Safe Speed Forums

'Jumped the shark' a American term referring to the point at which a TV series starts to go down hill...

Its normally my favourite program by far but this series seems to be increasingly about the presenters and their 'banter' rather than cars & motoring.

Getting miffed, what was that rubbish abbout 'the team' appearing on local radio? Need car reviews. Cars. Cars.

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"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

I recon that 5th gear is the better of the two personally. Trouble is, Richard Hammond is such a sweety!

That local radio stunt was a complete farce and JC's traffic report was complete and utter pants.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

The last episode I watched was when they'd bought three "cheap" (which in their terms meant sub-£10k)! supercars and were driving them from somewhere to somewhere else on a limited amount of fuel. I've no idea why! Anyway, Clarkson was in a (I think) Maserati Merak or some lesser-known similar vehicle from the 1970s. After a while it was obviously poorly and showing low oil pressure. A bit later on, it was knocking its brains out and the oil light was on. Some time after that, the engine grenaded itself (as they do when you keep driving them with no oil in!) and trashed a perfectly restorable "classic". OK, it's not the most valuable of vehicles but there are plenty of people like me who like a bit of a mechanical challenge and don't have much money who could have bought and restored a car like that before he trashed the engine beyond repair!

Don't know what they were trying to prove other than what a bunch of spoilt a'holes they were! This they succeeded in (as far as I'm concerned) admirably and I haven't watched an episode since!

its been on the way down since the 2nd series in the new format in my opinion.

losing tiff & to an extent VBH (if only for the eye candy factor) played a part i think.

I saw that episode too mole, and was a bit disappointed that they destroyed the cars.

At the end of the day, their message was "you can buy supercars for under £10k, but dont".

What they meant was "don't buy them to abuse as you can a modern car, because they take a lot of looking after", but that's not cool.

I still watch it occassionally, but my opinion of them certainly suffered having watched their clear lack of knowledge about cars.

The Merak you mentioned had just had a £10k rebuild of it's engine, IIRC, and was still being run in. I think it was the race track stunt that knackered it beyond repair.

Not clever, not funny.

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I saw that one too - Jamie you're right, the car had just been rebuilt and to drive it like that on run-in is an absolute crime.

It would be nice to see a program like that being presented by people who actually know something about mechanics etc, but its just not what the masses are interested in or can understand.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Whist I agree that the format is not as fresh as when (new) Top Gear burst onto the scene but thats the same with many TV shows that have been on for awhile. I remember when "Who wants to be a millionaire?" was compulsive viewing, but does anyone watch it anymore? Is it still on? I don't know.

For me though Top Gear is still entertaining. I enjoy the banter amongst "the team". Despite enjoying cars and motoring I personally find car reviews in themselves very very boring. At least JC and co try to inject a bit of humour in them. Plus I'd much rather see a caravan being blown up then endless reviews of rather dull but reasonably priced cars.

It still offers good entertainment in my opinion. A lot of people get worked up about Clarksons behavoir and attitude but come on, its just a front. His whole reputation is based on being outrageous, its how he has made a name for himself.

The cheap supercar feature was a good laugh, they are only cars at the end of the day - not people!

Hmm.

I'm going to see it being filmed. My father ended up with a bunch of tickets, so I thought. Why not? Don't really watch it (don't watch much TV period), so I'll see when I get there.

I'll be the good looking one standing at the back.... honest

Wear a t-shirt with the SafeSpeed logo on it!

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

From what I have seen of the latest series it's the best ever.

Pure entertainment.

It's not a car show any more though, if that's what you want then you need to look elsewhere.

Hi all,

What sickens me about top gear is they roll out supercar after supercar and see how fast it can go sideways and how many gallons per-mile they can do (alright it winds up green pots ) , but it is not about the motoring life most of us experience in the UK.

If anything about fuel tax, cameras or the utter rip-off of the motoring public (by this despotic Government) is mentioned, it is soon extinguished to make way for the next Bugatti.

Mind you it is still watchable, if only for the banter between the three presenters.

Regards

Andrew

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It's a scam........or possibly a scamola


Homer Simpson

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

do you enjoy traffic jams so much that you want to watch them on tv for an hour every week?

I watch it every week, love to see the morons dribbling over "super" cars because the lack the intellectual capaity to enjoy litrature or nature.
Jeremy Clarkson, (not an attractive man) big overweight yellow toothed smoker. a good days exersise would kill him

Richard Hammond needs a big car to make up for his lack of stature.

and the other one non descript oght to have been a teacher.

The dogs good thought

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Why not put on speed limiters we have the technology only idiots break the speed limit

There's nothing wrong with smaller men. I'd sonner go out for dinner with Mr Hammond than with a boring old git like you TSM.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

How would you know what a teacher looks like?

And, quite evidently, you have no such failings?

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

I guess it's all things to all men then.

For myself I love watching Jeremy Clarkson if only for the imagery this conjures up, of "litrary" people like TSM seething with rage, glued to the screen to see how offended they can get.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

Sixy: "There's nothing wrong with smaller men." I'm 5'7" short enough??


On a more serious note, TG used to have a mix of the exotic and everyday cars and occasionally the odd bike, now it's a tv version of max power mag. Fifth Gear is going the same way Tiff hates diesels, most of the cars are raced as the road test, come on!! They did do some crash testing - rear end shunts multiple piles ups, how good are kiddy seats etc but now they are trying to beat TG at thier game.

I did e-mail them and suggest a test of space saver spare wheels vs normal spares, was rejected as it deemed to be not of interest to the driving public (am assuming it would be too embarresing to certain manufacturers!).

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

what I can't believe is that anyone who enjoys driving actually likes them. Devil's spawn if you ask me.