Hari Raya Trip ...

The trip back home was uneventful enough. It was on the eve of Hari Raya. After filling the car tank with RON 95 and the 4 tyres with air at 240 KPa pressure, Zul took over the wheel, giving excuses that I would be too sleepy to drive, in spite of the fact that we left the petrol station at exactly 5.00 pm. Odometer reading at the station in Subang Jaya was 21,875 km. The end odometer reading was 22,377 km. So I have travelled a distance of 502 km. and had consumed RM 89.73 worth of petrol. Petrol consumption was therefore 10.6297 km per litre or 29.5638 miles per gallon.

The drive home to Chepor was marked by an error in navigation. As it was already dark by the time we reached the site of the old toll booth at Ipoh, Zul took the middle lane and completely missed the road that would take us to Jelapang and then to Chepor. Instead we found ourselves going through the tunnel, past the Perak River R&R, and had to make a U-Turn at the Kuala Kangsar exit. We reached Chepor about more than an hour too late.

Just imagine, for about a year since the last Hari Raya trip, I have travelled for 2,337 km only. No wonder my battery conked out twice, and I have wasted money on roadtax and insurance !

Ah, at last ...

The reason I have not been blogging since the last blog entry is because I have lost my password. This is due to my 24" IMac that crashed some months ago and the spreadsheet in which I kept a list of my blogs with their relevant usernames and passwords became irretrievable. I have been making innumerable attempts to open the blog without success until today. Now, I can continue to write on my Nissan 350Z. I have to re-check the petrol consumption again. Since the last check, I have not driven the car for any considerable distance.

Update: 28/08/2011: Today is Sunday the 28th of August. My next blog entry would be about my trip back to Chepor for the Hari Raya which falls on Teusday the 30th of August and back home again in Subang Jaya. The trip would present an opportunity to check on the petrol consumption again. The last few days I was driving the car for short distances was to make sure that the battery is recharging. In the meantime, I had to renew my comprehensive insurance which set me back RM 2,800/=. Apparently, the insurance company reckoned that it had to provide for a 10% loading on a car it classified as a "sports car" which it considered as a vehicle that attracts perhaps more risks than if it were a normal saloon car.

To me, this is ridiculous. For one thing, drivers of sports cars are more skillful and experienced than those of saloon cars. The drivers of sports cars have graduated from being saloon car drivers that they were before. For another, there had never been occasions on the Malaysian roads, except once that I know of, in which sports cars were involved in accidents. The one occasion was some years ago (in the 1980s) when a Ferrari or something driven by the CEO of Arab Malaysia Bank went off the road. The cars that are usually involved in accidents are the Kancils, the Protons, the Peroduas, the Toyotas, Mercedes, and so on, all of the saloon variety, not to mention the lorries and the buses. I don't know where the insurance companies get their facts about "sport cars" being more dangerous. Sports cars generally have more power, better acceleration, are more adept at road handling especially at corners and bends, and have better braking power than normal cars. The insurance companies are simply prejudiced in their views of sports cars. Period.