James May Top Gear What is meant by Top Gear? speed driving
What are some important aspects of speed driving?
What are some important aspects of James May's speed driving?
May was a co-presenter of the original Top Gear series during 1999. He first co-presented the revived series of Top Gear in its second series in 2003, where he earned the nickname "Captain Slow" owing to his careful driving style. Despite this sobriquet, he has done some especially high-speed driving - in the 2007 series he took a Bugatti Veyron to its top speed of 253 mph (407 km/h), then in 2010 he achieved 259.11 mph (417 km/h) in the Veyron's newer 16.4 Super Sport edition. In an earlier episode he also tested the original version of the Bugatti Veyron against the Pagani Zonda F.  May, along with co-presenter Jeremy Clarkson and an Icelandic support crew, travelled by car to the magnetic North Pole in 2007, using a modified Toyota Hilux. In the words of Clarkson, he was the first person to go there "who didn't want to be there". He also drove a modified Toyota Hilux up the side of the erupting volcano Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland. He has also driven a 1.3-litre Suzuki SJ413 through Bolivia, along Death Road, and over the Andes to the Pacific Ocean in Chile.  In Season 22 Episode 7, he drove a rallycross Volkswagen Polo, with the assistance of the Top Gear USA presenter Tanner Foust, who also lapped him in the final 30 seconds of the semi-finals in the rallycross, entering James into the Guinness World Records as the first person to get lapped in rallycross.  Following the BBC's decision not to renew Jeremy Clarkson's contract with the show on 25 March 2015, May stated in April 2015 that he would not continue to present Top Gear as part of a new line-up of presenters. CANNOTANSWER
In an earlier episode he also tested the original version of the Bugatti Veyron against the Pagani Zonda F.
James Daniel May (born 16 January 1963) is an English television presenter and journalist. He is best known as a co-presenter of the motoring programme Top Gear alongside Jeremy Clarkson  and Richard Hammond from 2003 until 2015. He also served as a director of the production company W. Chump & Sons, which has since ceased operating. He is a co-presenter of the television series The Grand Tour for Amazon Prime Video, alongside his former Top Gear colleagues, Clarkson and Hammond, as well as Top Gear's former producer Andy Wilman.

May has presented other programmes on themes including science and technology, toys, wine culture, and the plight of manliness in modern times. He wrote a weekly column for The Daily Telegraphs motoring section from 2003 to 2011.

Early life

James Daniel May was born in Bristol, the son of an aluminium factory manager. He was one of four children; he has two sisters and a brother. May attended Caerleon Endowed Junior School in Newport. He spent his teenage years in South Yorkshire where he attended Oakwood Comprehensive School in Rotherham and was a choirboy at Whiston Parish Church.

May studied music at Pendle College, Lancaster University, where he learned to play the flute and piano. After graduating, May briefly worked at a hospital in Chelsea as a records officer, and had a short stint in the civil service.

Journalism career
During the early 1980s, May worked as a sub-editor for The Engineer and later Autocar magazine, from which he was dismissed for performing a prank. He has since written for several publications, including the regular column England Made Me in Car Magazine, articles for Top Gear magazine, and a weekly column in The Daily Telegraph.

He has written the book May on Motors (2006), which is a collection of his published articles, and co-authored Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure (2006), based on the TV series of the same name. He wrote the afterword to Long Lane with Turnings, published in September 2006, the final book by motoring writer L. J. K. Setright. In the same month, he co-presented a tribute to Raymond Baxter. Notes From The Hard Shoulder and James May's 20th Century, a book to accompany the television series of the same name, were published in 2007.

Dismissal from Autocar

In an interview with Richard Allinson on BBC Radio 2, May confessed that in 1992 he was dismissed from Autocar magazine after putting together an acrostic in one issue. At the end of the year, the magazine's "Road Test Yearbook" supplement was published. Each spread featured four reviews and each review started with a large red letter (known in typography as an initial). May's role was to put the entire supplement together.

To alleviate the tedium, May wrote each review such that the initials on the first four spreads read "ROAD", "TEST", "YEAR" and "BOOK".  Subsequent spreads seemingly had random letters, starting with "SOYO" and "UTHI"; when punctuated these letters spelt out the message: "So you think it's really good, yeah? You should try making the bloody thing up; it's a real pain in the arse."

Television career
His past television credits include presenting Driven on Channel 4 in 1998, narrating an eight-part BBC One series called Road Rage School, and co-hosting the ITV1 coverage of the 2006 London Boat Show. He also wrote and presented a Christmas special called James May's Top Toys (for BBC One).  James May: My Sisters' Top Toys attempted to investigate the gender divide of toy appeal. In series 3, episode 3 of Gordon Ramsay's The F Word, May managed to beat Ramsay in eating bull penis and rotten shark and with his fish pie recipe.

Top Gear

May was briefly a co-presenter of the original Top Gear series during 1999. He first co-presented the revived series of Top Gear in its second series in 2003, where he earned the nickname "Captain Slow" owing to his careful driving style. Despite this sobriquet, he has done some especially high-speed driving – in the 2007 series he took a Bugatti Veyron to its top speed of , then in 2010 he achieved  in the Veyron's newer 16.4 Super Sport edition. In an earlier episode he also tested the original version of the Bugatti Veyron against the Pagani Zonda F.

May, along with co-presenter Jeremy Clarkson and an Icelandic support crew, travelled by car to the magnetic North Pole in 2007, using a modified Toyota Hilux. In the words of Clarkson, he was the first person to go there "who didn't want to be there". He also drove a modified Toyota Hilux up the side of the erupting volcano Eyjafjallajökull.

Following the BBC's decision not to renew Jeremy Clarkson's contract with the show on 25 March 2015, May stated in April 2015 that he would not continue to present Top Gear as part of a new line-up of presenters.

Science
May presented Inside Killer Sharks, a documentary for Sky, and James May's 20th Century, investigating inventions. He flew in a Royal Air Force Eurofighter Typhoon at a speed of around 1320 mph (2124 km/h) for his television programme, James May's 20th Century. In late 2008, the BBC broadcast James May's Big Ideas, a three-part series in which May travelled around the globe in search of implementations for concepts widely considered science fiction. He has also presented a series called James May's Man Lab. In 2013, May narrated To Space & Back, a documentary on the influence of developments in space exploration on modern technology produced by Sky-Skan and The Franklin Institute.

James May on the Moon

James May on the Moon (BBC 2, 2009) commemorated 40 years since man first landed on the moon. This was followed by another documentary on BBC Four called James May at the Edge of Space, where May was flown to the stratosphere (70,000 ft) in a US Air Force Lockheed U-2 spy plane. Highlights of the footage from the training for the flight, and the flight itself was used in James May on the Moon, but was shown fully in this programme. This made him one of the highest flying people, along with the pilot, at that time, after the crew of the International Space Station.

James May's Toy Stories

Beginning in October 2009, May presented a 6-part TV series showing favourite toys of the past era and whether they can be applied in the modern-day.  The toys featured were Airfix, Plasticine, Meccano, Scalextric, Lego and Hornby. In each show, May attempts to take each toy to its limits, also fulfilling several of his boyhood dreams in the process. In August 2009, May built a full-sized house out of Lego at Denbies Wine Estate in Surrey. Plans for Legoland to move it to their theme park fell through in September 2009 because costs to deconstruct, move and then rebuild were too high and despite a final Facebook appeal for someone to take it, it was demolished on 22 September, with the plastic bricks planned to be donated to charity.

Also for the series, he recreated the banked track at Brooklands using Scalextric track, and an attempt at the world's longest working model railway along the Tarka Trail between Barnstaple and Bideford in North Devon, although the attempt was foiled due to parts of the track being stolen and vandals placing coins on the track, causing a short circuit.  Later, in 2011, May tried for the record again, proposing a race between German model railroad enthusiasts and their British counterparts.  The two teams would start at opposite ends along double tracked mainline.  This time, the effort succeeded with both teams successfully running three trains the entire route.

In December 2012 aired a special Christmas Episode called Flight Club, where James and his team built a huge toy glider that flew 22 miles (35 km) from Devon to the island of Lundy.

In 2013, May created a life-size, fully functional motorcycle and sidecar made entirely out of the construction toy Meccano. Joined by Oz Clarke, he then completed a full lap of the Isle of Man TT Course, a full  mile-long circuit.

Oz and James

In late 2006, the BBC broadcast Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure, a series in which May, a committed bitter drinker, travelled around France with wine expert Oz Clarke. A second series was broadcast in late 2007, this time with May and Clarke in the Californian wine country, and was followed by a third series in 2009 called Oz and James Drink to Britain.

James May: Our Man in Japan

In January 2020, May hosted a travel documentary named James May: Our Man in Japan, the 6-episode series was released on Amazon Prime Video and follows May's journey from the north end of Japan to its south. Over the course of three months, May explores and participate in many activities to truly understand the country which has intrigued him for a long time. During the trip through major cities like Tokyo and Kyoto, he is accompanied by a cast of different guides and translators.

Internet presence

May created Head Squeeze (now renamed "BBC Earth Lab"; May no longer features as a presenter). The channel is a mix of science, technology, history and current affairs. The first video was published in December 2012. Videos are produced by 360 Production for BBC Worldwide.

May created his own YouTube channel, titled "JM's Unemployment Tube", in 2015 after Top Gear was postponed by the BBC following Jeremy Clarkson's dismissal. Mainly featuring cooking videos filmed from his kitchen, as well as mock builds of Airfix models, the channel has over 230,000 subscribers as of March 2021. His most recent video was posted on this channel on the 20th of February 2021.

In 2016 May launched, with his former Top Gear presenters, a social network for motoring fans called DriveTribe.

In 2019, May moved on to created videos on a Drivetribe spin-off brand Foodtribe (replacing JM's Unemployment Tube) frequently using a small, bedsit-like kitchen setup called "The Bug-out Bunker".

Personal life
May lives in Hammersmith, West London, with art critic Sarah Frater, with whom he has been in a relationship since 2000. In July 2010 May was awarded an honorary doctorate by Lancaster University, where he had previously studied music. He holds a Doctor of Letters degree.

In August 2014, May was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote against independence from the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.

In June 2016 he supported Remain in the EU referendum. May has described his political leanings as "liberal".

In 2020 May bought half the ownership of a pub in Swallowcliffe, Wiltshire called The Royal Oak which dates from the early 18th century and is Grade II listed.

Vehicles
May has owned many cars including a 2005 Saab 9-5 Aero, Bentley T2, Rolls-Royce Phantom, Triumph 2000, Rover P6, Alfa Romeo 164, 1971 Rolls-Royce Corniche, Triumph Vitesse, Jaguar XJS, 1992 Range Rover Classic Vogue, Fiat Panda, Datsun 120Y, Vauxhall Cavalier Mk1, a Ferrari 308 GTB, a 2015 Toyota Mirai, Ferrari F430, Ferrari 458 Italia, 1984 Porsche 911, 2005 Porsche Boxster S (which he claims is the first car he has ever purchased new).

May currently owns a 2009 Porsche 911 Carrera S facelift, a 2016 BMW i3, a 2018 Alpine A110, a 2019 Tesla Model S 100D, a 2021 Toyota Mirai, a 2015 Ferrari 458 Speciale which he ordered following his exit from Top Gear and the VW Beach Buggy used in The Grand Tour Special "The Beach Buggy Boys". He often uses a Brompton folding bicycle for commuting. He passed his driving test on his second attempt and justified this by saying "All the best people pass the second time".

May obtained a light aircraft pilot's licence in October 2006, having trained at White Waltham Airfield. He has owned a Luscombe 8A 'Silvaire', a Cessna A185E Skywagon, and an American Champion 8KCAB Super Decathlon with registration G-OCOK, which serves as a reference to a common phrase attributed to him.

Filmography

Television

DVD

Video games

Television advertisements

Bibliography

 May on Motors: On the Road with James May. Virgin Books. 2006. Reprinted 2007. 
 Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure. BBC Books. 2006. 
 Notes from the Hard Shoulder. Virgin Books. 2007. 
 James May's 20th Century. Hodder & Stoughton. 2007 (H/B). Reprinted 2007 (P/B). 
 James May's Magnificent Machines. Hodder & Stoughton. 2008. 
 Oz and James Drink to Britain. Pavilion (Anova). 2009. 
 James May's Car Fever. Hodder & Stoughton. 2009 (H/B). Reprinted 2010 (P/B). 
 James May's Toy Stories. Conway (Anova). 2009. 
 James May's Toy Stories: Lego House. Conway (Anova). 2010. 
 James May's Toy Stories: Airfix Handbook. Conway (Anova). 2010. 
 James May's Toy Stories: Scalextric Handbook. Conway (Anova). 2010. 
 How to Land an A330 Airbus. Hodder & Stoughton. 2010 (H/B). Reprinted 2011 (P/B). 
 James May's Man Lab: The Book of Usefulness. Hodder & Stoughton. 2011 (H/B). Reprinted 2012 (P/B) 
 James May: On Board. Hodder & Stoughton. 2012. 
 James May: The Reassembler. Hodder & Stoughton. 2017. 
 James May: Oh Cook!. Pavilion. 2020.

Britcar 24 Hour results

References

External links
 

 
1963 births
Living people
English television presenters
Television personalities from Bristol
Alumni of Lancaster University
British motoring journalists
BBC people
English male journalists
English male non-fiction writers
People from Hammersmith and Fulham
The Daily Telegraph people
People from Hammersmith
Top Gear people
Britcar 24-hour drivers
Driving in India is governed by various legal powers and in some cases is subject to the passing of a driving test. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, a branch of the Government of India, is the apex body for formulation and administration of the rules, regulations and laws relating to road transport, national highways and transport research, in order to increase the mobility and efficiency of the road transport system in India. Indian traffic drives on the left.

Highway Safety Code 
Indian Roads Congress (IRC) had published a Highway Safety Code [IRC publication code IRC:SP:44-1996]. In the publication, it states that "this code is not a manual of traffic law, although some of the measures dealt within it are prescribed by Law. Others are dictated by good sense and courtesy. However, each category is as important as the other". This book is created based on the recommendations of First Highway Saferty workshop help at Chandigarh in January 1972. Copyrights of this book is owned by Indian Road Congress. This book consists of a number of chapters covering various types of road users. Road users explicitly covered are Pedestrians, Animal Drawn Vehicles, Cyclists, Motor Cyclists and other Motorised vehicles. Unlike a few other countries, this book is not available on retail stores for sales to purchase, and is sold through IRC only.

Speed limits 
Road speed limits in India are defined by the road types and Vehicle category. As per section 112 of The Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, Central government of India has power to notify the minimum and maximum speed limits at national level where as similar power is granted to Indian State governments or their nominated agency has power to notify speed limits under their jurisdiction.

Until 2014, there was no national upper speed limit for cars in India, as local police set the limits in their own areas. Local governments are still encouraged to set specific limits within their own jurisdiction.

Below are the latest Maximum speed limited defined by the Government of India on 6 April 2018.

Pedestrian crossings 
There are two broad categories of pedestrian crossing to aid the safe passage across major roads by those travelling on foot.
Traffic light controlled crossings: Drivers are controlled by traffic light signals.
Zebra crossings: Black and white stripes are painted on the road. Drivers must give way to pedestrians on the crossing.

Driving licence 

Driving licences may be obtained by any citizen of age 18 or above, subject to certain conditions.  Initially, a provisional licence is issued, which restricts the holder to driving whilst accompanied by a driver who has held a full licence in the category of vehicle they are supervising the learner driver. The provisional licence may be exchanged for a full licence after the holder has passed the driving test. On reaching the age of 50, drivers may apply to have their licences renewed with a medical/fitness certificate. Many foreign driving licences permit one to drive in India for a period of one year.

Enforcement 
Some of the rules of the road should be enforced by the police. Motorists convicted of certain traffic, and certain non-traffic offences may have 'points' added to their licences: some traffic violations, typically warrant three points, and motorists with twelve points face a temporary driving suspension.

Fatalities 

India is generally considered to be one of the most dangerous countries in the world in which to drive. In 2007, more than 130,000 people died on the roads in India, though the number should be weighed against the large population of the country. A representative of Delhi's Institute of Road Traffic Education suggested that among the main causes were the lack of traffic management, "we do not design traffic management systems to separate different streams", and poor driver training. A 2014 article published by Reuters described a driving test in Delhi, which lasted less than two minutes, and involved one examiner testing ten people at the same time. Peter Foster, a journalist for The Daily Telegraph, recounted that in his experience, fellow drivers paid little heed to the rules of the road, and did anything they could do avoid queuing; succeeding in blocking up more of the road. The wide variety of methods of transportation, and what is often portrayed as a common disregard for the rules of the road, contribute to the fatalities.

See also
Roads in India
Speed limits in India
Road signs in India

References

India
Road safety
Road transport in India Speed limits in the Isle of Man are measured in miles per hour, and the same basic design of road signs is used as in the United Kingdom.

As a self-governing British Crown Dependency outside the United Kingdom, the island's parliament Tynwald is able to decide its own legislation, including road traffic laws such as speed limits and ability to close roads to allow the Isle of Man TT to take place.

There is normally no national speed limit in the Isle of Man – some roads may be driven at any speed which is safe and appropriate. In built-up areas a speed limit of 30mph usually applies. 

Careless and dangerous driving laws still apply, so one may not drive at absolutely any speed, and there are local speed limits on many roads. Many unrestricted roads have frequent bends which even the most experienced driver cannot see round. Drivers are limited to  in the first full year after passing their driving test (Isle of Man citizens are permitted to start driving at the age of sixteen) and some are not used to having to make progress in the same way as on a larger road network such as that in the UK: even a cautious driver can get from anywhere in the island to anywhere else in no more than sixty minutes.

Set against this is a strong culture of motor sport enthusiasm (pinnacled in the TT, but there are many events during the year) and many residents familiar with the roads are well used to traversing country roads at speeds illegal on similar roads elsewhere. This leads to a very diverse spread of both driving competence and speed. In an official survey in 2006, the introduction of blanket speed limits was refused by the population.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, an island-wide temporary speed limit of 40mph was introduced in 2020, later increasing to 60mph.

See also
Speed limits in the United Kingdom

References

External links
Speed restrictions - Isle of Man Constabulary website
BBC News, 27 March 2020 - introduction of temporary 40 m.p.h. speed limit

Isle of Man