Road Humps

The BMW X5 is one of those cars I've never really seen the point of. They are huge and yet the interior space is rubbish. You can sit four adults inside but the boot is no bigger than the luggage space on a Honda Jazz. It weighs far too much so even though it has an engine with the cubic capacity of an aircraft carrier it doesn't feel that sprightly and it ends up with the fuel consumption of a Saturn V rocket. Even then, it's like a super-tanker to manoeuvre and the slightest over-enthusiasm with the steering lets you know that this is a seriously top-heavy beast. It looks like some sort of off-road vehicle and it does have four wheel drive but here's the stupid bit: it's rubbish off road. They fit very slick looking low-profile road tyres as standard so if the owner doesn't change them they are generally to be seem being hauled off a muddy field by the local farmer in his Massey Ferguson. I got to drive one this week.

I had to pick someone up from the airport and was told to take a company car (one of the salesmen's rep-mobiles) as my Yaris wasn't big enough (or, reading between the lines, not posh enough). Now, I generally enjoy driving other people's cars but I really wasn't looking forward to this. It was even worse when I switched on the engine to discover that, rather than some V8 roar, I was met by a diesel clatter. However, I have changed my mind a little and it all has to do with road humps.

Road humps are really the bane of my life when driving. They are meant to slow the traffic down, which is fair enough, but regardless of how slowly I drive over them I get a nasty jolt which, as I am prone to a bad back, really annoys me. Driving over them in the Yaris is even worse as it's a small car and the wheels don't stretch far enough to miss the worst - I get a full blown thump every time I go over one. This is where the X5 really came into its own. I couldn't feel a thing. This was not just at 20mph but at any speed you like to choose. First at 25, then 30, 40 even 50. I just had to blast the thing up and down the same bit of road to make sure it went over them - it just floated over the things.

So I picked up my passenger and dropped them back at the office. The car park was full so I parked the X5 on the grass verge - the bugger sank into the mud. It's probably still stuck there.