If the MX5’s are only doing 30 MPH, then that’s not roaring, but if, as I think you probably do, mean 30 MPG then you might have a point, but 90% of my driving is on country roads at about 40 mph tops average much lower, and I’m getting 43+ MPG so not too bad all in all.
Oh, and I don’t have a mobile phone in the cockpit, one “pay as you go” in the boot as a precaution.
Hmm, that does not tally so well with my experience.
The most dinged cars that I am aware of are all owned by drivers older than me, drivers who (mostly) say they are perfectly competent and deny their loss of precision, and I’m no longer prepared to accept a lift with the one who admits he is getting past it. Their cars are also old so they don’t worry about them, and the battered appearance commands a significant degree of clear space from other more cautious drivers who choose to park nearby. I’ve not touched anything with any of my cars in the last forty years, but based on family history I’m guessing that I might have another ten years before I need to stop driving, if I’m lucky; hence spending my kids inheritance on buying the toy while I could still enjoy driving it, and not ding it.
The three (unrelated) youngsters in my close are amazingly conscientious in keeping each of their four wheeled pride and joys immaculate, (I was never so keen on a car in my whole life, not even the pretty MX5) and they each have the tracking dongle for cheaper insurance. Which tends to fly in the face of the insurance company statistics, and my own memories of being young and stupid.
Bus drivers have an unenviable job, squeezing those big things through tiny gaps while all the time being cut up by impatient car and van drivers. Last year I was a witness when a car changed lanes straight into the bus, the car driver never looked, just turned right to hit a big red bus alongside him. How could he have not noticed it? I was sitting on the left side of the bus, by the exit door and through it could see the dashed white line on the road, the bus (which was stationary and waiting to turn right) was central in the lane, and suddenly there was this car trying to board the bus, simply because the car in front had slowed down to turn left. I made a statement with sketch, sent it off to the relevant place, and a month later received a thank you from the bus company; the car driver had tried it on and claimed that the bus had pulled left across him, but the magistrate had thrown the spurious claim out and awarded judgement and costs to the bus company.
I feel safer in a bus. But it is not so much fun.
The only reason I can afford the MX5 is because I don’t have to pay for the swimming. Obvious really.
Got my bus pass two years ago, and I’ve only used it once. I bought a dog at about the same time, now we walk almost everywhere.