reading as it is too much of a distraction to note that each time. Mileage is taken from Autoroute 2002 instead. Unless otherwise noted, journeys are in my 2003 Jaguar S Type 3.0 SE (V6 petrol)

This first one is on a Friday morning in February 2010 and I’m up early for a trip from Swindon out to Bishops Stortford on the Essex/Herts border. It should take just over 2 hours, but allowing 3 for road works and traffic. Last time I did it on a Friday it took 5 hours to get home. This time we are starting the meeting earlier, so I’m hoping for an earlier finish and the chance to get on the M25 and M4 before they get too busy.

My log for this trip shows that, even with the 8 minutes stop at Birchanger services (why name them after an obscure, if local, village when they are just as close to Bishops Stortford and barely off the end of the runway at Stanstead?) the outbound run was quicker than the non stop return. The latter featured a number of undesirable stops on the M25 and M4 and both journeys were slowed by 5 sets of 50mph restrictions, two of which were lengthy.