Читать книгу More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea - Tom Reynolds - Страница 10

I’m not perfect.

I arrived at work to find that my FRU car was nowhere to be seen. There was no one on the early shift, so where had my car got to?

The week before a friend of mine had had an accident in the Newham FRU car (in front of a load of police officers, which had given them some amusement I would imagine). So the car that I would normally use was being borrowed by Newham station.

So the plan was for me to get picked up at my station by a station officer, go to Newham, get the keys to the brand-new Vauxhall Zafira, return to my station with the car and start working.

The station officer met me and drove me down to Newham station. He asked me, because I was leaving my secondment on the FRU, if I could write up my thoughts on what was good, bad and what could be improved about it.

I told him that I’d be more than happy to point him in the direction of where my thoughts lay.

The brand-new Zafira was parked in the garage at Newham so I hopped behind the wheel and, after some struggling with the new design of handbrake, managed to reverse it out and into the parking area.

Where to the absolute horror of the station officer I drove into another car.

Oops.

Luckily there was no damage to the Zafira (which had less than 600 miles on the clock) and very slight, if any, damage to the other car.

The first accident I had in over 18 months and it was in front of a station officer…

Not a good start to the shift.

My thoughts on the Zafira are these; if you wanted a rapid response vehicle, the Zafira shouldn’t have been chosen. It is too top heavy and wallows like a hippo in thick mud. The acceleration is awful, you hit the pedal and it takes one and a half seconds before the diesel engine gives you any sort of power. It is comfortable to pootle around town in, and the high-up viewing position is quite nice.

But there is no way that it could be considered a ‘Fast’ car.

I think the reason why we have them is because they are able to carry patients, and I imagine that soon FRU drivers will be asked to take the coughs and colds that we see so much of to hospital.