Chrysler to America : "Screw You"

In an astonishing display of "not getting it", Chrysler has taken out a week of full-page ads in national newspapers to 'thank' America for investing in it via the $4bn it received in the bailout package to car manufacturers. In essence, what they're really saying is "screw you", because rather than spending the money on producing cars that work, are fuel efficient, and that people want to buy, they're frittering it away on full-page ads, shareholder dividends and CEO bonuses. The full-page ads alone cost at least $3.3M. Or put another way, it just cost 66 Chrysler employees their jobs.
I don't understand why the big three are being rewarded with my money for their abject failure. Let them fail. Let them go in to chapter 11 - at least that will force a restructuring. Simply giving them cash isn't going to solve anything. Sure Bush says it's a short-term loan which must be repaid, but you know a substantial amount of that money is going to be spent on very expensive laywers to explain why that money actually shouldn't be repaid.

Raise the gas tax? Are you crazy?

I see a lot of people are talking about now being the time to increase the tax on petrol here in America. I've got to say I think they're crazy. In Europe, higher petrol taxes are supposed to fund public transport and road projects. Instead they prop up government pension and health insurance programs. The idea is to 'encourage' drivers to ditch their cars and use public transport.
Newsflash : that doesn't work if the public transport system is poor, or non-existent. Look at England - they pay more in gas tax than we pay for the gas itself. The three stacked taxes are all percentages added on top of each other, resulting in about a 515% equivalent tax. Gas tax + fuel duty escalator + sales tax = wholesale rape of the motorist. I Don't say that lightly either because the simple fact of the matter is that there is no alternative. For decades, government after government have trimmed, underfunded and slashed public transport across the country. So they know there is no way the average driver could use public transport. In other words, gas tax is blackmail. You can't use public transport - you have to drive, which means you have to fill your car with petrol, which means you have to pay the tax.
Now consider that scenario in America - a country designed around the road system. This summer showed what high petrol prices do to a country reliant on roads - the cost of everything went up so high that it contributed to plunging the country in to recession.
So think about that if you support higher gas tax. Because once we're paying $10/gallon for petrol over here because of taxes, you won't be able to complain if you supported the move.

Snow tyres.

It seems the right time of year to bring up snow tyres. For those of you who live in sunnier climes, this is a moot point, but for those of us for whom the early morning commute means blasting through fresh snow, snow tyres are a must-have item.
For years, M+S tyres (mud + snow) were nothing more than a super-blocky tread. They sort of worked, but once the tread blocks were full of compacted snow, their performance fell off dramatically. In the last few years there's been a revolution in snow tyres with more 3-dimensional tread, more deep siping and stickier, softer rubber compounds. The current generation of purpose-built snow tyres, like Bridgestone Blizzaks and Firestone WinterForces are nothing short of amazing to drive on. I've fitted some of the WinterForces to my OE wheels. I'm fortunate that I have aftermarket alloys, so I have two sets of wheels - the aftermarket ones with the all-weather tyres, and the OE Honda jobs which now have the snow tyres on them. For the last couple of days I've been having a complete blast on the slick, snowy roadways of Utah. I kid you not - the current generation of snow tyres are simply incredible in their performance. On all but the hardest of hard-packed snow, it's like night and day compared to all-weather tyres. Acceleration and cornering performance is way up as is braking performance. Not the same as dry road performance, obviously, but a whole lot more confidence-inspiring than regular tyres.
The WinterForce tyres can be fitted with studs but I've opted not to. So if you live in the snowier parts of the world and haven't tried the current generation of snow tyres, I would seriously recommend you do.

Have a Merry Christmas, and a wonderful new year.

Variable Valve Timing

I've added a new page to the site covering 4 different types of variable valve timing.

The competition to win a ScanGauge II is still running too - I've had a lot of entries so far. The winner will be announced January 7th.

New product review and competition : ScanGauge II

I've posted a new product review of the ScanGauge II add-on car computer. It's a great little device for adding a trip computer and additional gauges and readouts to your car, plus it can scan your OBD II port for error codes and turn off the check engine light if you want. Read the review here : ScanGauge II Review. There's also a competition now running to win one....

The state of cabs.

I'm at a trade show at the moment, meaning I go everywhere on foot or in a cab.
The cab ride from the airport was in an old Crown Victoria that wouldn't go above 45mph, had over 400,000 miles on it, and no shock absorbers to speak of. It weaved all over the road on it's own, even when the driver held the wheel still, and it reeked of petrol. Tonight I took a cab ride back to the hotel, and the cabbie spent most of the time nearly running into the people in front because he was busy instant-messaging on his laptop on the front seat.
So when I see cabbies complaining about poor treatment on TV, I'm bound to ask the obvious : "why don't you learn to drive, learn to navigate, and maintain your vehicles, then maybe you'll get some respect?"
I'd rather get from A to B in a cab in one piece and without smelling of vomit and petrol and fearing for my life.
Or is that just me?

1000 real-world miles on a tank.

Top Gear was interesting this week. They did a hyper-miling race from Basel in Switzerland to Blackpool in England. Three diesel cars - a VW Polo Bluemotion, a Subaru Legacy TDI wagon and a Jag twin-turbo TDI sedan. The VW and the Subaru were driven carefully with an eye on gas mileage, and the Jag (driven by Clarkson) was driven taking no account of range and fuel consumption.
All three made it to Blackpool - between 750 and 860 miles depending on their chosen routes - and all on a single tank of diesel. All three had zero on their miles-to-empty displays, and fuel gauges buried on "E" a good 40 miles before reaching the finish. Yet the Jag had another 120 miles-worth of diesel left in it.
Think about it for a moment - that's a 1000 mile range on a luxury car on a single tank. The VW is a practical runabout that can do 800 miles on a tank, and the Subaru is a wagon that can do 750 miles on a tank.
I ask again : why do the manufacturers not import and sell diesel vehicles in America? They're cheaper than any hybrid, they're cleaner than most petrol cars now, and they have high torque, very driveable engines that deliver astonishing gas mileage - 80mpg or more (imperial) which is 67mpg US.

A worrying trend

Maverick have been doing this for ages, and it looks like Chevron have now cottoned on to the idea: screw over motorists who want to pay for petrol with credit or debit cards. This week, the Chevron nearest us changed it's sign. There's now two prices for each grade of petrol. The cash or Chevron Card price, and the credit/debit/pay at the pump price.
Of course the credit/debit price is 5¢ a gallon more.
So let me get this straight.
Because we pump the petrol ourselves, and don't have to interact with their staff, and don't give them the cost and potential fraud of cash-counting, we have to pay more?
Surely paying cash should cost more? After all, that involves infrastructure and employees which cost a lot more than a petrol pump calling up my bank and just taking the money.
Of course Chevron will argue that the credit/debit fees are so expensive they have to charge more. But wait - if you use the Chevron-branded card, apparently the fees aren't as expensive.
Here's the bottom line. If you can sell petrol for one price to people with cash, you can bloody well sell it for the same price to people who are absolving you of the cost of dealing with cash. Until that happens, may I politely suggest we all boycott Chevron.

We're so poor.

The CEOs of the big three car makers all turned up in Washington this week to plea poverty and beg for billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout money. All three of them turned up in corporate jets - at about $20,000 round-trip cost. And all three of them refused to take a cut from their $28M salary to $1 and just receive the benefits and stock options.
Then they said they were running out of money.
Maintaining seven private jets each (plus a fleet of King Airs and other light aircraft) will do that to your cash flow. It would of course be cheaper to fly commercially in first class, or heaven forbid, coach. Or even chartering someone else's private jet - these are all cheaper options that would save money.
They've laid off 51,000 employees between them. If all three CEOs took a $1 salary then that would have saved 16,800 of those jobs. Getting rid of 21 corporate jets with their associated maintenance and operating costs would have saved the other 34,200 jobs easily.
I have the same opinion on this as I did on the $700bn bailout package - vote it down. As a taxpayer it's not my responsibility that the car makers have squandered their cash and can't make a car that does more than 25mpg. Screw them. Let them fail. I don't see Honda, or Toyota, or Daewoo, or Hyundai begging for cash. Why reward Ford, Chrysler and GM's poor business ethic with taxpayers money when they clearly couldn't care about actually saving money?

Ditching the car for a weekend.

I'm a great fan of public transport when it's done right. Case in point, Portland's MAX light rail system (read: tram). We decided on a short weekend away and rather than renting a car, we decided to rely on public transport instead. There's a MAX station right at Portland airport, and the red line goes into downtown Portland, within a block of most of the hotels. We hopped on, paid $4.60, and hopped off 40 minutes later within two minutes walk of the hotel. On the way, we watched gridlocked rush hour traffic, nose-to-tail on I84 and when we got to the hotel, we discovered overnight parking was $29. In this case, it's a total no-brainer. Sit in traffic, pay three day's car rental ($150), two nights valet ($58) and half a tank of petrol ($15), or spend a grand total of $9.20 on public transport to do the exact same thing.

Think about it next time you go away somewhere - do you really need that rental car?

In motoring terms, England is broken.

Having left the UK 8 years ago, it never ceases to amaze me how much is broken about England when I return for visits. This time around it occurred to me how ridiculously small the parking spaces are. They're not quite big enough to get a car into. Well - they are, but only if you don't want to open the doors and get out.
Then there's the new mayor of London - Boris Johnson. Now he wants to tax motorcycles for parking in the city centre. Typical. They introduce the "congestion charge" to try to encourage people to use bikes, motorbikes and public transport instead of cars, and it works to some extent. Now so many people have swapped to motorbikes, BoJo has decided it's time to tax those too.
Then there's the traffic police - or lack of them. So many speed cameras have been installed since I left that by the police force's own admission, they've slashed the number of actual traffic police. In some cases by as much as 90%. So whereas an physical policeman pulling you over could assess the road and traffic conditions, as well as your driving, and thus make a subjective assessment of whether or not you truly deserve a ticket, now the country is presided over by automated cameras that fine you two weeks after the offence. Which is of course totally ridiculous. Take me for example - if I get a speeding fine in a rental car, two weeks after I've left the country, then it tells me two things.
1. I don't need to pay it because they can't prosecute me outside of England
2. It didn't make the road I allegedly committed the offence on any safer because I wasn't stopped at the point of my alleged offence. In fact after two weeks, I'd be lucky to even remember where the hell I was with the amount of travelling I do.

Yes. England is well and truly broken. But if you still live there, you already know that.

And don't get me started on the price of petrol.....

More crap car design.

I've got a Ford Galaxy MPV on rental at the moment (apparently Hertz think that's in the same class as a "compact 4 door saloon"). It drives OK but it's laced with awful design problems. The three that stand out immediately are the handbrake, the interior lights and the heating and ventilation system.
The handbrake is this interesting double-pronged affair that looks like the throttle control from a fighter jet. It's cleverly designed so that when you release it, it traps your thumb between the release button and the centre console.
The interior lighting is very art nouveau - soft dimming, soft illuminating, accent lighting in the footwells etc. It's all very clever but totally useless because there's no light at the ignition switch. So when you get in in the dark, you end up scratching up all the plastic on the steering column trying to find the ignition key slot.
And finally, the heating and a/c system. In manual mode it's fine. In Auto mode it's totally useless. For some reason, when you use Auto mode, Ford seemed to think that what you want is a right foot that is either baked or frozen. In Auto mode it only uses the footwell ventilation outlets, and on the driver's side, it's pointed straight at the accelerator pedal. So if you want to heat the air up inside, you end up with a burned foot long before the air actually begins to circulate out of the footwells.

This is the 21st century isn't it? Because those sorts of design decisions are reminiscent of the horse-drawn carriage.

New product review started.

Started the long-term test of Pulstar Pulse spark plugs : Pulstar plugs.

1000mph land speed record?

Richard Noble and Andy Green are back to their old tricks with the proposed Bloodhound project - a "car" designed to break the 1000mph barrier on land.

Supersonic car targets 1,000mph.

Frankly I hope they manage it, because it would be as big a spectacle as it is an achievement.

That's a good moneyspinner.

The tax and licensing renewal for my wife's Yaris came up this week. The car is 11 months and a week old, and the Utah State Tax Commission tell me that it needs an inspection and emissions test this year. That's the US version of the MOT back in England, only a lot less rigorous.
What a racket. Inspection and emissions on a year-1 vehicle? That's just an excuse to print money. I called the state tax offices on this. It used to be that they required an inspection and emissions check every year from the third year on. Now it's been changed to every other year from new.
I know why.
In America, it's the norm for people to sell their cars and buy new ones every three years. If this happened at a dealer, a loophole in the law meant the vehicle was excused the tests that year, presuming the dealer would do them in order to verify the vehicle was fit for re-sale. Meaning the tax commission didn't see a penny in testing revenue until the fourth year of a car's life.
With the change, even if people sell their car after three years, the tax commission get one lot of testing revenue out of them at the beginning of the second year.
That's a good moneyspinner.

First snow of the season.

Which means first really spectacular demonstrations of Utah driving of the season. You see, around here, people have a goldfish-like memory for snow and ice on the roads. It happens every year, regular as clockwork, yet each year when it finally arrives, it seems to take them all by surprise. We end up with cars upside down on the wrong side of the road, cars upside down in trees, cars upside down perched on crash barriers, and cars upside down stuffed into the sides of houses. Regular as clockwork. I shall venture out with quiet trepidation this morning - it's been snowing all night so I expect complete carnage today, even though the roads themselves are actually just wet, not icy. The snow will distract them from their makeup and cellphones, which have already distracted them from the task at hand - actually driving their cars - and that will be all she wrote.

It's got a cop motor, cop tyres, cop suspension, cop shocks....

I had the privilege of going on a police ride along this saturday night - the 10-3 DUI shift with South Jordan police over on the west side of the valley. It was entertaining being in the passenger seat as we pulled over vehicle after vehicle for things like broken tail lights. We caught one DUI. More interesting for me was the vehicle itself and the kit inside. SJCPD have optioned the Dodge Charger Police edition and it is amazing. The one I was in was a V6 and it performed well. It was returning an average 16mpg doing police duty which is pretty good given how they drive and how much extra stuff is crammed into the cars. The handling was good - really good. Not sure if the suspension was stock or upgraded to deal with the rigours of police duty, but we whipped around corners like it was on rails. Brakes were hot, acceleration was hot, steering was hot. Unbelievably it looks like Dodge have managed to make a hot car!

In terms of the police kit - it had the perspex divider between the front and rear seats, the shotgun strapped to the roof, front and rear doppler radar, front camera, light bar, takedown lights, alley lights, front crash bar - the works. There was also a Dell laptop hooked up to the police network. We could tap in a licence plate and it would return the car make and model, spoken in computer synthesised voice, within a couple of seconds. From there we could go to the driver's licence information and it would pull up a copy of the registered driver's photo. The officer used this a few times - when we checked plates randomly and they came back clean, we'd do a driver check to see if the person in the car matched the photo on the licence.
The doppler radar was interesting and we could tell which cars did and didn't have radar detectors. The officer would flick the radar on for a second or so to pull a speed from oncoming vehicles. For the most part they wouldn't change speed, but every now and then, we'd pick someone up doing 60 or more and the instant we pinged them with radar, their speed dropped significantly. On unlit roads, they couldn't tell we were a police car so they must have been using detectors. One guy slowed down as he came towards us, then the office flicked on the rear doppler and watched as the guy sped up once he'd passed us. We flipped around and pulled him over. No DUI that time though.
So the Police Charger. Super hot. And you know how I feel about American cars in general. Frankly, if I was in the market for a new car, I'd have to seriously consider a Charger. Looks great. Performs great.
Thanks to South Jordan PD for the ride-along.

Why can't the US make decent cars?

Case in point. The new Ford Focus Coupe. Look at the image below. On the left, the bloated, 1980's-looking attempt from Ford Motor Corporation. On the right, the über-slick "Rest Of The World" version. Underneath it's ostensibly the same car. Why do we have to be stuck with this grotesque American thing? Why can't they just use the same version as the rest of the frickin' world?

You know what they say about turds. It doesn't matter how much you polish it - it's still a turd.

Self fulfilling prophecy.

With so many people expecting petrol prices to go up again in the wake of hurricane Ike, what do you think the petrol companies are going to do?
Price gouge, of course. They're going to use Ike as an excuse.
Here in Utah, greed is going to rear its ugly head. Despite importing our oil from Canada, and having a refinery right on our doorstep (I can see it as I type this), it's hard to imagine the local oil companies resisting the temptation.
It amazes me how stupid the oil companies think we all are.

Minor page update

Revised the section on grounding kits and noise absorbers.

Minor page update

I have added a mini paragraph and an illustration of Ford truck twin I-beam suspension to the Suspension Bible.
Twin I-beam suspension

Hurricane Gustav and the price of crude.

You know what's odd? When hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Of Mexico three years ago, we were primed by the news organisations for disastrous rises in the price of crude because it had ripped drilling rigs from their moorings, and damaged refineries along the gulf coast.
Gustav is right over the Gulf oil fields today, so shouldn't the same thing be happening?

Or was that all a load of bull designed to justify another year of record profits?

Are Red Light Cameras Safe?

Guest post from Jason Lancaster of AccurateAutoAdvice.com.

As a resident of a major city I couldn’t help but notice the installation of red-light cameras in some of the intersections in my neighborhood. If you’re not aware, a red light camera (abbreviated RLC) is designed to take a picture of every vehicle that runs a red light at a particular intersection. Using the photo, the offender’s license plate is identified and a hefty ticket is sent to the vehicle owner.

At first glance, the theory behind RLC’s seems solid. They serve as a deterrent to running a red light, and in so doing they reduce the likelihood of right-angle (aka T-Bone) crashes. Pedestrians benefit too – they’re less likely to be hit by someone charging a red light. RLCs seem like a no-brainer.

So why is it that a Federal Highway Administration study published in 2005 found that RLC’s did not effectively lower the number of crashes at their test intersections?

In the period before RLCs were installed, there were a total of 4,063 crashes reported in the test intersections. In the period after the RLCs were installed, there were 4,059 crashes. That’s a reduction of less than one-tenth of one percent. What gives?

While the number of right-angle crashes decreased by nearly 25% with the introduction of RLCs, the number of rear-end crashes increased 15%. Considering that rear-end crashes are much more common than right-angle crashes, the net effect was a “push.” The number of crashes was essentially the same with or without RLCs.

So what about injuries? Common sense would tell us that right-angle crashes are more dangerous than rear-end crashes. Again, the data says otherwise. 482 injuries pre-RLC, 459 injuries post. That’s a reduction of about 5%. Not bad, but that’s certainly not enough to prove that RLCs make anyone safer. Furthermore, it’s important to note that the most common rear-end crash injuries (whip-lash and back pain) often don’t manifest themselves for two or three days. It’s entirely possible that the number of reported rear-end crash injuries is low.

Bottom Line: The Federal Highway Administration found it difficult to recommend RLCs for every intersection, and for good reason. The studies have shown that RLCs have little impact on the total number of crashes at a particular intersection. Still, that hasn’t stopped cities from installing them. Perhaps the RLC ticket revenue is biggest reason for installing these cameras.

Visit AccurateAutoAdvice.com for more news, information, and auto advice.

My little pony

My current rental car (yes, another business trip) is a 2007 Ford Mustang with 18,500 miles on the clock. Well you all know my opinion of American cars - crap. The paint on the Mustang is wafer thin - it drops off if you so much as walk too close to it. The inside is a vast sea of hateful, hard, rattly, scratchy grey plastic. The suspension is prehistoric - driving over a bump in the road feels like falling down stairs in leg irons. God - it's just - bloody wonderful actually. Ok so the rear wheel drive is suicidal in the wet, but this latest generation Pony Car has the 'it' factor for me. It's surprisingly roomy inside and the view through the windscreen is nowhere near as cramped as it was on the previous model. The power steering is the usual over-done affair but because the front wheels aren't driven, I can feel a lot more of what the road is doing, and it does take a lot less effort to steer it in a straight line than most American land yachts. The engine noise from inside is wonderful though. Even the sound of the electric radiator fans winding down after I've turned the ignition off - it sounds like a spaceship cooling down its hyperdrive. I found it a bit overpowering to start with - narrow windows all round, hugely overdone engine, deep seats. It was like piloting a submarine for the first day. But today I had my bonding experience with it on I-280 going down to Cupertino. The Mustang is one of those cars that is such a fun car that it's actually easy to overlook all its niggles. If you don't own one, rent one for a few days. Ford have a winner on their hands here - unusual for that company - but the Pony Car lives on nicely in this current revision.

Sirens and flashing lights - why do people panic?

I've come to the conclusion that there are three types of driver when it comes to emergency vehicles.
Type I - let's call them the average motorist - are those who respond quite well. They slow down or pull over and leave room for the fire engine or ambulance to get through.
Type II are what I like to call the automobilista nervosa. They're the ones who see the lights or hear the sirens and all common sense goes out the window. They crash into each other, drive up kerbs, mow down pedestrians and generally lose all control of themselves, their vehicles and their common sense.
Type III are the blissfully ignorant. These are the same people that can drive from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas with the left hand indicator going. These ones don't use their mirrors, don't see the flashing lights, and don't hear the sirens until it's too late. By which point, they normally single themselves out as the only car that hasn't pulled over (type I) or driven into something (type II), by being the one car stuck in the middle of the intersection blocking traffic and being blitzed by emergency vehicles.

Try to be a type I - it makes everyone's lives so much easier.

Ass-ume the position.

With Exxon Mobil's announcement of their $11.7Bn profit for the last quarter, any shred of doubt about profiteering has gone down the drain.

Of course, suggesting that $4 a gallon has anything to do with the record profits just makes you an anti-patriotic retarded terrorist as far as the oil companies are concerned. The excuse as always is "we're just passing the cost on" but that's obviously not true. Then we get fobbed off with "it's complicated". No it isn't. The oil companies pull oil out of the ground, or buy crude, then refine it, then slap on a healthy profit margin before raping the public blind. It's really not that complicated and to suggest that the public don't understand this is to illustrate how out-of-touch the oil companies are with reality. Even the financial analysts said three months ago that supply and demand could not justify the $4 gallon despite the high price of crude.

So now the price of oil is coming down again, which is great, because it means the price at the pump is coming down too. Or not. Despite oil falling to a 4-month low this week, the price at the pump is at a 4-month high. Once again, the public is fobbed off with horseshit excuses. The best one is this : "well the stuff in the underground tanks is the expensive stuff we bought previously, so it has to be sold off before we can bring the price down". Ok - that's fine. I can live with that - it'll only take 3 days because no petrol station in existance has underground tanks that can hold more than 3 days-worth of product.

But of course it doesn't take 3 days. It takes weeks if not months before the prices come down. Which is the converse of when the price goes up. Well surely we should apply the same argument shouldn't we? "Well the stuff in the underground tanks is the cheap stuff we bought previously, so it has to be sold off before we can put the price up".

Ah yes - but it doesn't work like that. When the price of crude goes up, the price at the pump goes up the same morning. Again, "it's complicated" and the regular consumer like you or I wouldn't understand the technicalities of it. We're too simple.

The facts are simple - oil companies profiteer all the time. In reality, the price at the pump should lag the cost of crude by about 3 weeks. That's about the amount of time it takes to ship, refine and distribute the product. Any time the price goes up on the same day is clear proof of profiteering.

See - it's not that complicated.

Darwinism at work

Am I arrogant, insensitive and boorish? Or am I trying to put across an argument that people don't want to hear? That's the question when it comes to this entry's subject, which is this : pedestrians in traffic.

Around Christmas 2007, two teenage girls scaled the fence at the side of I-15 one night - the motorway close to where I live - and ran across traffic. The section of motorway they chose to do this on is poorly lit, and it was in the middle of a blizzard. As you might expect, one of them was hit and killed as they tried to dodge 10 lanes of fast-moving traffic. Why did they do this? To get to the mall on the other side of the motorway, which as it turned out, could have been accessed by a pedestrian underpass only 300m from where the girl was killed.

Nobody initially came forward as the driver "responsible" for the girl's death. The police went all-out to find whoever it was, and did eventually arrest someone, jailing him for - wait for it - failing to stop.

In what universe or reality is that death in any way, shape or form the fault of the driver who hit her? The police even admitted that the damage to the driver's car was so slight that it's entirely likely he didn't even know he'd hit her. More likely he winged her and she was thrown in front of a truck. But charging him for failing to stop? So - what - are we expected to slam on the brakes in motorway traffic now when some mental case tries to dodge traffic? Surely the consequences of that would be far more dire?

So here's the question then : why is it the driver's responsibility not to hit pedestrians in traffic? Why is it not the pedestrian's responsibility to not step into the road in the first place?
Better yet - why are they not accountable or responsible for their actions?

By this warped logic, I ought to be able to drive my car on the pavement (sidewalk), mowing people down who weren't paying attention enough to get out of my way, and then being able to blame them for the damage to my car. Of course that's a ridiculous example but at it's most basic level it's no more ridiculous than blaming the motorist for the actions of wayward pedestrians.

I find it intolerable that there are campaigns that seek to blame the driver for the stupidity of the pedestrian, and trust me, they are amazing in their idiocy; over 80% of pedestrian casualties are their own fault (see The Facts On Speeding for more info).

It's at this point where I'm always accused of being insensitive, or having no idea what it's like to hit someone in a motor vehicle. Sadly, I do. Years ago, I was commuting home on my motorbike when a businessman who was running along the pavement using his cellphone suddenly decided he just had to be on the other side of the road. I braked, but it didn't stop me hitting him square in the back and throwing him 15m down the road, hospitalising him. I was fortunate though - there were eye witnesses who corroborated the events, and I wasn't charged with anything. Given the anti-driver bias nowadays though, had I not had witnesses, I imagine I'd have spent time behind bars.

So a conundrum then. Obviously any sane human being wouldn't want to go around killing pedestrians simply because they walk into traffic. But then wouldn't any sane human being not want to stray into traffic on foot in the first place?

Mis-reading traffic lights.

You'd think it would be easy. Green = go. Red = stop. So many times though I've seen people who take off when their light is still red. I saw another one recently. We were all waiting at the lights, and the left-turn lane remained a red arrow whilst the straight-ahead lanes went green. The car in the front of the left-turn lane obviously saw the rest of the lights go green, and ignored his red arrow. As he turned across the now-oncoming traffic, a particularly quick driver on the other side t-boned him and closed the intersection.

Wonder if he'll used "colour blind" as the excuse for turning through a red light?

Crash / dog gearboxes.

New article online now : Crash / dog boxes

A new forum

FYI I've launched a new forum for carbibles.com. It's not very well populated yet but it's growing quite nicely. Pop over to the car bibles discussion forum if you want to have a look.

Another open-minded city council: Lodz, Poland

Lodz - street racing capital of Poland apparently. The city had such trouble with illegal street races that it decided to do something about it. Instead of sending in the police, heavy-handed to arrest everyone, they did the opposite and endorsed street racing by organising the events themselves. They provide fire and ambulance cover as well as blocking off streets and providing official timing gear.
Now that's an open-minded idea. I wonder how long it will last? In the UK or America it would never happen of course. In the UK there would be no revenue because the police wouldn't be able to ticket anyone, and in America the city would be sued when someone got a stone in their eye.
Lodz - street racing capital of Poland

Three Cheers for Swindon Borough Council

Finally. FINALLY someone has seen sense. Swindon Borough council are considering scrapping their speed cameras. They've figured out that they're a waste of money and do nothing more than make the roads more dangerous. It's about time. Now maybe drivers in Swindon can concentrate more on driving and less on looking for speed cameras - that alone should make the roads safer.
It boggles the mind that anyone believes speed cameras make roads safer. Especially in light of the facts and fiction about speed cameras.

Check your tread depth - it isn't that hard.

A new system is being made available to police forces, that can measure your tyre tread depth as you drive past it. (Story) The idea is that it will enforce tread depth laws like speed cameras do - automatically. Yet another method of bleeding the motorist dry. But it's all so unnecessary. Check your tread depth every now and then - once a month maybe. It's not that hard. Apart from eliminating the chance of a spot fine, you're doing us all a favour. The less worn your tyres are, the more chance there is of you being able to stop or corner properly. Unless you live in Utah, that means one less thing that could cause an accident. I single out Utah of course because logic goes out of the window here when it comes to driving. No amount of driver training or vehicle safety can account for the sheer random stupidity of these people. But that's a topic for another entry.

Another great reason to avoid OnStar / GM

I'm not a huge fan of OnStar. I have a huge problem with a for-profit company being able to remote start and stop a car I might be driving, as well as being able to listen in to any conversation I might be having. Well - here's another great reason to avoid OnStar-equipped vehicles : from September 2008, OnStar operators will now be able to disable your accelerator too.
OnStar's site is full of self-inflating guff, proudly proclaiming Stolen Vehicle Slowdown is another example of OnStar's commitment to deliver unparalleled security and enhanced public safety on the road.

Honestly I'm not sure how that company's employees can sleep at night. Their systems have already eroded any sense of privacy a GM driver might have had, and now they've been allowed to implement a system to disconnect your accelerator "for your safety"? Isn't it bad enough that they track your every movement and can listen to your every word, now they are free to dictate whether you can drive your own car or not?

Does nobody else see the problem with this?

Hello?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Story: E-monitor : Stop That Car!

OnStar's PR for it: Stolen Vehicle Slowdown

10 tips for better fuel economy

With gas prices going ever upwards, I thought it timely to add a new page to my site. 10 tips for better fuel economy. Enjoy.

Innovate I-80

Being a motoring and engineering geek, I feel lucky to be so close to the UDOT (Utah Dept. of Transport) "Innovate I-80" project. It's really amazing what they're doing here. They're replacing 7 bridges in 6 weeks along a stretch of the I-80 motorway that bisects Salt Lake City.

Here's the kicker : they're doing it without closing the motorway.

They've built a bridge farm at the intersection of I-80 and 1300 East, and are fabricating all the bridges there. Every weekend, they close down surface streets around I-80, and use massive self-propelled Mammoet low-loaders to drive the pre-assembled bridges to their new destination. At the moment they're doing the westbound lanes and all the normal I-80 traffic has been diverted to the old eastbound bridges. Once the westbound bridges are done, they start over with the eastbound bridges, moving all the traffic on to the new westbound ones.
It truly is an amazing civil engineering project. The bridge farm is a modern marvel all on it's own - I just hope Discovery networks are doing a documentary on this because it deserves to be documented.

Innovate I-80

Another awful piece of US automotive pride.

I really hate to post on this again but I just got back from another business trip, which meant another rental car. This time I was allocated a Chrysler Sebring Convertible, Limited Edition. I was initially quite excited - it's been a while since I drove a convertible. I retracted the roof which was a nice, smooth mechanism, and it vanished below a hard tonneau cover at the back. Nice. It certainly made the car look better once the roof was down. The overall external design was actually quite attractive. The interior left a bit to be desired but it was better than some of the recent stuff I've driven. The power seat was comfortable and had enough range of movement for me, although being a convertible, the lower windscreen top did mean I had to have the seat quite low. The tilt-and-slide steering column had a good range of adjustment in it, but I couldn't quite get it to where I was comfortable. No biggie though - things were looking impressive for an American car. I was prepared, for the first time in a while, to be pleasantly surprised.

Sadly it all went a bit wrong when I let the brake off and started to drive.

Where to start?

Well the engine certainly has a lot of torque and power (235hp in a V6). The problem is that the chassis is so bad that if the road is even slightly wet, you just sit there with the front wheels spinning. Oddly, the car did seem to have traction control, but it took a good 3 or 4 seconds before it kicked in. And when it did, it was like the engine had seized. There was this awful mechanical bang from the front, the car lurched forwards and it felt like 5 of the 6 cylinders had exploded.

It got worse when I got to the first corner. With the exception of the Smart ForTwo, this thing has the most awful understeer of any car I've ever driven. The Chrysler just plows straight ahead, irrespective of where the front wheels are pointed. To say it nearly killed me on the first motorway off-ramp is an understatement. As I slowed from 60-ish to 30-ish to deal with the cloverleaf junction, the front lost traction and away I went, over the hard shoulder and on to the dirt. I let off the brakes just in time to stop from going over the edge - the wheels regained just enough grip to turn the car away from disaster, but really - braking from 60 to 30 and it won't turn? Is this the dark ages? My Honda Element, with it's high centre of gravity and rollover-inducing long-travel suspension can handle clover-leaf junctions in the wet at 50mph with no problems.

The rest of the Chrysler's handling is commensurate with the boat-like size of the car. (It's 5 metres long yet the EPA classify it as a "compact".) It wallowed over bumps and undulations in the road and the steering was the usual over-excited affair. A bit keen - like a Jack Russell terrier. You know the sort - so sensitive that the car follows every rut and bump in the road unless you're actually trying to steer it in a straight line.

But perhaps worst of all, from the fill-to-fill calculation I made on the gas-mileage, this thing managed to squeak out an abysmal 14.5mpg.

(sigh).

Why does this keep happening? Do the car-buying public just not know that there are better vehicles out there?

Cellphones in cars - why?

As much as I hate the UK, they have done one thing right even if they can't properly police or enforce it - they've banned cellphone usage in cars. Now if only America would follow suit. OMG. RU SRIUS?
Yes I'm serious. In the 8 years since I've lived here, I've provided accident witness statements to the police 11 or 12 times because of people having crashes in front of me. On 10 of those times, they were using a cellphone either to talk or text, and on one notable occasion, the woman was using a laptop on her passenger seat.
I think the problem is that for some reason, people in America perceive car driving to be a right instead of a priviledge, and consider it to be easy and thus something that should require very little mental effort on their part. That's why they spend so much time doing other stuff behind the wheel, and in Utah at least, that seems to be why they have so many car accidents.
Seriously. At what point is your brain malfunctioning so badly that it thinks it is safe to look at a phone to send a text message whilst piloting a 2-ton weapon at 70mph?
Here's an idea - and I know this is revolutionary to those of you who think you're so important that you must use a cellphone 24/7 - when your phone rings, pull over, or better yet, leave it. Cellphones have a wonderful feature called "last number redial" - use it. I find it entertaining when I'm driving with others in my car, and my cellphone goes off. I either leave it, or hit the 'stop call' button to send it direct to voicemail. At this point, I've had passengers genuinely shocked that I didn't answer the phone. "Aren't you going to answer that?", they ask incredulously. "No - I'm driving."

The ruinous cost of petrol in England

I'm on a brief trip to the UK at the moment and the price of petrol over here is ruinous now. Of course if you're reading this in England, you already know that but for those back in America where I now live, it's the equivalent of about US$12 / US Gallon now. Petrol tanker drivers going on strike, truck drivers blocking the motorways with go-slow protests, petrol stations running out as people panic-buy and still the government won't change their over-400% tax rate. Makes me wonder if I should come back for a few weeks and set up another nationwide fuel protest like I did in 2000. Dump The Pumps. Ah - those were the days. The internet archive still has copies of my old site, back in the halcyon days when I brought the country to a complete standstill.
Boycott The Pumps
Original stories in The Telegraph and the The Oxford Mail

Indicate, then brake

Too many people nowadays seem to have forgotten how to use their indicators. All too often I follow people who slow down and slow down and slow down to the point of basically being parked in traffic, and only once they've caused the obstruction do they use their indicators. If at all.

It would be so much more helpful (for those of us who aren't telepathic) for you people to actually indicate your intentions ahead of time. That way, we have a chance of keeping the traffic flowing by going around you.

Instead we're presented with what is essentially a parked car. Have they broken down? Had a medical emergency? Which side do I go around? Left or right?

On more than one occasion I've had people park in traffic like this, and as I've gone to go around them, they've nearly turned into me. The scenario is very typical in Utah where I live, where nobody knows how to drive, much less understands where they are or where they're going. They'll amble along in the left lane, then realising they need to turn right, they'll slow down to a complete stop (with no indicators) waiting for a gap in the traffic in the right lane. As everyone behind them is being forced to go into the right lane to go around them, they're stuck until they do eventually turn right across the traffic and cause an accident.

I think part of the problem in Utah at least is that they mistakenly call indicators "blinkers". That tells me all I need to know. These people don't believe those pretty orange lights are there to indicate their intentions, they believe they're there to blink on and off.

Blondestar goes from internet joke to reality.

A while back there was a video and audio clip doing the rounds which was a spoof of the OnStar commmercials. It was called "Blondestar" and the woman's call for help was "Help - I'm locked inside my car and the keys are on the outside".



Well - life imitates art : Blondestar for real.

In case the link vanishes, here's the story. The best part of it is the pictogram they made for the story. It's classic.


Automatic car features are supposed to make life easier for motorists, but they may be leaving some people without the know-how to do things the old-fashioned way. That’s what happened to a driver in Utah County who became trapped inside her own car.

A woman called Orem police Friday afternoon needing help because her battery died and she was locked inside her car.

When police arrived, they found the woman sitting in the car, unable to get herself out. She couldn’t hear the officers instructions through the rolled-up windows so she motioned to them to call her on her cell phone, according to police.

Once officers were able to talk to the woman on the phone, they were able to tell her how to manually operate the slide lock mechanism on the inside door panel to open the door and free herself.

“I'm just glad she had a cell phone to call for help,” an officer said.

HOV Lanes

There was a time when HOV lanes meant just that - High Occupancy Vehicle. Around here they've come up with a brilliantly misconceived scheme to turn the HOV lane into a profit-making venture. It's so corrupt it could almost be the work of the UK government.

So rather than just allowing multiple-occupancy vehicles, buses and motorbikes, they now allow driver-only vehicles as long as they have paid for a permit. The shining jewel at the top of this plan is that the permit has to ride inside the vehicle with the driver rather than be displayed somewhere prominently.

In between dodging certain death at the hands of Utah drivers on the motorway now, I also have to contend with drivers who might or might not have an HOV permit, who decide that it's their own personal overtaking lane.

It's all a bit mad.

Big Oil could be profitable at $35 a barrel.

At a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil, the U.S. arm of Royal Dutch Shell, said his company could be successful with oil prices at $35 to $65 a barrel. "I think in a range — somewhere between 35 and 65 dollars a barrel — is what has been consistent in our ability to run a successful company," Hofmeister said.

That does rather make a mockery of the $135-a-barrel price today. The Big 5 are in front of the senate judiciary committee again today. They've been sworn in which means a high chance that they're going to commit perjury. The excuses so far today have included the same old "it's supply and demand" scratched record along with the usual lies. The simple truth of course is that it's mostly profiteering.

Exxon's compensation for it's CEO is $12.5M annually and they turned over $40.6bn profit last year. That's an increase of 400% in 5 years. Exxon still maintain that their profits are down and that the current price at the pump is nothing to do with their profits.

Full Story

Rain-X Latitude wipers

So the 42°C summer and -20°C winter finally got the better of my wiper blades today. My wife and a colleague of mine had both mentioned seeing ads for Rain-X Latitude blades so I thought I'd give them a go. They're different to normal wiper blade replacements in that they don't have the usual steel frame with all the hinges and pinch points. Instead they have a solid but flexible frame with the blade attached to it, and the whole thing is pre-bowed into a curve. That means (they say) no pressure points and a better contact all across the blade. From my point of view it means no snow and ice jammed into the hinges to freeze the blade into a useless shape at low temperatures. But being May, I'll have to wait a few months to see if that works out. They also have a small aerodynamic widget on them too which will allegedly prevent aero lift at speeds.

They snapped into place with the standard 'J' connector with no problem. I tried them on a dry windscreen - a good test for new blades - and they swished back and forth without a skitter or twitch. Trying them with the washers worked nicely too. We're expecting rain for the next few days so hopefully I'll get a chance to try them in anger.

We'll see how well they last and perform but they certainly look the part. They cost about $6 more than regular replacements.

Rain-X Latitude wiper blades

From a motorcyclist to car drivers - thank you.

I'm the first in line to have a go at blind car drivers who cause 90% of motorcycle fatalities and accidents. But there are those who do see us - as rare as it seems - the alert ones who compensate for the occasional idiotic maneuver.

Ask any motorcyclists - we all do stupid things from time to time whether intentional or not. And once in a blue moon, we're saved from certain injury or death not by our skill, judgment or luck, not by some miracle of engineering or clever bit of technology, but by an alert car driver who saw us coming and got out of the way. If you've had this happen to you, I understand how angry you probably are at having been presented with an over-zealous motorcyclist who took a corner too wide and ended up in your lane coming towards you - but thank you for being alert. We all really do appreciate it even though to you we're "just a bunch of bikers".

Traffic aggravating measures

'Traffic calming measures' is one of those misnomers that has become common in the English language now. You know the things - bollards, speed bumps, narrow sections of road, stripes - all manner of stuff to divert your attention away from the matter at hand -- driving. As far as I can tell, these things just serve to aggravate the average driver. I can tell you it works for me.

If I'm driving down a road with a 20mph speed limit and I see speed bumps, I'd like to believe that I'd be able to drive over them at 20mph. In most cases of course, even the biggest Chelsea tractor couldn't make it over a speed bump at 20mph without rearranging the litter of kids in the back and causing untold damage to the suspension. Surely it can't be that difficult to make a speed bump that you can navigate at the intended speed limit?

Then there's road-narrowing and bollards - both items which typically take me by surprise and cause me to brake because the illusion is that the road is becoming too narrow to drive down. The person following me brakes too - if he's seen me - and suddenly you have a street full of erratic slow-down-speed-up driving. It's all so very unnecessary.

I pity the poor soul who has to ride in an ambulance down one of these hump-ridden streets when they're in cardiac arrest.

I would argue that traffic calming measures typically make those streets more dangerous than they were before. When the neighbourhood kids run out into the street in front of us now, are we going to be concentrating enough to see them, or worrying about the next Everest-sized speed bump?

Phantom traffic jams

There are a lot of drivers today who need to be taught, it seems, that when they take their foot off the accelerator, their cars will naturally slow down. Too many times I see phantom traffic jams caused by inattentive or inexperienced drivers. The M25 around London is constantly full of these fools.

So what's a phantom traffic jam, you ask? Simple - it's a clogging of the motorway for no reason. Phantom jams are caused not by accidents, road works or any other physical reason but for a mental reason. Someone will come up a little fast behind a car in front, and rather than simply taking their foot off the accelerator, they'll brake a little. Their brake lights come on and the person behind them is then under the impression that they're slowing down properly, as oppose to adjusting their speed. So they brake too, only a little harder. Not much - 2 or 3% maybe. Multiply this scenario back up the line of traffic and eventually you'll get to one car that comes to a complete stop for no reason. Even if that's only for a second or so, it's enough. The phantom traffic jam is born and within minutes, the whole 3 or 4 lanes will be parked.

This java applet shows the effect wonderfully : Traffic Flow Simulator. Choose the ring-road simulation and after a few seconds you'll see a phantom traffic jam form and start to crawl backwards around the road. In this case caused by a single car that slows down fractionally before pulling out from behind a truck. This is exactly what happens on the M25 all the time.

So come on - try not using your brakes from time to time - traffic will flow much more freely.

Cyclists who jump red lights

I grew up in the Netherlands, so learned to ride a bike early. I rode in traffic and on cycle paths all through my childhood years. Since I was 16, I've been riding motorbikes. So whilst this next blog entry might come across as car-driver-who-is-anti-cyclist, trust me, I know exactly what it's like to ride in traffic.

So it continues to amaze me how many cyclists breeze through red lights and then get terribly annoyed when motorists going through green lights pilot 2-ton metal boxes into them. It's not a country-specific disease I've decided. I dodged these buffoons all the time back in England, and I'm having to do the same trouble here in America. Being a cyclists and motorcyclist, I just can't understand what is going on in these people's heads. Is their brain malfunctioning so badly that death is the better option to waiting 30 seconds for a green light?

And on the same subject, why do the police always talk to the wrong person? The yellow-bibbed chap who nearly adorned the bonnet of my car this morning did so in front of a police car. The very nice (but very misguided) officer duly stopped me and gave me verbal about being more careful. He was oddly unreceptive to the concept that my light was green, giving me the right of way, and the cyclist had jumped a red light. No - apparently it's my responsibility not to hit people who break traffic laws and cycle out in front of me. It's very similar to the current pro-pedestrian bias that I see now. But that's a topic for a different blog entry.

Going green

Do you know what the Green Wave is? Most cities have them.

It's the speed at which you can get through all the lights on a particular route on green. Typically the Green Wave speed will be slightly above or below the actual speed limit, but if everyone did that speed, the street would flow like the bowels of someone who's had a dodgy curry. Instead of course, people zoom along, changing lanes, desperate to be first at the next red light, more like an intestinal blockage.

But why does the Green Wave work? Simple - if you drive too fast, you'll get to the next set of lights before they go green and you'll be stuck waiting on red. Drive too slow and you miss the next green cycle completely, arriving too late and once again sitting looking frustrated at the red light.

The speed limit on 7th East near where I live in America is 45mph. The Green Wave speed is an unpublished 48mph. In the Netherlands where I used to live, there were published Green Wave speeds on some roads.

So go green - find the right speed and, traffic allowing, you'll see much fewer red lights.

Toyo: #1 Brand Overall.

Toyo tyres have once again been voted number one brand overall by Tire Review Magazine's annual Tire Brand Study of North American tire dealers:

#1 Brand Overall

Whilst this may be a bit of self-promotion - a brand voted for by the dealers who carry it - it's an interesting talking point. Toyo are, generally speaking, not a trips-off-the-tongue brand name. Ask people to name a tyre brand and you'll get Michelin, Pirelli, BFGoodrich, Dunlop, Firestone/Bridgestone - brands like that. Less frequently you'll get Yokohama, Avon and Uniroyal but it's not often someone will offer up Toyo as a brand they'd choose. In fact, some large internet stores like TireRack don't even carry Toyo.

Which is strange really, because despite the shameless self-promotion of "Number One Brand Overall", Toyo really do make reasonable tyres. They have a broad range to suit most cars, varying from wet-weather to road and track or sports tyres. In my limited and anecdotal evidence, Toyo are regarded, by those who use them as just plain good. I've driven many rental cars with Toyo's, and I had a set on one of my cars a while back. I found them to be a good quality, affordable brand. I prefer Yokohama now, but that's personal preference.

In the end of course, it's because Toyo are a less well-known brand that they need to publicise these sorts of awards - to try to become more mainstream. So next time you're in the market for a new set of rubber, give them a try - I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

The 2008 Ford Land Yacht

We've rented a car for the duration of the trade show I'm currently attending. First let me say +1 to Hertz in Orlando. I booked the car on Gold Service with a 45 minute pickup time and it was there and ready 45 minutes later. Hertz at Gatwick airport could learn a thing or two from that, but I digress.

The car we've been allocated is a brand new Ford Land Yacht. I believe the badge actually calls it a 'Fusion' but make no mistake, this petrol-hungry V6 Ford handles like the steering wheel is connected to the wheels through a bowl of custard. It's frighteningly vague. Oddly, once you're going at speed, it becomes pin-sharp and hyper-sensitive to the slightest steering input. This of course means you have to spend the whole time just trying to steer the thing in a straight line. I drove to Kennedy Space Centre from Orlando last weekend and it was the most exhausting 40 minute drive I've done for ages. I spent the whole time fighting to stop the Land Yacht from veering lazily all over the road as the steering took its input from roadkill, imperfections in the asphalt and, apparently, the slightest breeze.

The drive was made worse by the clumsily designed controls and the 70's plastic dashboard that creaked and rattled on the slightest bump. It's all very quaint for a car with only 244 miles on it. Or at least it would have been 50 years ago. By today's standards though, this car is a boil on the arse of motoring technology. If this is the best Ford can do, no wonder they lost a bazillion dollars last year.

Green Car Of The Year

Tell me this isn't typical of America : Green Car Journal have announced their Green Car Of The Year. The Camry hybrid? The Prius? The Tesla Roadster? Think again - it's the 2008 Chevy Tahoe Hybrid which according to Chevy's own adverts, has a combined mpg cycle of 14mpg city / 21mpg highway.

I'll print that again so you can revel in the absurdity of it : 14mpg.

Better still, if you read all the text in the print ads, Chevy claim that the 2008 Tahoe is so efficient that in the city it has the same mpg rating as a Toyota Camry*. If you follow that asterisk to the fine print at the bottom of the page, it says that the Camry does 21mpg city.

In what universe is the Tahoe's 14mpg city rating "the same" as the Camry's 21mpg? Even if you look at the Tahoe's highway rating - 20mpg - it's still lower than the Camry can get around town.

It boggles the mind how Chevy have managed to make a hybrid that only does 14mpg. That just doesn't seem possible, in the same way it doesn't seem possible for Ford to build a 4.6L V8 that has such pitiful horsepower. I mean we've known for years that American manufacturers just don't get it. My Honda Element averages 19mpg and I consider that to be below par for the Japanese, mostly because of the undersized engine and the total lack of aerodynamics. But compared to the Tahoe, my Element is a King amongst Kings.

Now hop across the pond to Europe, where the average family car is cracking out 35mpg and you realise just how badly Chevy don't get it.

Green Car Of The Year my arse.

My skeptical nature now leads me to ask whether a cash sum from Chevy was involved in Green Car Journal's decision.

Pull out behind me

My driving teacher taught me that driving a car is a matter of getting from one place to another as safely as possible without impeding the general flow of traffic on the way. Thus it amazes me how few drivers understand the simple concept of the flow of traffic.

On an empty road, you're approaching a side street. There's a car waiting to turn out. For the traffic to flow smoothly, they should either enter the road behind you where there are no other vehicles, or in front of you if they have enough time to speed up so they don't get in your way. Typically of course, the goon in the side street will pull out in front of you, then casually idle up to 5mph below the speed limit by which time you've already had to brake and slow down. The flow of traffic is destroyed.

The same is true at most junctions, on ramps, off ramps and roundabouts - people lazily going about their day in blissful ignorance of what they're doing to the general progress of everyone else.

Traffic flow - in physics it's called conservation of momentum.

Lane discipline : worse than ever in England.

It's over 7 years since I left England, and I've discovered on my current business trip that most things have deteriorated. One thing which is immediately noticeable is lane discipline. It was never brilliant when I lived here, but unbelievably it's become worse since I left. On the commute from my lodging to my office, I come across literally miles of cars driving along a dual carriageway in the outside lane without a care in the world, whilst the inside lane is completely clear. Without exception, they all get very irritated when I overtake them on the inside.

I found the same was true of a couple of the major motorways this morning too - hundreds of drivers just sitting in the outside two lanes whilst the inside two lanes were completely clear.

Frankly I consider it to be safer to overtake these goons on the inside than to go to the outside lane and have to flash them to get them out of the way. The problem is that if the police see me doing this, no doubt they'd hassle me for undertaking instead of the hundreds of cars with no lane discipline. We're all breaking the law though - shouldn't they be trying to solve the cause of the issue?

The Audi A4 - and another thing.

I've got another Audi A4 on rental this week, so I'm having a chance to re-evaluate my previous comments. All hold true but I've found something else that's irritating me now. The indicator has two modes of operation. If you nudge the indicator stalk, it blinks the indicators three times then turns off. If you engage it fully, the indicators turn on then self-cancel when turning. It's the three-blinks thing that is irritating. I nudged the indicator stalk when moving my hand off the wheel yesterday on the motorway, and the indicator came on. Not realising it was going to do the three-blinks thing, I quickly shoved it the other way thinking I'd turned the indicators on. So then I ended up indicating to the right - shit - nudge it the other way - starts indicating to the left again. There's no way to actually manually cancel the three-blinks mode once it's running other than fully engaging the indicators one way or another, then returning the stalk to it's neutral position.
Bad, Bad Audi. That's terrible design. Nanny indicators. Whatever next?

The person behind me must have wondered what the hell was going on. In the end I actually had to change lanes simply to make it look like I wasn't a complete idiot.

They're cheap for a reason.

A friend of mine had the misfortune of having a brake failure on a road trip recently. The culprit turned out to be a corroded brake piston which wasn't retracting fully into the caliper. It had heated up so much the caliper eventually warped, the brakes stuck on and the brake rotor looked like one of those expensive wavy crisps that come in a tube instead of a packet.

When he was telling us this story, he mentioned in passing that he had the option of low-end rotors for $15 a piece (which he took) or high-end rotors for $45 a piece.

Now I've been around cars and motorbikes since I was 16. Frankly $45 is cheap for a brake rotor. I shudder to think what the $15 option is made of - hamster droppings and sawdust? Do Dodge brakes really need replacing so often that the demand has pushed the price down to $15 a piece?

Perhaps if they manufactured a quality item that had some chance of wearing normally, people wouldn't need to replace them as often. Or is it that Dodge prefer $15-a-rotor annually versus $100-a-rotor every 4 years?

I'd expect to pay around $100 for a brake rotor but at the same time, I'd expect it to last for a very long time. I got over 100,000 miles out of the original rotors on my 1985 Audi Coupe and when I finally replaced them, they still technically were within wear tolerance.

Is this all just part of the modern day disposable lifestyle? Are we now to believe brake rotors are a disposable commodity?

Audi A4 questionable design decisions.

When I was in England recently, I rented a 2008 Audi A4 2.0TDI. I've always been a big Audi fan but it's been a few years since I owned one or drove one so this was something of a treat for me.

Despite my bias towards Audi as a brand, after a couple of days in the seat, I came to the conclusion that someone in the Audi design department was having a bad day.

First - the handbrake. Whilst it's good and strong (unlike American handbrakes), the position of it is appalling. Sure it's where you'd expect to find it between the front seats, but it's right under the drivers armrest. You need the agility of a 16 year old gymnast to contort your arm so you can use it, and when you do, you'll trap fingers and thumbs between bits of cheap plastic and metal.

Second - the cruise control. It's a little nubbin that sticks out from the steering column just under the indicator stalk. Instead of up/down to engage / disengage, it's pull/push. It seemed that every time I went to try to re-engage the cruise control, I'd find the indicator stalk by mistake and pull it. That meant I kept flashing people with the high beams, and more than once I got the finger from the driver in front. So much aggrevation that could have been eliminated by a can of Red Bull and slap in the face to the designer who though this was a good idea.

Third - the heater controls. It was like trying to pilot the shuttle. There were separate buttons for "defrost" and "use windscreen vents". I'm not sure why - they both did the same thing. Plus I appeared to have a third defrost button which might or might not have done the rear window. According to the button label - a box with wavy lines coming out of it - I might have actually been brewing a cup of tea. Then there were the digital fan buttons and temperature buttons that required a lot of pushing and clicking to get what I wanted. And by default, the a/c was always on but had an "econ" button to turn it off. Since when was that the norm? Shouldn't it be off with a button to turn it on? Why would you design a system to default to giving the worst mpg? What's wrong with heater controls as knobs that you can simply twist without having to look at them? Surely they're easier, more intuitive and less likely to distract the driver?

The last item is a matter of opinion I suppose. I'm not a huge fan of built-in technology for the sake of it when it comes to cars. More stuff to distract already bad drivers just isn't a good thing. Audi's radio / nav system, whilst impressive, is just too complicated to use on-the-drive. It's not a touch screen and the buttons are all just badly positioned and labelled. To get any proper use out of it, you need a passenger in the car all the time.

It took me a day just to find the volume control - rental cars don't come with a manual, and Audi's control layout is far from intuitive or understandable without it.

It took two days before I found the sub-mode selection buttons around the input knob. Sure there are labels in the corners of the screen tantalising you with what the system might be able to display. But touching the screen does nothing, and there are no buttons next to the labels themselves. Its like putting a fake light switch in the living room of your house with the real switch outside in the shed.

Which reminds me - the Audi 'intelligent' radio wouldn't let us listen to Capital FM because it considered the signal to be too weak. We couldn't select it as a preset and we gave up trying to figure out how to manually tune the radio. When technology starts preventing you from doing stuff because it thinks it knows better - that's when it's time to call it a day and stop making idiotic design decisions. It's a bloody radio - let me tune it and listen to the crappy signal if I want to.

I think the only system that's more complicated and difficult to use is BMW's awful I-drive. Why can't these manufacturers learn from Garmin or TomTom when it comes to on-screen interfaces? Simple is best.

The A4 is a great car despite these problems. It just surprised me that Audi, of all brands, are making mistakes like this.

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Cutting-edge 1950's technology.

There are many things about the American motor industry that bemuse me, not least of which how they manage to get so little power out of their engines. Take the new Mustang for example. Ford are proud to tout the 300hp, 320 lb-ft, 4.6 litre V8 engine. For the 21st century, that's not stellar, and we're talking about the GT here - it only has single overhead cams. If you stump for the Mustang V6, you're saddled with a 4.0 litre engine which only manages 210hp and 240 lb-ft of torque and it's a cast iron block!

For comparison, look at the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X. It sports dual overhead cams, an aluminium block, 4-cylinder 2.0 litre engine that generates 291hp and 300 lb-ft of torque. That's only 20hp down on the Mustang V8 for an engine with half the number of cylinders and less than half the displacement. Compared to the V6 Mustang, it's 81hp more.

Ford tout their "performance driven chassis" yet the rear suspension is a live axle - that's stone age. Live axle is for lumbering off-roaders (real ones, not SUVs) and trucks. You simply don't put 1950's technology on a 21st century car.

Unless you're Ford.

I'm left thinking of the cockney rhyming slang for pony. The Mustang : the pony car.

Too much safety can be a bad thing.

I believe there is such a thing as too much safety. A lot of clever people in white overcoats spend a lot of time trying to explain why it is that people drive badly.

They will blame environmental factors, roadside furniture and the proximity of hedgehogs to the roadside.

In reality it can be traced back to a single element - super-safe vehicles. Drivers are now surrounded by airbags, pre-tensioning seatbelts and crumple zones. Double-glazing and great soundproofing serve to isolate us from road noise, just as drive-by-wire, brake-by-wire and electric power steering serve to isolate us from the feel of the car and what it's doing. Pre-emptive radar-controlled ABS brakes are designed to remove the responsibility of paying attention to the road ahead just as traction control, anti-slip, ride-levelling are designed to save us from greasy road surfaces and ham-fisted cornering. Backup sensors and cameras are there to save us having to turn around and actually look what's behind us, instead giving us more technology to blame when we reverse into lamp posts and over small children.

No longer do drivers have to be trained to understand how their manipulation of the controls affects the dynamics of the car. Instead it's turning into an instant gratification, point-and-squirt world.

The result is that drivers are lulled into the belief that no matter how badly they screw up, their car will save them. In America, On-Star will even call for help after you've caused the accident so now even if you are injured, the car will call for help for you whilst you unconsciously bleed to death. Coupled with the cosseting seats, the sat-nav, the onboard audio and video entertainment systems and the multitude of other distractions, is it any surprise the standard of driving is plummeting?

Oh and cellphones of course. I bet 90% of accidents nowadays happen when one driver has a cellphone clamped to their ear, but that's a topic for a different day.