The "Male Chicken Club" confessional thread - post up your Male Chicken moments

[gazza57]

Had to confess to this one, going home on the M27, at my exit there are two slip lanes both with solid lines to discourage the mentally challenged from trying to drive across at the last minute as there have been numerous crashes there.
This plank wearing a trilby hat driving a Volvo towing a caravan not only moves across from one lane to the next , actually crosses two lanes both solid whites then proceeds to cross the triangle that separates the slips from the main carriageway.
This illicited a massive blowing of horns from two drivers who nearly got wiped out, so he gives them the single finger out of the window, except that momentary loss of concentration means the back end of his caravan clips the armco and tears his caravan from it mountings leaving the caravan still attached to the towing hitch but neatly parked on the central reservation with the boot of the volvo torn right out complete with cables, I laughed until it hurt!
Gazza57

[MalcQV]

It is bad and he did not get hurt (other than his pride) so this is one big fat result

[ruggedscot]

Read this topic and as Ive just done some work on earthing and bonding then I shall begin - sit down and get comfortable.

Bonding is utilised to ensure that all metal parts in an installation that are not part of an electrical circuit are bonded together and maintained at the same potential. This ensures that you can not get a shock from touching two seperate pieces of metal. It ensures that all metalworks would be roughly the same potential and thus no current flow would exist between non circuit metalic items. Bonding is carried out through using sections of cable and camps that interlink all these extraneous parts together. The cable being of a sufficient size to cope with any potential faults and still maintain a low differential voltage between the different parts that are bonded together. an example of this would be the isolator switch case - not part of the circuit but its metalic and can conduct - and a metal railing near by - you could touch the railing and the switch at the same time. This means that if the switch was faulty you could get a shock from touching the switch and the railing at the same time. So a bond is made between the railing and the switch. This maintains the potential between the railing and the switch roughly equal and limits the exposure to a possible electric shock. Phew - does that make sense?

Earthing is used to ensure that should a fault on an electrical apparatus occur then this fault current is quickly routed to the point of origin and the protection that protects the affected item trips or blows to remove the source of the current. We use earth mats in substations to ensure that we have a good solid and dependable reference to the common ground or earth. This is then taken and securly connected to the earth point in an electrical distribution system. Thus if you have a fault and current flows from the fault to the earth it will make its way back to the source and this will if the resistance is low enough be of a sufficent level to operate the protection. This is how a residual current breaker operates - it detects an imbalance in the electricity current flowing into an appliance against the current flowing back. If this is above 0.03 A then it wakes up and trips.

Hazardous areas - Within a hazardous area they will try to provide some form of limit to the power where possible - sensors and such will operate from a reduced power source - one that can not generate sparks or provide enough power into a fault to generate a level of heat that would exceed the flash point of the substance in the area. You generally have loads of little boxes just outside the explosive area and all sensor leads go through these boxes to limit the power going through. The higher power items like motors and valves and such are explosion proof rated this means that they will contain an explosion internally and all products of the explosion would be exhusted in a form that wouldnt be dangerous.

Mobile phones are a night mare ! its not the signal that they transmit but the battery contacts that cause the issue as these can cause quite significant sparking to develop that causes the problems.


chicken moments - had a few one serious one was when a bmw driver flicked out a fag end and it ended up im my car.....

cluck cluck cluck

[archerj]

I was driving home from work one day and decided to visit the pub that i used to work at, say hello to the staff etc. As this pub is in the middle of the countryside there are a few dodgy junctions to manouvere. At one said junction at the top of the hill you cannot see traffic coming from the left so it is necessary to creep to 'creep' out. Looking to my right i can see a jag coming along indicating left into my junction. Stupidly thinking this meant he was intending on turning, i crept and then completed my turn right. Having performed this i find myself parallel to said jag, with it's pleasant 60-70 year old male chicken occupant 'f'ing and blinding' at my. Complete with hand signals.
The 'Gentleman' then proceeded on his way, straight, not actually turning as my foolish interprtation of his indicator had led me to believe. In my moment of blind male chickenness i put my car into reverse, negotiated two blind corners and performed a ninety degree reverse turn into a convenient farm driveway. Into first and i am now following said Jag on a merry drive along several country lanes with my full beam on. Off the back roads, onto the main A road (conveniently the route i would actually take to my house, if i hadn't been planning on visiting the pub), through two small towns, and follow the guy directly to a police station that he has decided is the best place to admit his male chicken cannot compete with my male chicken.
I approached the guy as he got out of his car and asked him what he thought he was doing. He proceeded to tell me that he was going to get the police to sort out our disagreement, towhich i laughed at him and told them that he was wasting their time and that he shouldn't be such a male chicken. However he was still adament and off he strutted towards the door; little did he know it was an unmanned police station and that what you have to do at this police station was pick up a phone by the door and the control centre will send a police cruiser if they see fit. I politely explained this to him, told him i wouldn't be hanging around and left, feeling slightly male chickenish, but of a frame of mind that i was the winning male chicken.
The next day at work, i received a phone call from the constabulary asking me to expalin my actions, i did and the officer knew the junction i was talking about, so i received a rebuke for being a male chicken although i was assured that the other chicken invoved would also be spoken to about giving abuse to younger, stronger male chickens and how his actions can result in male chicken behaviour from people!
These days i find myself increasing inclinded not to even sound my horn when irritated by other road users actions, choosing instead to simply question their driving loudly with my car or my wife.

[MalcQV]

^ Last time I did anything like that (I was a youngster), I was sat at a set of lights on red, they went green at which point three lads crossed the road looking at me with a grin. I pulled off after they went, fuming pulled over in the lay-by and went to kick seven shades out of all of them (what a **** I was). They reminded me there was three of them so I with tail between my legs got back in my car .

The previous time was because near my then girlfriend's house a particular chap would give me the finger on his motorcycle because I suggested one time he slowed down before he killed himself or me! His brother used to do the same, he was much more my size so I challenged him. I came of worse as his mate joined in.

I am a good boy now and never get out of the car...

Oh one other time of bravado, same GF (who became my wife) we were making out in a car park when a large stick was launched at my car. I went to sort the [hooded] youths out. They were up a tree and probably thinking I was a psycho, what I had also done was remove my car keys and put them in my pocket. Thing is my GF was sat in the car with no means to get away.

I am not big or hard and was just plain stupid.

[Pacci]

I'm quite restrained in the car but having recently changed from a bog standard A4 to a cabriolet, I have had a few moments where I've screamed sweary abuse at other road users for their ****-like driving and forgotten until afterwards that I had the roof down.