Auto Drive Cars - why they'll never happen

A few weeks ago at lunch, one of my colleagues made a remark that sparked off a heated conversation. He said "I can't wait for auto drive cars to get here". Another colleague backed up this sentiment so I waded in with my big wooden oar and asked what possible benefit they could see from a car that drives itself. They gave me the usual answer most people come up with - they want to get from A to B but they find driving a chore. I pointed out that they could take a taxi, or public transport right now and it would give them exactly what they wanted. They could sit there sending twits or facespace updates and not have to worry about the act of driving. Now one interesting part of this debate came about when we got to the area of responsibility. The two in question are both tea-party supporters and have opined regularly about how personal responsibility seems to be a thing of the past, how people seem to ready to blame and place their own responsibilities in the hands of others (by which they mean the government). So I pointed out that auto-drive cars are the pinnacle of abandoning personal responsibility. By wanting an auto-drive car, you effectively want a computer to take responsibility for the two ton weapon you're sitting in. And this is why auto-drive cars will never happen. Our society is too litigious for this to ever come true. People will place too much faith in technology and the first time an auto-drive car mows down a child in the street, or causes a multi-car pile-up, the lawyers will get involved because the owners (you can't call them drivers at this point) will simply say "but the car should have stopped itself!"
At this point in the debate, my two colleagues, knowing I'm also an aircraft nerd, decided to try to be clever by pointing out that every time we fly, we're quite happy to let the aircraft fly on autopilot. Didn't work, obviously, because first of all, I don't own the aircraft and I'm not a pilot so I have no responsibility for the aircraft or where it goes. Being a passenger on an aircraft is akin to being a passenger in a bus or a taxi. But secondly, look up - do you see commercial airlines packed 10ft apart, nose-to-tail, wingtip to wingtip in the sky? No you don't.
For auto-drive to even be vaguely feasible, the various manufacturers must first agree on a common system whereby all the cars can talk to each other and thus communicate their intentions (in the same way that collision-avoidance systems work in aircraft). That system also needs to be ultra-secure to avoid remote tampering. History has proven that competing manufacturers can almost never agree on something like this, and coupled with the lawyer issue, auto-drive cars will never happen.

Anyway - I can't imagine a more joyless world for motorists than cars that drive themselves.

Don't claim glass chips on your insurance.

A lot of car dealers and glass chip repair shops will claim that they do free repairs as long as they can bill your insurance. Don't do it. Ask them how much it would be for you out-of-pocket first. Typically it will be something like $20 or £15 for the repair but if you let them do it 'free' and charge your insurance, guess how much the bill is? Most US shops will bill your insurance $120 for a $20 repair. Whilst its filed as a no-fault claim, it is still a claim and it can and will be factored in to your premium at the next renewal. If you have any morale fibre, you'll also realise that that is insurance fraud, although most people choose not to think of it like that. Apart from that, glass chips is not what insurance is for. You should always cover small things like that yourself. It's why you have a deductible on the policy. One other point - now it's properly winter, if you do have a decent sized chip in your windscreen, do go and get it fixed. Winter is the best time for cracked windscreens. Water gets into the chips and then freezes, expanding, and stressing the windscreen. Well - have a Merry Christmas at the end of the week. Next week's entry will probably be automated as I'll still be in a turkey-induced torpor.

Full beams are not a substitute for a blown bulb

Public service announcement : if you have a blown headlight bulb, change it. Using your full beams and fog lights is not a substitute. Replacement bulbs are cheap and it'll take you seconds to do it. Now we're all commuting in the dark every morning and evening, this is particularly irksome. Drivers who could care less about their car, bumble along on autopilot blinding everyone in front of them because they're too bloody lazy to spend less than a tenner to fix a problem on their cars. If I was a police officer I'd pull everyone of these goons over and ticket them. Why? Because driving on full beams in traffic is dangerous - it blinds everyone coming towards you, and anyone in front of you with a rearview mirror. I think the only thing that's worse is drivers with a blown bulb who don't drive on high beams, but also don't bother to fix the bulb. In the dark, it's now difficult to tell if you're looking at a car or a motorbike because there's only one headlight. Either way - don't be lazy. Just fix the damned thing. It's easy to do, just make sure you don't handle the new bulb with your bare hands - wear some cotton or rubber gloves. If you touch the glass on the bulb with your bare skin, the grease you leave behind will cause a hotspot and the bulb will crack and fail. The only exception to this is if you have HID lights - those are a lot pricier to fix because it means either a new arc discharge unit, new control unit, new ballast, or all of the above. But then you knew that when you paid an extra $1000 for them on the car when new, right?

Chevy's problems go from bad to worse with the Volt

Regular readers of my blog will no I'm no big fan of the Chevy Volt, right from the beginning when Chevy kept insisting it was an electric vehicle when it is, in fact, a Hybrid with very little difference (electro-mechanically speaking) from the Toyota Prius. They lied about the whole electric vehicle thing and now I wonder if they bit off more than they could chew. Toyota have been producing the Prius for ages and there are no worries about battery pack fires or leaks. The design is nearly a decade old now. Yet Chevy's all-new Volt has apparently got some design flaw in the battery pack that can allow it to catch fire after an impact. This hasn't happened just once - it's happened several times now and Chevy are so worried about it that two weeks ago they offered to provide free loaner vehicles to owners worried about the battery fire problem. Now they've stepped that up a notch and are offering to flat out buy back the cars from their owners.
So why the sudden change? Why would a company the size of Chevy, not famous for it's customer care, now be offering to buy back cars from owners? My guess - C.Y.A. I think they've discovered some sort of critical design flaw that they know is going to embroil them in a huge lawsuit and they're trying to limit the damage ahead of time by offering the buyback scheme.
Let's face it, GM doesn't have the best reputation with electric or hybrid vehicles, dating back to the whole EV1 fiasco where they forcibly cancelled leases, and literally stole the cars back from their owners to destroy them. If you're interested in that whole nauseating mess, Who Killed The Electric Car is a great documentary on that very topic.

Idiots who get what they deserve.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers, and a short post this week with a treat. Two idiot Corvette owners, overflowing with testosterone, wrecking their cars because they don't know how to drive. Seriously - why do people buy overpowered monstrosities like this and then figure they can drive them simply because they own them? Any hugely powerful RWD like this should come with an training class for the new owners to teach them not to be dicks. Anyway, enjoy the specatular and totally predictable results of two idiots drag racing on a public street in cars they shouldn't have been allowed to own.

People afraid to overtake a police car.

The worst kind of driver is one who is afraid to overtake a police car. It's easy to spot them - they're the ones driving at the exact same speed as the police, but slightly behind them thus blocking all the traffic. Worst of all, if the police car is doing less than the speed limit, and everyone is afraid to pass it, then we're stuck with not only a roadblock, but a slow-moving roadblock at that.
Listen: the police aren't going to arrest you for overtaking them. Most cops are pretty reasonable. As long as you're not driving like a total dick, they won't stop you for doing 70mph on a 65mph freeway (in the US), or 80mph on a 70mph motorway (in England). Just get past them and get on with your journey.
It's always a source of amusement to me to do this because I'll end up on completely clear motorway, and in my mirrors I can see four or five lanes of heavy, clogged-up traffic all jostling for position because they're all afraid to pass the one police car on the inside lane.
This leads to another point of contention: when the police have someone stopped at the side of the road, don't slow down and look. Don't slow down because you're afraid they'll do you for speeding. They won't; they're already busy dealing with another driver. They're not looking at you. And you shouldn't be looking at them. You see cops all the time. Concentrate on driving, eyes forward and just keep going. Because once you turn to look, you'll slow down and then you'll cause a phantom traffic jam, which ultimately will result in an accident.

Forza 4

You'll know from previous posts that I was never a huge fan of Gran Turismo 5, with it's total lack of AI, it's lack of crash damage, its over-complicated interface and sketchy online play. In fact, after years of buying Gran Turismo games, GT5 did such a poor job that I went out and bought an X-Box so I could play Forza 3. Naturally that led to Forza 4 which came out about a month ago, and I've been in racing-driving-game heaven ever since. I adore Forza 4. The physics are great, the visuals are great, the online play is spot-on with the addition of public-private lobbies (where you can determine your own rules). I think all the cars have detailed interiors - at least all the ones I've driven so far have. The whole look and feel of the game is more polished and mature than Forza 3. It's a little disappointing that some of the best tracks (New York) have been removed but I suspect they'll appear as a DLC pack later on. Oddly, some of the older tracks that have long since undergone major revisions in the real world (Silverstone for example) are still represented in their mid-90's layout in Forza 4. That's a bit of an oversight for a game that is so polished in so many other areas. For the same of trying to get over the honeymoon period, I went back and rented a copy of Gran Turismo 5, downloaded all the updates and spent a day trying to play it again. I stick by my original opinions on that one - nice idea but poorly executed. It's just too perfect - it's a great simulation but it's just no fun to play or look at. So back to Forza 4 it is. I can highly recommend it if you're in the market for a top-tier racing game. I'm hoping to get a wheel for Christmas so I can explore it to it's fullest. For now though you'll find me in the online hoppers racing mostly A- and B-class. Look for gamertag biggerPixel - that's me.

Space-saver spares

Quick quiz.
A space-saver spare tyre is:
(a) a get-you-to-the-tyre-place remedy
(b) a good substitute for a blown tyre at motorway speeds
(c) a good substitute for three blown tyres at motorway speeds
(d) a good substitute for a missing 21" hoop

If you said (a) then you have a brain, but sadly, the other three answers appear to be the most commonplace now. I see people flying along the motorways at 80mph or so every day with space-saver wheels on their cars. I've also seen cars on the motorway with three of the four wheels replaced with space-savers, and you guessed it, I've seen people with tricked out cars with big wheels missing a wheel but using a space-saver (meaning one wheel is radically smaller than the other three).
It really baffles me how people's brains can malfunction so badly that they don't understand how dangerous this is. (Once again, I believe that you should understand everything about your vehicle if you are to be allowed to drive it.) Most drivers will never have to use the spare that comes in their car, meaning most of us pay it little attention. The rubber sits there under the floor, perishing slowly, leaking air and when the time comes that we actually need to use it, it's all but useless. But for some people, they see it as the perfect replacement. It's not. The rubber isn't designed for heavy loads and high speeds - it's narrower than all your other tyres and doesn't have the same strength or number of steel belts and cords in it. The tread is generic, so it's no good in the rain at anything other than walking pace, and the wheel itself is pretty flimsy, lightweight steel, not the decent load-bearing stuff your normal wheels are made of. Space-savers should only be used as the manufacturer intended. If you zip along at 80mph on the motorway on a stormy day with one of these things, you're pretty much going to get what you deserve. The only problem is that your stupidity will likely cost someone else dearly at the same time.
There's no excuse for doing this. If you have to use one of these things, don't drive home with it - drive to the nearest tyre change place and just get the damn thing fixed.

Police Bias

Let me preface this week's entry by saying that I'm a pedestrian, I ride a bicycle and a motorbike and I drive a car; I'm intimately familiar with the rules of the road for all four. That's why I have an axe to grind about our local police force who behave, it has to be said, in much the same way as police forces pretty much every where I've lived. Last week on a lunch break, a group of colleagues and I were sitting at the front row of a set of red traffic lights, next to police car. A cyclist came dodging between the lanes of cars (I don't have a problem with that) and then cycled through the red light and across the intersection. The police officer did nothing. However, on his left, the left turn lane had changed to amber, then to red and one car went through on red to turn left across the intersection. The police car lit up like a Christmas tree and took off after him.
So why is it OK for a bicycle to go through a red light but not a car?
I've no doubt if a car on a green light had hit the cyclist jumping the red light, it would have somehow been the car driver's fault.
What makes it worse is that cyclists have been doing this for so long they now think it's a right. I nearly had an entertaining accident on my bicycle last year when I stopped at a red light and the cyclist behind me nearly ran into me. As he gave me the international signal for "you're number one", he wafted through the red light shouting "why the f*ck did you stop?".
So : moronic cyclists + biased police officers. Seems like all us drivers are to blame for everything now.

Why don't Europeans care for Infotainment?

Following on from last week's post about touch screens, Autoblog recently posted an article asking why Europeans don't care about infotainment in their cars. The author seemed genuinely bemused why, when he went to IFA (the European equivalent of the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas), it took actual effort to find any auto manufacturers showing anything in the entertainment market. If you've been to CES you'll know there's an entire hall dedicated to the pursuit of distracted driving where all the manufacturers proudly tout their latest methods to keep you from concentrating on actually driving. But at IFA - nothing. Well - not nothing, but very very little. So why is this, the author of the article asked. I can give you a couple of ideas, but predominantly it's because we Europeans tend to understand that when you get into a car and drive, you need to concentrate on the actual driving of the two ton weapon. I think we have far more interest in the act of driving. Americans, by contrast, seem to be expressing more and more desire to have self-driving cars, wrapped in airbags and lawyers to prevent them from having any personal responsibility for the actual act of driving. As a result we've got iDrive and SYNC and all the other wonderful infotainment systems that are impossible to use on the move because of the fiddly on-screen controls, and the fact that you need to look at the screen to use them. ie. you're not looking at the road. ie. you're not concentrating on driving. Here's the original article. I was as bemused as the original author, but I was bemused at how he couldn't grasp the basic concept that infotainment does not belong in a car: AutoBlog

There's a time and place for touchscreens.

Back in the late 90's, Phillips experimented with the Pronto remote control for home entertainment. It was a pure touchscreen device that was infinitely programmable and it bombed.
The reason? In the dark, people didn't want to look down at a glowing screen and navigate pages of menus and icons to find a function. They wanted to reach out, grab the remote and feel for the 'volume up' button. Removing the tactile feedback of physical buttons was a mistake that has since been borne out by successive universal remotes spawning more and more buttons and less and less touch screen functionality.

Car manufacturers have headed off down the same path now by putting more and more touchscreens in their vehicles, and less and less physical controls. The MyFord Touch is a key example of this. Gone are the buttons on the centre console, instead replaced with a single touchscreen display. Want to change the fan speed on the a/c?
Assuming you can read the display (most touchscreens have a hard time competing with the sun - a light source 168,000 times brighter), you need to navigate the menu to the comfort controls, then find the fan speed icons. When you do find them, there's no tactile feedback so then you have to check visually, again, to see if you actually did anything. All this time, your eyes are off the road, both in terms of direction (what you're looking at) and focus (looking up close, instead of far off).

Performing this sort of routine on an iPad whilst sitting on your sofa is mindless, but being forced to do it whilst driving is just poor design. I know where all the controls are for my a/c and audio system on my VW by touch. I don't need to look at them to operate them - I can just reach out and use the relevant control without taking my eyes off the road.

I think Ford realised this early on and attempted to rectify the situation by adding voice recognition, but it's a multi-step process. Push a button. Wait for the audio confirmation. Say "climate control". Wait for the audio confirmation. If you got it right, say "fan speed up". Wait for the audio confirmation. This assumes the voice recognition system can understand you in the first place - the slightest hint of an accent and you'll spend all day arguing with your car.

Probably because they also realised voice recognition was a dud, Ford added a third option - steering wheel controls that operate certain key functions - fan up and down, temperature up and down for example. And here is where they got back on the right track - physical, tactile buttons that you can use without needing to look at them. Why not skip the whole touchscreen and voice control nonsense and just use the buttons in the first place?

I'm not being a luddite here - I love technology - I'm simply saying that building a system so complicated that you need to take your eyes off the road to use it makes no sense. It's contributing to distracted driving.

I've not been so embarrassed as I was a few weeks ago when a colleague of mine was trying to use the system in his Ford Fusion to perform the simplest task. We got all the way to our destination without him figuring out how to turn off the air recirculation. As the passenger, I could see it clear as day. But I wasn't driving.
Do you really want to be presented with this amount of visual information overload just to set the damn ventilation system?

It's not an upsell.

I was sitting watching the techs work on my wife's car recently when one of them wandered in to the waiting area to talk to another customer. He was carrying an engine air filter that was in appalling condition. It was clogged with debris and was almost jet black. The tech explained that this was A Bad Thing to the customer but he wouldn't have any of it. He complained about the tech trying to upsell him on things he "didn't need". The tech tried again to explain to him that this wasn't doing his engine or gas mileage any good but the customer kept refusing to pay for a new filter. In the end they had to put the old one back in the guys truck and off he went. It bothers me when people have so little understanding of things that they can't even listen to basic logic. This guy was absolutely convinced that the new filter was an upsell of a non-critical part of his engine. I'm sure he'll be quite happy with his lean-running engine as it overheats and gives him terrible gas mileage. Look; if you own a car, please try to understand a little of how it works. That way you won't get ripped off by unscrupulous garages but equally you will be able to sense when they're telling you an honest opinion of work you really do need to have done.

The Haynes workshop manual for an F1 car

My wife recently bought me a very thoughtful anniversary gift - the Haynes workshop manual for the Red Bull Racing RB6 Formula 1 car. Okay so it's not a proper Haynes manual in the way that any home mechanic would know but it does cover every aspect of a Formula 1 car in so much detail it's mind-bending. If you're a true Formula 1 fan, you really need to try to get hold of this book; it's fascinating. I know they tell you on TV that aerodynamics is everything on an F1 car, but you have no appreciation for how true that is until you read a book like this (don't worry - it has plenty of pictures). For example did you know that the original position of the wing mirrors on the RB6 was dictated not by being able to look behind, but simply because there was already turbulent air above the barge boards from the front wheels? There wasn't much they could do with that particular area so rather than putting the mirrors somewhere where they'd induce drag, they just stuffed them in the already-turbulent air. The book covers everything from carbon fibre construction, to engine and gearbox, suspension, brakes, aerodynamics, even how much the paint weighs! It's a must for car nuts. Haynes Red Bull F1 workshop manual. ISBN: 9780857330994

OnStar are tracking you even if you cancel your service.

If you've read my site in depth, you'll know I have a loathing for OnStar. It's GM's "spy in your car", or as they call it "convenience service". They market the service with low-brow terrorising adverts (what if you crash and you can't call for help?) and it's laughably easy to defeat either by electronic circumvention, or by less sophisticated social engineering (read The Art Of Deception - Kevin Mitnick's book - and you'll easily be able to drive off without someone else's OnStar-equipped car). GM can remotely start (and thus remotely disable) your car, and the remote circuitry is intertwined so deeply with the car's onboard systems that if you have brake-by-wire, they can slow the car down too. That in itself means the system is open for abuse by hackers (there's already been one high profile case of a similar system being remotely hacked in Germany, resulting in a life-threatening crash). The onboard mic is open all the time even if the in-car system says it's not (so you have no privacy) and now a change in their terms and conditions allows them to track your speed and location every time you drive, even if you cancel their service. There's hundreds of other reasons to hate this system but now they've sewn the seeds for 24/7 tracking, if you're in a GM vehicle, you're only a few short years away from them remotely governing your vehicle's maximum speed to force you not to drive too fast. Frankly, I'd rip the thing out of any car I owned. Although I'd never buy an OnStar-equipped car in the first place. OnStar tracking you even if you cancel your service

Trivialising car driving

Last week's post on road trains got me thinking about the increasingly dangerous attitude that people take towards cars and driving nowadays. It's almost like driving is an inconvenience that gets in the way of texting, eating, drinking and other socialising - a necessary evil between points A and B. The US driving education and test program (for example) is laughably easy and teaches the students nothing about the realities of driving. In some states the theory part of the test is open-book - they give you the answers - and still people fail. Yet here driving is treated as a right, not a privilege.

A large part of the problem is that so many drivers do not understand that they are driving a 2-ton weapon. Decades of apathy by governments, the authorities and the car manufacturers themselves have led us down the path of vehicles which are so obese with safety paraphernalia that it's no wonder we can't get decent gas mileage out of them any more. And why? Because it's easier to cocoon and protect a driver in the event of an accident than it is to properly educate them in the first place and maintain that education through rigorous traffic enforcement (by which I mean hefty fines and suspensions for things like texting).

This apathy leads to other knock-on effects that aren't immediately apparent, for example the absurdly low speed limits we suffer on a daily basis. The reason they're so low is because there's a widely-held (but mistaken) belief that speed causes accidents and that lowering the speed limits will reduce those accident rates. This has been proven time and time again to be false but parking a policeman behind a wall with a radar gun is such a cash-cow that no police force will ever give it up.

Compounding this problem is the constant addition by manufacturers of distractions into the vehicle. Ford's Sync is a prime example - a system so complicated that its very design needs you to take your eyes off the road constantly to perform even the simplest task. How did we allow this to be put into a car? And we thought BMW's iDrive was bad when it came out.

Sadly there is no solution to this any more. We're so far down the path of dumbing down driving that we're faced with a bleak future of self-driving cars and road trains to "protect us from ourselves". It is categorically the wrong thing to do - we should not be removing responsibility from the drivers and making driving easier, we should be doing the opposite. We should be reinforcing the simple concept that yes, driving a car is dangerous, and perhaps you should spend more time concentrating on the task at hand.

Volvo want to solve traffic problems with road trains.

There's a project that has been going on for a few years now testing the idea of road trains to solve traffic problems. Whilst Google and others go on about driverless cars, Volvo instead think the answer is 'platooning'. Their idea is that trained drivers in lead vehicles set up the head of a road train, and if your car is suitably equipped, you can join the end of the train and your car goes into a self-drive mode, taking its cues from the lead vehicle. As with many ideas before it, Volvo claim this will reduce congestion, reduce fuel economy and increase speeds. And as with many ideas before it, it will fail for a number of reasons.

First - the trained driver. We are such a litigious society now that this concept alone will be the reason this system will fail. Volvo explain that the lead drivers would be licensed, insured and trained but even then you're asking the other drivers to put their vehicle in the hands of someone else whilst they sit back and do nothing. What happens when the first of these systems crashes, or the lead driver is drunk or high? The lead driver is human, and will suffer from everyday human frailties just like you or I. And who is going to pay these lead drivers? Whoever pays them becomes liable for any accident involving the vehicles following them.

Secondly, the infrastructure. As with all these systems, it will require an infrastructure change. In this case it will require all cars to be fitted with hardware and software to allow them to work in the road train. That will push the cost up and people will opt not to buy it. That assumes that the vehicle manufacturers could even agree on a single common standard, and history has taught us that this will never happen.

The idea that any driver would want this seems laughable to me. If you want to cluster a bunch of people together in tight formation behind a single driver, get on a bus. It takes up a lot less room on the road than 50 cars and it works right now. If you really think driving a car should be trivialised to the point of it being a self-driven "capsule" that eliminates the driver from all responsibility, I don't want to be anywhere near you on the road.

Volvo explains why road trains are the future

No, you can't have petrol. Even if you have enough money.

If you live in America, you'll be used to pay-at-the-pump. It's one of America's greatest contributions to modern motoring. It all but eliminates drive-offs because you can't fill your car without stuffing a credit or debit card in the pump first, and the convenience is second only to drive-through cash machines. But all is not well in this motoring nirvana. First, there's the debit card problem - recently we had a rash of crimes locally where someone had installed card skimmers actually inside the pumps. That's a counterfeiting attack for which there's no defence. So tip number one : if the pump offers you a credit or debit transaction, do the credit one. You don't have to type in a PIN and the transaction is covered under the credit card organisation's anti-fraud clauses, be it VISA, Mastercard or whoever.
But second, and most importantly, there's an financial term you need to become very familiar with. Pre-authorisation. It's a mechanism that is used to quickly determine if you can actually cover the cost of what you're buying. When you swipe your card at a store, the amount runs through the quick-turnaround pre-authorisation system and gives a simple yes/no answer back to the point of sale. At the same time, a 'hold' is placed on your account for that amount. If you go through with the purchase, the hold is turned into a 'pending' amount which will clear at the end of the day. Why all this financial-speak in a motoring blog? Well petrol pumps will ding the account linked to your card with a pre-authorisation amount the instant you swipe it through the card reader on the pump. If it's a true credit card, that's not normally a problem, but if it's your bank card and it's merely using the credit card network to communicate with your bank, it could prevent you from filling up even if you have enough money in your account. Why? The following are the pre-authorisation amounts sent through to your financial institution from a couple of big-chain petrol stations:
Shell: $1.00
Conoco: $1.00
Philips66: $1.00
Chevron: $126.00
Texaco: $151.00
Notice the last two. If you have a hundred bucks in your bank account, and want twenty bucks of gas, don't go to a Chevron or Texaco. The pre-authorisation will attempt to hold more than $100 and because you have less than that in your account, it will most likely reject the amount outright.
If you have more than that amount, you're OK. The actual amount you spend at the pump will become the 'pending' amount and the high-dollar hold value will evaporate at the end of the day.
If you want to see just how quick this pre-authorisation system works, set your bank account to send you an SMS alert if your card is used at a petrol station. Swipe your card through the reader and you'll get a text message before you can get the nozzle of the pump to your petrol tank. That's how quick it is.
For my fellow Brits who live in England, you can probably only try this at Tesco. I don't know of any other petrol stations where they allow you the convenience of paying at the pump.

Speed is not dangerous

Just the title of this week's post is probably already irritating a lot of you, but calm down and I'll explain.

To help understand why I can quite confidently make that sort of statement, you need to look through the hype, the fearmongering and the plainly false information that is handed out like cookies by the police, councils and governments. The problem is that people are afraid of speed. They think that all sorts of evil happens when you're going anything faster than walking and that simply isn't true. The problem is people's lack of ability to control their vehicle, and a subset of that is speed - when people panic at speed, things get nasty much more quickly. But proper driver training could prevent this. You can't simply slap unrealistically low speed limits everywhere in an effort to reduce accidents. All it does is reduce the speed that the accidents happen. And these accident figures are freely available if you know where to look. Here in the USA, filing a GRAMA request can be very revealing. For example, in Utah, where I live now, the breakdown of the number of crashes where excessive speed was the primary cause looks like this:
2009: 1.2%
2008: 3.3%
2007: 0.94%
2006: 9.9%
More telling still, by far the largest percentage of accidents involving speed happen below 39mph - not exactly speeding, is it?

In England last year, the single largest cause of motorbike accidents was classified as failed to look, and it's obvious what that means. Speeding was second to bottom, only coming in marginally above deposit on road (meaning loose gravel, spilled diesel etc.) Numerically speaking the difference there is 14% of accidents came down to poor observation and a lowly 1% were attributable to speed.

In pedestrian fatalities, in general, the blame can almost always been laid with the pedestrian. The last time I looked into statistics for those fatalities in the UK, they panned out as follows:

- Pedestrian entered carriageway without due care (84%)
- Vehicle unable to avoid pedestrian in carriageway (12%)
- "Other" (4%)
Speed was the determining factor in one quarter of the "other" category - in other words 1% of pedestrians are killed due to motorists speeding.

Even the UK government has admitted that the speed kills mantra is, for want of a better description, total rubbish. In one notable memo on the topic, they opened with the following:

In recent years far too little research has been carried out into the causes of road accidents. Research that has been done has often started from the questionable presumption that the only route to improvements in road safety lies in the rigorous management of vehicle speeds. Conflicting viewpoints are ignored, irrespective of the significant weight of supporting evidence.

You can find that little gem of a report either on the government's own website (here) or in a PDF I printed from it (here) because topics like this tend to "disappear" when too much attention is drawn to them.

I'm currently gathering accident statistic information from various transport authorities across the US with GRAMA and FOIA requests - as I've done with Utah. I'll do some analysis and update my site and blog accordingly. I do know from initial investigations that in Arizona, the number of accidents in 2010 that were directly attributable to speeding was 1.4%. The number of accidents directly attributable to distracted driving (texting, using the phone) was over 30%.

For more reading I have a whole page on this topic: Speeding facts vs. fiction

Top Gear USA finally has a flash of genius

I couldn't believe it. Last night, for the first time in a season and a half, Top Gear USA finally got a segment right. They ditched the redneck and the unfunny comedian and let Tanner Foust review the Porsche GT2 RS. That in itself wasn't the redeeming feature. The redeeming feature was that they had the police shut down central LA in the middle of the night so he could race it around the streets. The camerawork was great, the music was great, the post production was great, and they did a full on Fast & Furious light-to-light drag race with a pair of wonderfully turned out American muscle cars; a 500hp '69 Chevy Nova and a Dodge Viper SRT10. The audio in that 15 seconds was worth the entire train wreck of a show to date. The rest of the show was the usual steaming pile, but when they let the actual driver (and the only one who can talk to camera properly) do a segment on his own, they actually figured it out. There's a tiny glimmer of hope.

Too much bling, not enough thought.

I think I've covered this before but one of the most irritating design 'features' that manufacturers insist on putting in their cars is chrome. It has no place inside a vehicle, and you could rightly argue that it has no place on the outside either. The problem with putting something as highly reflective as chrome or wood veneer on the inside of a car is that the reflection of the sun can be blinding when it catches you at the right angle. Interior surfaces should be matte so they don't run the risk of such reflections, especially the top of the dashboard. With the sun in the right place, you can easily get to the point where there is so much dash reflection on the inside of your windscreen that it becomes properly difficult to see out.
I think the problem is that too many manufacturers associate chrome and shiny things with quality and workmanship. They seem to believe that a chrome strip on the dash, or a shiny mirrored ring around a gauge or clock somehow demonstrates quality or exclusivity. In truth, these sorts of things just cheapen the look of stuff now. Modern aesthetics demand finely textured materials and surfaces, plush seating, touchable plastics and moody lighting.
And chrome wheels? Nothing says "drug dealer" (or person with no sense of taste) quicker than a car with massive chrome wheels on it. If you're going to put aftermarket wheels on your ride, make sure they're matte silver or black.

More advice from a petrol delivery driver

You'll remember some time ago I posted about why cheap supermarket petrol is cheap. Well I have another nugget of information from my delivery driver friend which was news to me, but having been walked through it, it does seem to be true.
If you live in America, you're best buying Chevron or Shell petrol. There's a couple of reasons - both are 'top tier' petrol in terms of additives and detergents. But more interestingly, these are the only two companies who have separate trailer policies for oil and petrol.
So what is a separate trailer policy? It means that Chevron and Shell allocate trailers to carry refined petrol, and trailers to carry unrefined crude, and never mix the two. At the time of writing, they're the only two companies that do this. Every other refiner and distributor does double-duty with their trailers - sometimes they haul crude, sometimes they haul petrol. The key here is that the trailers are supposed to be cleaned thoroughly when going from one cargo to the other but very often they aren't. This means that unrefined crude can end up mixed in with refined petrol, and when that is burned in your engine, it can lead to fouling of fuel lines, filters, pumps and injectors.
So now you know.

Guest post : financing a new car

This week's blog post is a guest post from Miles Walker from CarinsuranceComparison.Org.

The purchase of a new car is one of the biggest financial decisions most adults face, and its comparable to buying a home. The average adult cannot afford to pay for a new car upfront. If this is the case for you, it is essential that you explore your financing options. With vehicle research, this will make you prepared to wisely purchase your new wheels. The basic financing options for a new car are as follows:

Leasing
Leasing a new car is similar to renting one for an extended period of time. At the end of the lease, you will not own the car, even though you have maintained, insured, and repaired it. Leasing does usually mean lower payments, still, it is mainly a good choice for business owners. It also suits someone who desires to drive a new car every few years.

Dealer Financing
Dealer financing is the most convenient and obvious choice when buying a new car. With this option, you usually visit a dealership, negotiate on a price of your chosen vehicle, and then sit down to see the rates from that various banks working with the dealership can offer. Although this way is fairly simple, consumers have to remember that dealers do not have their best interest in mind. If you are easily swayed, a dealer could quickly pressure you into agreeing to a loan that could end up costing you too much in the long run. It is always best to calculate the interest rates and monthly payments you can afford before signing a loan. Additionally, dealers tend to tack on an extra charge for finding you a loan through their crop of lenders. Try other options before dealer financing.

Bank Financing
Getting pre-approved for a loan from a bank or similar lending source before you purchase a new car is a smart option. Generally, you can apply for these loans by phone or online. Some websites even allow you to compare interest rates so you can choose the least expensive lender. The best thing about being approved for a loan by a bank is that you can walk into a new car dealership knowing exactly how much you can afford to spend on your vehicle. This gives you an advantage over the dealer, and will avoid any dealership financing fees. Banks also tend to give more straightforward, no hassle rates.

Helpful Resources for Car Financing
Auto Loan Calculator Calculate the time necessary to pay off loans and estimate monthly payments.
Auto Financing - AWARE A helpful site dedicated to informing the car loan consumer.
Kelly Blue Book A trusted source listing the market values of vehicles.

Toyota wants to steer for you

Toyota recently demonstrated an accident-avoidance system that not only brakes for you, but steers for you too. It uses a series of sensors hooked up to its onboard computer to determine if you're about to be involved in an accident. It then takes control of the steering and brakes and attempts to avoid the accident for you.
The key word there is "attempts".
This is another in a long line of R&D projects that we don't want and don't need. This constant dumbing-down of everything is going to be the death of our civilisation. If this technology becomes commonplace, then drivers will have even less reason to concentrate whilst driving, and there will be even more accidents. Remember, computer systems are not infallible. If there's a bug in the code, and during the attempt to avoid what it "thinks" is an impending accident, your car actually causes another one, then the lawyers will get involved and everyone will pay.
Why don't Toyota spend this money on driver education instead? Driving schools, safety programs, driver education and other such things? Surely it's better to attempt to treat the cause of the problem rather than the symptoms?
And for those who relish the idea of their vehicle driving itself, here's a suggestion: use a taxi, bus or train. They exist right now.
Toyota wants to steer for you.

Once again a failed car show

Wanting to give everyone a fair shake of the stick, I watched Adam Corolla's Car Show on Speed TV last Wednesday. Corolla was widely tipped as the ideal frontman for the American version of Top Gear but he proved in his own show last week why he never got picked. If you thought Top Gear USA was bad, The Car Show made it look like high quality programming. So what was wrong? Well to start with the four hosts spent the first segment of the show sitting behind a desk doing various news items. It looked like any number of post-game or post-match analysis shows on US sports networks. Four wooden presenters in suits, discussing stuff whilst looking vacant and uninvolved.
Eventually they got on to the meat of the program - car stunts and reviews and here's where the show really hit it's stride in terms of being a full-blown suckfest. The 24 hours of "lemons" race was too obviously scripted right down to the dodgy driving and various incidents. The review of the Rolls Royce looked like Dan Niell had a teleprompter strapped to a trailer outside the car and the rest of the segments went downhill from there.
Top Gear USA tried to copy Top Gear UK, and did it badly. The Car Show by comparison tried to copy Top Gea USA - badly. You know how when you photocopy a photocopy the end result is blotchy and unrecognisable? That's what Speed Channel have managed here; a poor copy of a poor copy. I guess Americans really can't make entertaining TV shows about cars.
But they don't know that - Top Gear USA returns for a second season shortly. May the Gods of motoring have pity on us.

The Lincoln MKT

I know I've blogged about this before but American car companies really don't seem to be able to grasp the concept of design. Last night I followed a slab-sided chunk of metal down the street that was so revolting it made the Pontiac Aztek look like the work of a master. It turned out to be a Lincoln MKT. From what I can tell, that car is an exercise in how to get the proportions of everything on a vehicle wrong from every angle. The rear is this giant sea of metal with lights all the way across it. The sides have a Coca Cola wave in them at the swage line, but done in such a way that it makes the car look fat. The windows are too small, and there's too much sheet metal in the doors. At the front, things don't get any better. The front grille is gigantic - you could suck small children in through the openings and the end result of all this is a car that is so repugnant it's hard to imagine anyone ever signing off on the design. I think even Lincoln realise this - on their own gallery page, of the 50 photos available, only 13 of them show the outside of this monstrosity, and only 8 of those show the whole vehicle. Worse, someone apparently bought one of these things willingly and is driving it around town here. It never ceases to amaze me. I know it takes all types of people to make the world go round, but we could do with less of the people that have no sense of styling. Either that or Lincoln needs to stop trying to make a minivan look like a car.

Slow-moving roadblocks

I covered this topic in April but I'm going to post on it again.
One of my greatest pet peeves whilst driving is slow drivers. That doesn't mean I like to speed, it means I like to make progress as traffic allows, and sometimes, traffic is idiots. If I were in law enforcement, I'd make sure that speed limits weren't "limits" but indicated the speed you're supposed to drive. How many times have you been stuck behind someone who's doing 17mph or 18mph in a 30 zone? Or in England, stuck behind someone doing 39mph on a single-lane A road? (60mph)? I'll tell you why they're doing it - for two reasons, both of which are wrong.
Firstly, they think it's safe and it patently isn't. Traffic in crossing streets will be expecting them to be doing the limit or close to it - not half of it - and that results in errors of judgement about closing speed and distance, and that leads to accidents. In addition, when people like me and everyone else get behind someone like this, we become impatient, which makes us prone to doing stupid things in order to get past and - you know - drive at the speed limit and make some progress. The worst case I've seen of this was driving up to the skiing resorts last winter when one of the uphill drivers was going so slowly that even the ski busses were overtaking him, in snow, going uphill, crossing double yellow lines to do it.

Secondly, they think it somehow saves them money. It doesn't. Modern cars are designed to be fuel efficient at two key speeds - around 30mph and around 57mph. If you're going too slow or too quick, you'll be either labouring the engine or pushing more air out of the way, both of which cost you gas mileage.

So to the police - instead of going after the easy prey and ticketing people for speeding (which by the way isn't dangerous and doesn't cause anything like the number of accidents you claim), why don't you address the more hazardous problem of people driving too slowly?

Happy independence day to my friends here in the colonies :)

Monotone

Since we moved to the US, I've noticed by far the most predominant car colours are white, silver, grey, beige and black. Looking out of my window this morning, in the rows of several hundred cars in the parking lots around my office, I can see three red cars, one yellow, one blue and one green. The rest of them are all the usual suspects. It's like living in a 1950's movie and not in a good way either.
I haven't been able to determine yet whether this monotone colour choice is actually a choice people make, or something that the car companies thrust upon us over here under the assumption that people won't buy anything colourful.
You can see the problem for yourself if you go to any of the brand name's US websites. Take my current ride for example - a VW Tiguan. On the US site they have red, blue, silver, black, grey, and two shades of white. In Europe you can get all those colours, plus metallic cream, sky blue, yellow and orange (depending on the variant). Toyota vehicles - in the US we get beige, white, silver, grey, black and dark blue (almost black). One or two models have red available.
The light at the end of the tunnel here are the new Ford models (Fiesta, Focus) that come in an explosion of colours. Fiat are doing the same thing - wild colours - bright yellows, orange, green, several different reds. Time will tell if people buy them or if we'll end up in the same monochrome world. It's not looking hopeful though - when I spoke to the new Fiat dealer in town, they'd sold 12 Fiat 500s in the first couple of weeks. Two silver, two white, eight black, none of them with any coloured graphics. The four they had on special order were three grey and one red.
You can see examples of this monochrome world by looking in Google earth. Best place to look is airport long-term parking lots. Here's a starting point.
Amsterdam - explosion of colour: 52 17 28.29N 4 44 9.28E
Chicago - monochrome with the odd red car: 33 57 4.45N 118 23 38.95W

When TV race coverage goes bad

Speed Channel cover Formula 1 racing - they have done ever since we moved to America. Occasionally though, Fox will cherry-pick a race and show it on their channel instead. The good news is that they keep the Speed Channel commentary team. The bad news is that they destroy the race by starting coverage after the race has started (missing the start and the run to the first corner), going to commercial every 11 minutes no matter what, and filling the screen with so many Fox popup promos that it's hard to see the cars or racing.
OLN do the same thing to the Dakar rally each year. They're the only network that broadcast the event and they cram it into 30 minutes a day. There's four commercial breaks, local-interest features that nobody is interested in, and when they finally get to the racing, they show the motorbikes and the cars and that's it. They barely mention the trucks, the quad bikes, or any of the non-mainstream teams (the independents).
The icing on this little turd-cake is that the BBC cover all these events but if you don't live in the UK, you can't use their on-demand service to watch any of it. Even if you pay for BBC channels on your satellite or cable service.
I'd like to believe that the US channels would learn a thing or two about motorsports but if it's not NASCAR they're just not interested.

Washing the right bits

With spring in full swing, it's amusing to sit in line at the local jetwash and watch lazy owner after lazy owner failing to clean the only part of their car that really matters after a winter of salty roads : the underside. Sure people will clean the paint and windows and everything that is visible without bending over. They'll use calcium-free water for the rinse, and spend 30 minutes with a chamois cleaning every last water drop away. Meanwhile, the salt is slowly feasting on all the metal underneath. It takes so little time to do this job properly. Bend over, poke the jetwash wand underneath your car, pointing upwards, and spray the underside with clean water. Doesn't need wax, doesn't need soap, nothing special, just water. It takes an extra minute. Do it on either side, from the front and the back and your car will last a lot longer.

Peugot 3008 : Worst Car Ever

Well maybe not 'ever' but it's appalling in a way that wasn't accidental. A herd of engineers spitefully thrust this abomination on the motoring world. I had one as a rental car last week on business and it is ugly. I mean really ugly - as in on par with the Pontiac Aztek ugly.
There's a possibility you can forgive a car's looks if it's a true driver's car and this thing isn't. Not even remotely close. I'm not even sure a father of four who's given up on driving would drive this thing.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of what's wrong with it, but in my one day with the car, these were my main problems. Actually, most of these cropped up in the first 30 minutes, but it took me a day to get back to a rental facility to change it (more on that later).
The power steering is ultralight - so much so that it's like an American car - you have to steer it to keep it in a straight line. The interior is covered in chrome, all angled to reflect sunlight at the driver from every possible angle. The radio display is an orange-on-black affair that is tilted away from the driver so it's impossible to read because of reflections. The cruise control stub is right under the indicator stalk meaning you spend half the time trying to snap it off when using the indicators. Same is true for the radio stub under the windscreen wiper stalk. The brake pedal and accelerator are too close together so that you end up pressing both. This is especially hazardous when braking because you end up gunning the engine at the same time as you're trying to brake. In an automatic, that's disastrous. The up/down adjustment for the drivers seat moves it forward and backwards too so in the full down position, the rear passenger seat is crammed up against the back of the drivers seat preventing any recline. And finally, the rear visibility is abominable in the extreme, hindered by gigantic C pillars and headrests that you can't remove.
All in all, this thing should never have seen the light of day much less been put on sale. It's a truly vile, spiteful piece of automotive crime. For some photos of the many things wrong with this thing, see my dropbox here.
After a single day I took it back to Avis and had them replace it. I got a Citroen DS3 instead. Much, much better. It shared the hideous stalks on the steering column but all the other issues were pleasingly dispatched into the rear view mirror. If you must have a French car, start with the DS3 and compare from there.

Finally a pedestrian is blamed for being stupid.

You'll know if you read this blog regularly that I have very little tolerance for the "blame the driver for everything" attitude of the police. Especially when it comes to pedestrians walking in traffic.
Well finally there's a good news story for those of us who have a self-preservation instinct. Scottsdale police are pushing for charges to be dropped against a driver who hit a pedestrian and her child in a crosswalk. Of course the story that the pedestrian gave was that the driver jumped a red light and mowed her down at speed. In reality things were a little different. Fortunately, there was a red light camera at the intersection and the video shows what actually happened. The crosswalk lights went red, she decided to run across the road and when the traffic lights went green, she was obscured from the view of the driver because she was running in front of a larger vehicle to his left. The driver rightly went on his green light only to be presented with a mother and stroller running in front of him.
Now I hate to come across as insensitive, but frankly in this video, I see the pedestrian getting everything she deserves. And I'm wonderfully happy that for once the driver isn't being blamed for something that was clearly not his fault. Perhaps this mother should have thought twice before playing in traffic. She clearly doesn't care for her own life, much less her child's. In fact, I'd have her arrested for attempting to pervert the course of justice, and wanton child endangerment now the video shows the truth of what happened.
The full story is on the Scottsdale ABC15 news site:
Story

Cause and effect

Cause and effect. It's a simple idea that most children over the age of 5 can grasp. Put a finger in a flame and it burns. So you don't do it again. The government in England could learn a thing or two from 5 year olds when it comes to petrol prices. Currently they're at around £1.40 per litre - about $10 per gallon in US equivalent. Thats the cause. The resultant effect would seem obvious to even the least educated person: record numbers of cars having their fuel lines cut and petrol stolen, and record numbers of drive-offs from petrol stations. The best way to prevent drive offs would be to force everyone to pay at the pump. If you don't swipe a card in the pump, you don't get petrol. Of course in the muddy backwaters of a place where everything is broken, that's too obvious so instead, UK petrol stations have invested tens of thousands in cameras and numberplate-reading technology. That's another cause. Effect in this case? People now put fake numberplates on and still drive off without paying. Frankly it's a wonder anything works in England any more. The lunacy surrounding petrol prices is just the tip of the iceberg.

The downfall of the Impreza

With the recent unveiling of the 2012 Subaru Impreza, all hope is lost of Subaru ever building a Subaru for enthusiasts again. The Impreza has completed its transition from steroid-injected, super aggressive rally-inspired road car to beige, fat, middle-aged old box. The current generation is bad enough - it looks like a Daewoo - but what they've done to the next generation model is sad confirmation that there will never be another Impreza. At least not as Subaru fans would know it. The sweet spot for this car was the 2000 model year. In 1999 GM bought a stake in Subaru and their influence was first apparent with the hideous round headlight saga in 2002. The US designers were usurped for the 2004 model and there was a glimmer of hope again. However GM couldn't make head nor tail of Subaru and so dumped their stake in 2005. By that point Subaru were saddled with GM's legacy and went from making AWD enthusiasts cars to dabbling in full-sized SUVs with the hideous Tribeca. Worse, in an attempt to "cement the brand", they started trying to put the Tribeca's new corporate nose on all their cars as evidenced by the 2006 Impreza. When the Tribeca appeared, it was the same omen of doom for Subaru fans as the Cayman was for Porsche. It was the point where they stopped innovating, and started playing "me too". ie. "Everyone else has an SUV so we need one too!" - a surefire sign of GM's meddling. It was wrong when Porsche did it, and it was wrong when Subaru did it. By 2008, proof of this was in the pudding. With Toyota now owning GM's share, the 2008 Impreza became a bland Asian-looking box. You couldn't tell one apart from any other vehicle on the road because it had been emasculated. All defining features of the Impreza were gone, instead replaced with a blancmange body style and horror of horrors - a hatchback. Subaru went from unique to invisible in one step. The two-year product cycle went out the window too and we had to put up with this abomination of a vehicle for four years until now. Finally - one last chance. Can Subaru repair the damage? No. The 2012 Impreza is even more emasculated. In 2008 they at least kept the hood scoop. Now even that has gone almost as if they're ashamed of it. The rest of the car has taken on even more of the look of an econobox - a family car that will end up full of children's vomit and dog spit on the inside of the windows. It's a CamryFocusCivic now.
The Impreza has gone from a car I'd fight to own, to one I wouldn't be seen dead in.
So long Impreza. We knew you well.

Track days

If you're a true petrolhead, or you enjoy motorsport in any form, there's a good chance you've considered doing a track day. I did my first one last week at Miller Motorsport Park here in Utah. The format was a beginner's introduction to track days where we had a classroom session, a bus tour of the circuit for corner familiarisation and then a bunch of laps in formation behind a pace driver.
Once we got into the actual driving part of it, I was OK but when we were in the chute waiting to join the track for the first time, I could feel my vastly increased heartrate in my jugular as it was pushing against my helmet strap.
The idea was simple - you get two laps as the car immediately following the pace car, then you pull over and join the end of the queue allowing someone else to have a go at the front. The pace driver adjusts his pace depending on how well (or badly) you're doing at keeping up with him. The cars we used were modified Ford Mustang GTs with Brembo brake conversions, sports suspension, short-shift gearboxes, roll cages, bucket seats with 5 point race harnesses and remapped throttle response and engine mapping. At the end of the procession laps, we came in and took a passenger ride with the pace driver to illustrate to us just how fast the cars really could go. That was a little demoralising because we'd been under the impression that we were doing pretty well. He ripped 15 seconds off our lap times. Either way, I didn't care. The experience of driving a race-prepped car on a race track was exhilarating. The weather was perfect and racing with the windows down meant we got the full experience of all the smells and sounds, from whining brakes to roaring engine.
One other thing: for sure playing serious racing videogames helps - I was able to remember the track and pick my lines and braking points within 2 laps because of experience playing racing games. The other interesting side effect? When I got home and played the game again, I was able to take 2 to 5 seconds off all my previous lap times.
Now I have to decide whether to go the next step and do a full day Ford Racing school....

The author, with number 22 at Miller Motorsports Park:

You MUST see a Formula 1 race in the flesh.

With the F1 season in full swing, it occurs to me that I never blogged about a trip my wife and I took towards the end of 2010. We flew to Singapore to experience the Singapore F1 race in the flesh. We've always wanted to see an F1 race live, and a night race, street circuit in my most favourite Asian country fitted the bill nicely. If you're an F1 fan, you'll know the noises these cars make from watching it on TV. Well. Actually, you don't. You may think you do - we did - but when you hear them for yourself, you'll realise that the TV does zero justice to the spectacle of an F1 race. 24 800hp engines spinning at 17,000rpm on the start line is quite literally mind-melting. The sound splits the air in two.
We weren't sure if we'd go to the practice and qualifying sessions or just the race but as soon as we got to the track on the first evening, we were sucked in 100%. We went to all the practice sessions, qualifying and of course the race itself. The beauty of Singapore is that you can quite literally stand next to the track while they're racing. The only thing between you and the cars is a concrete K-rail and a 6 foot steel fence. Even in the grandstands on the main straight, you're never more than 30m from the track. The pictures below are taken from a video I made on race night.
The night race was a massive benefit to the look of the race too - the cars looked simply beautiful under the lights, especially the McLaren ones.
The entire experience was something we'll never forget. Singapore is a beautiful city and country to visit and when the F1 circus comes to town, it's transformed. I'm sure it's the same everywhere the Ecclestone empire shines its spotlight but to be there, in the city, watching the race for real was just incredible. Even the support races were fascinating to watch. And if you remember back to that race, at the end of it, one of the Lotus cars caught fire - it pulled up to a stop right in front of us on the main straight as Heikki Kovalainen hopped out and calmly extinguished the blaze himself.
I know F1 is expensive - incredibly so if you choose to fly half way around the planet to see it, but if you're a die-hard F1 fan, there really is no excuse not to see a race live. Pick your track carefully, and I guarantee you'll never forget the experience. You might even bump into someone famous. We quite literally bumped into Sir Jackie Stewart. I'm still buzzing about it now 7 months after we came home .....

Das Auto

Last week VW unveiled their new for 2012 Beetle simultaneously in New York, Berlin and Shanghai. VW apparently tossed out the current Beetle and tried to work from the original again in developing the latest model. The result is something which they hope (and I agree) is a lot less feminine, with a broader market appeal. I don't know if they did this intentionally, but the roofline has a very distinct Porsche 911 look to it now - far more than any previous Beetle model, old or new. It's available in a raft of colours including Toffeebraun Metallic (brown) and the staples of the US car market - silver, white, black and grey. The chassis is bound to be based on the next-gen Golf chassis and VW have given the new Beetle the same front-engine, front-wheel-drive as the current generation.
The Beetle has always been a bit of a marmite car - you either love it or hate it and I think the new redesign falls into the 'love it' category for me. If you want a look at the new model, VW have their 'Konfigurator' live on the German site right now. 2012 VW Beetle Configurator

The average American driver and G-Force.

Having lived here for 10 years now, I've come to the conclusion that the average American driver is desperately afraid of G-forces.
The slightest bend in the road will cause the brake lights to come on, as will any slight change in road condition - a difference in the crash barrier, construction cones, a bump, an different road surface.
I've seen maybe 1 in 1000 drivers actually accelerate away from a green light. The usual method of doing this seems to be to gently rest their foot on the accelerator so the car creeps up to 25mph over the course of 30 seconds or so.
Worse still, when traffic lights go red, they start braking a good 100m ahead of time, drifting idly to a halt.
I can only surmise that this is because they don't like G-forces. Acceleration, braking and cornering all cause you to be moved around in the driver's seat and it seems like no American likes this. Why else would you go around a corner with the brakes on? Brake before the corner, then lift off the brakes and turn - it's not that difficult. If you're braking and cornering at the same time, you're overloading the tyres and asking them to split their grip between slowing you down and keeping the car in the corner.
Freeway intersections are the worst - when you have a large-radius, curving flyover to go from one freeway to another, you should be blasting around that at freeway speed to keep the flow of traffic. They're designed specifically for that. But no - everyone slows down to 40mph and ambles along to the point where - on a motorbike - I've been able to slalom between 8 or 10 cars on a single overpass. With plenty of room too - not cutting anyone off.
Given that G-Force seems to be the issue, lightweight, small-capacity cars are what America needs. 800cc two-cylinder engines in little shopping commuters. V8s, V6s, turbos and superchargers are all wasted in this country - nobody uses them. Low-profile high-grip tyres? A waste of time. Lowered sports suspension packages? Useless.
From a European's perspective, it makes me look like I'm speeding everywhere I go when in fact I'm doing the limit. Everyone else is just driving too damn slow.

Mistaking the accelerator for the brake

There's a show on TV at the moment called 'Destroyed In Seconds' which is a showcase of exactly what its name implies. One of the staples of this program is cars running into store fronts, down steps, up lamp posts etc. In every case, the excuse given by the driver is that they mistook the accelerator for the brake.
I must admit I'm mystified by this. The pedals are in a different place, they're a different shape and size, and the back pressure is different on them. I'm honestly not sure how people can genuinely do this. In most of these cases, I reckon it's actually distraction. People think they've moved their foot to the brake when they haven't, then step on the gas. Even then I wonder how it's possible that they don't realise what's going on and swap to the brake.
Have you ever done this? And what was the cause?

How is this possible?

I've talked about this before, but I have to bring it up again. Why can't American car manufacturers build decent cars or engines? Take the Chrysler Crossfire for example. Somehow, and I just can't fathom how they managed this, they built a 3.2 litre V6 engine and managed to only get 215hp out of it. Or the Plymouth Prowler with it's 3.5 litre V6 that produced 1hp less than the Crossfire at 214hp. I could build the same engine out of Lego and accidentally get 300hp out of it. It's like they're stuck in the 80s - an era when Ford managed to produce a Mustang - a 'muscle car' - that produced a pathetic 111hp out of a 4.2litre V8. Bear in mind the same year that came out, Audi had the 5-cylinder 2 litre inline engine that produced 110hp. How could Ford have 3 extra cylinders, a 'V' engine layout and more than double the capacity and only gain 1 extra horsepower? Given the comparitive weight of the cars, that means a stock 1985 Audi Coupe GT could easily out run a 1984 Ford Mustang (and it could certainly out-handle it).
It takes a peculiar sort of skill to build big engines with no power. To put it into perspective, my current ride - a VW Tiguan - has a 2 litre 4 cylinder engine that produces 200hp. If the Germans and the Japanese can manage it, why can't the Americans. Really. It's not that difficult.

The real reason budget petrol is cheap.

Call it cheap petrol, call it supermarket petrol. Everyone knows it's cheaper and millions of motorists fill up at non-premium stations every day without giving a second thought to why the petrol is cheaper. The normal excuse is "it's all the same isn't it?". I'll tell you why it's not.

A friend of mine is a petrol delivery driver for one of our local refineries. They subcontract with four well known brands (Texaco, Chevron, Phillips66 and Exxon or Esso) as well as two budget chains.

First of all, he has two different trailers. If he's delivering to the premium outlets he uses one trailer. The budget outlets use another. For the four big chains, the process is essentially the same. The truck is filled with 3 loads of 3,000 gallons of petrol (3 tanks for the three octane levels) then stops at the additive pump for the relevant chain and add in a measured amount of their additive package to each tank (eg. Techron for Chevron and Texaco). The additive package is mixed during the delivery purely by the motion of the truck and the resulting pumpout. The tanks are dumped into the underground storage tanks at the petrol station, then he goes back to get another load. Rinse and repeat.

For the budget chains, things are slightly different. He has to use the other trailer and fills that up from a different delivery pump at the refinery. No stop at the additive pumps - straight to the retailer to fill their underground tanks. In the bottom of that trailer, from weeks of delivery work, there's a layer of sand, silt, grit - something particulate - lining the bottom of the tanks. With the dipstick, he can poke a measurable hole in the particulate, like poking your finger in wet sand.

Essentially, when oil is turned into petrol, it's distilled and filtered a great many times to create the final product. Cheap supermarket/budget petrol misses out one last step of filtration and refining. That's why it's cheap. The grade and quality isn't as high, and it has the potential for more particulates held in suspension. It shifts the responsibility to the owners of the petrol stations to ensure their pump filters are kept clean and in good working order. Cutting that last step at the refinery means cheaper bulk prices to the petrol station, which is why they can undercut the major chains. In the area where I live, this is especially important to know because one of the sources of our oil is oil shale, an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock.

Now does the last step in refining make any difference to your car's ability to use it? Absolutely not - it's gravy. But it's the gravy that's required for the blend of additive package to work correctly for the big chains. They create those additives dependent on fully refined petrol. And because it goes through one more filtration process, the larger chains can be guaranteed of a cleaner end product with less particulate in suspension, which translates to a reduced risk of filter problems on the forecourt.

So there you go. It's not "all the same" - not by any stretch of the imagination. Pay your money and make your choice.

OnStar for everyone.

Starting this spring, OnStar will begin selling their OnStar Anywhere product for $299. Essentially it's an OnStar-equipped rearview mirror that you swap out for your existing mirror. It's designed to allow access to many of OnStar's services for either a monthly or annual fee. Because the mirror itself includes accelerometers, it will allegedly be able to detect a crash and call OnStar for you. In addition, it provides access to emergency services, stolen vehicle location (it has built-in GPS too), turn-by-turn navigation (call them, tell them where you want to go, and OnStar will download directions into your mirror), roadside assistance and hands-free calling via bluetooth to your phone.
Now I'm ambivalent about OnStar. Frankly I don't see the point, and I think their fear-mongering TV commercials are patronising and unethical. But this at least product does get rid of the biggest evil - because it's a standalone device, it's not hooked in to your car's on-board computer or engine management system, meaning it's not open for hacking and abuse. Of course this also means that if you're dumb enough to lock your keys in your car, GM can't unlock it for you.
However because it has a mic in it for the hands-free telephone integration, OnStar will be able to listen in to whatever is going on in the car, whenever they want, and the GPS can be used to track you without you knowing. Both have happened before, and both will happen again - don't kid yourself that the law will protect you on that front.
So if you're desperate for the mental crutch that OnStar provides, and don't mind a constant GM spy in your car, it's yours shortly for $299 and a recurring fee.

Insuring an undriveable car

Most motorists know that you must have car insurance. Most drivers in the UK are also aware of the SORN programme - Statutory Off Road Notification. It's a system the UK has in place to let the driver and vehicle licencing authorities know that you own a car but that it's off the road and thus is exempt from road tax and insurance. For example a project car that spends a year in pieces in the garage while you're working on it.
Tighter regulations are coming in shortly meaning that if you haven't filed a SORN, you still need to insure your car. The fact that the car is not being driven (and in some cases will be in pieces) and therefore could not be involved in an accident is no longer a get out clause when it comes to car insurance.
The new Continuous Insurance Enforcement Legislation states that if a car has not been declared as a SORN and does not have adequate car insurance, the registered owner can expect to receive a letter advising them of their obligations. This will be followed by a £100 fine if the letter is ignored. Carry on ignoring the notices and the vehicle will then be seized or clamped and court prosecution could follow. If the process reaches this stage, then fines up near the £1,000 mark will be issued.
It is worth noting that the legislation also applies to motorcyclists.
You can fill out a SORN declaration online : DVLA SORN programme

Your tax dollars are seizing Nissan Skylines. Again.

Did you know that Nissan never officially sold the Skyline in the US? Those that are here had to pass all manner of emission and safety tests in order to be imported. Well it turns out that one of the importers - Motorex - was a little "economical" with that mandate and didn't bother to convert them to DOT spec. There was a big blow-up about this in 2005 and again in 2008, and now it seems it's the Department of Homeland Security's turn. Teams are again being sent out to seize and impound Nissan Skylines all over the country. Because I guess they're a threat to our security? Either way this seems totally overblown to me. Given the number of properly dangerous cars I see every day - ones held together with rust, with smashed up fenders and lights, huge cracks in the windscreens, missing windows, bald tyres and such - you'd think that time and money would be better spent getting those vehicles off the road.
Sadly though, Skylines are fewer and easier to find and if you're fortunate enough to be a Skyline owner, you're soon to be unfortunate enough to have it taken away from you and there is, it seems, nothing you can do about it.

Full info at Nicoclub (Nissan Skyline forums).
Nicoclub : Nissan Skyline seizures
Forum : Nissan Skyline seizures

When it all works, it's a thing of beauty.

I came across a video clip this week and thought it would mike a nice blog post.
It's about a minute of footage shot from a camera strapped to the underside of a Mazda Miata. The car is driven round a short autocross circuit with the camera filming. It embodies everything I write about on this site. You can see all the components doing their job, from the springs and shocks, to the sway bars, differential and even down to the amount of tyre deformation in the corners. Watch it - it's a thing of beauty - and it will give you a new insight into what goes on underneath your car when you drive it:

Car suspension in action

Why the public should repay Toyota

It doesn't take much does it? Just over a week after the NASA and NTSA reports came out absolving Toyota of any accelerator problems other than the known "sticky pedal" and floormat issue, Toyota's reputation is riding high again. Americans have changed their minds in the same way the wind changes direction and all is apparently forgiven. As I've mentioned on this blog before, the vast majority of unintended acceleration cases were down to the idiot drivers, which leads to an interesting problem. Reputation is everything and Toyota took a huge hit because of these people. Given that there never was a problem, doesn't it only seem right and fair that every driver who tagged along hoping for a claim payout, or claimed their Toyota had unintended acceleration, should now be forced to pay recompense to Toyota for wasting their time and damaging their reputation? More to the point, if they really can't tell the difference between the accelerator and the brake - two pedals that are radically different shapes and sizes and in different parts of the footwell - they really shouldn't be driving a car at all.

The worst part of all of this is that anyone who is even vaguely a petrolhead could have told you this this would be the ultimate outcome. We didn't need millions of dollars of research to tell us this. Why? Look back to 1985-86 when Audi suffered the same problem with the Audi 4000. Thousands of cases of unintended acceleration forced a massive recall and investigation that cost Audi dearly in sales and reputation. The end result? Stupid drivers who couldn't tell the difference between the accelerator and the brake.

Love is...?

Fluffy car mats? I doubt it. Jewellery? Not likely. If you live in America, apparently it's a car. Yes, for the last couple of weeks, the car companies have been touting the valentine's day events - give your loved one a Mercedes, or a Lexus. That's not really a gift is it? It's more of a statement of how outrageously wealthy and/or materialistic you are. There's no real thought goes into buying your wife a car.
Here's my suggestion : grab her some roses on the way home, and a nice box of chocolates. Cook her dinner, take her out to the theatre or a movie. These are all better ways of demonstrating your affection than saying "honey, check out the blown head, dual overhead cams and six pot Brembo's on this little beauty!"

Unless your wife is a gearhead, in which case, go crazy.

Happy Valentine's day :-)

Taking the piss

If you competed in Formula 1, you'd expect to be highly paid, right? I mean 19 events all over the world, racing at 170mph, putting yourself at risk, doing publicity etc etc. And you would be right. Lewis Hamilton earned $16.5M last year. Not too shabby. Now let's put that in perspective: adulterer and alleged golfer Tiger Woods earned $90.5M last year. That's taking the piss. He hits a ball with a stick and gets 8 times as much as the world's top paid racing driver? It does seem a little unbalanced especially when you compare the workload. Methinks Tiger Woods needs to be taken down a peg or two. He's not worth $90,000 let alone $90M, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Checking for alignment problems with your hands

Here's a tip from a reader this week. How to detect alignment problems early using a simple hand rub test on your tyres. Specifically feathering due to improper toe-in alignment. What's neat about this test is that it requires no tools other than perhaps a damp rag.
This test will detect feathered tires long before you can spot any feathering visually and takes about a minute to check all four tyres.
- Take the damp rag, and clean mud, debris, etc from the top area of the tyre's tread portion that you will test. (You don't have to wait for the tyre to dry.) If the tyre is already clean, you can skip this step.
- Stand with the tyre directly in front of you. Using your preferred hand, open your hand so it is flat. Place your hand on top of the tyre.
- Now rub the tyre applying moderate pressure. First push your hand away from you, moving it across the tyre tread, then draw your hand back towards you. Do this a few times so have a good "feel" of the tyre's surface.
- Repeat with the three other tyres.
An UNFEATHERED tire will feel pretty much the same in both directions of your hand's travel. You will be able to feel the edge of each tread as your hand slides over it, so it won't feel perfectly smooth, but it won't feel like you are rubbing over a knife blade either. The key point is the tyre tread surface will feel the same in both directions.
A tyre that is feathered due to excessive toe-out will have a sharp outside edge on each tread block, and the inside edge of each tread block will be excessively worn down, thus you will feel the sharp edge as you push your hand away, and the tread will feel smooth as you draw your hand towards you. The tyre surface will will different on the push stroke than it does on the pull stroke. Push = sharp. Pull = smooth.
A tyre that is feathered due to excessive toe-in will have a sharp inside edge on each tread block, and the outside edge of each tread block will be excessively worn down, thus you will feel the sharp edge as you pull your hand towards you, and the tread will feel smooth as you push your hand away from you. The tyre surface will will different on the push stroke than it does on the pull stroke. Push = smooth. Pull = sharp.
If a pair of tyres become toe misaligned by say 3 millimeters after a tyre hits an object, you will be able to detect the resulting feathering using this method within a few hundred miles after the event, long before any serious damage to the tread occurs.

New hosting plan

A mid-week blog post this week to ask the regular readers to lend a helping hand. I've recently had to migrate my site to a dedicated host because of the traffic levels it was receiving. This is a lot of work and there are dozens of paths, variables and other things that I've had to check and check again. Everything on my site does seem to work but I'm concerned I might have missed something. Sort of like when you get done putting a transmission back together and discover one M13 bolt lying on the ground.
So I would appreciate a quick comment here or email contact if you find anything on the site which is obviously broken.
Thanks !

Driving in Korea

Recently I was on a business trip in Korea and it was quite the experience when driving over there. Red traffic lights don't mean anything, neither do kerbs, road markings or stop signs for that matter. It was like driving in London but without rules. On top of that, of course, we had a Korean GPS which was hugely entertaining but completely useless to us. And to compound matters one step further, the rental company gave us a car with a mere 8km on it and told us to bring it back with no damage. So no pressure then.
Fortunately, most of our commute was between a hotel on the outskirts of Daejeon and a manufacturing plant out near the suburbs. We were able to use the outer ring road most of the time but even that was quite the experience. It's difficult to say this, but Korean drivers make people in Utah look like highly trained police drivers.

The Dakar Rally 2011

To the average American, this blog post might as well be written in Greek.In a country where NASCAR is considered track racing, and the Baja is considered to be an off-road race, the annual Dakar rally is almost unheard of, which is a shame because it's the longest, toughest off-road race staged anywhere. Part of the reason is the abominable TV coverage. It should of course be covered by Speed channel, but instead it's covered by Versus - predominantly a golfing channel. It's a half-hour program each night, which because of the adverts means it's 22 minutes. They spend 5 minutes doing filler pieces with some woman who thinks we're interested in "local flavour" and 5 minutes insulting a Eurosport presenter by consistently mispronouncing his name (they call him "gerr-nott" when it's pronounced "zher-no"). You'd never know there were more than 5 cars and 5 bikes racing to see the Versus coverage. No mention of the quad bikes, the independent entries, or the 400-plus other vehicles. And barely any mention of the trucks. For the Dakar fans, you know what the trucks are. For the Americans, we're not talking those silly little trophy truck things you drive across Baja. In the Dakar rally, they race derivatives of the team support trucks - arguably the most spectacular vehicle segment of the rally and yet Versus must have spent a full 2 minutes of airtime over the last 14 days talking about them. If you love the Dakar rally, petition Speed channel to cover it next year. We'll all thank you.
Dakar truck racing at its best:

CES and Save The Ring

First up: CES 2011. I've written a show report from a car-nerd's point of view following my trip to Vegas for the Consumer Electronics show. You can find my show report here.CES 2011 show report.
Secondly: I don't know if you've ever driven the Nurburgring Nordschleife but if you haven't, you should. And therein lies the rub. Up until last year, the Ring was publicly owned but last year it was sold to two venture-capitalists who added a bunch of stuff that the Ring didn't need - a huge shopping mall and massive hotels that are always empty, a roller coaster that has never worked, and a bunch of other enticements for tourists. They did this without due diligence - ie. they did this based on the published numbers from the German tourism authority who had stats about annual attendance at the Ring. Unfortunately, the stats had been somewhat padded. In one year, 370,000 enthusiasts turned up but the published attendance figure was over 2 million. Anyway, the two venture-capitalists are now bankrupt and the Ring is faced with a $400M bill with no way to pay it off. Nobody is quite sure what the future holds now but there's a very real possibility that Nordschleife will be closed, only to live on in memory and racing video games. As a car nut, this will clearly be an intolerable thought to you, so if you're on Facebook, please sign up to the Save The Ring page and watch for updates.