How NOT to mount your phone when driving

I was recently browsing sites that offer car-mounts for my phone and I came across one from a company called 'Studio Proper'. The mount looks awesome but their promo video advertises the absolute worst location for a phone mount that you could imagine. In the video, they have it at eye-level, just a little off-centre from the steering wheel. Seriously - check it out for yourself here : https://vimeo.com/113662097
I know in places like California it's against the law to have anything mounted to your windscreen, but what they show in that video is just irresponsible. From the driver's point of view, yeah - great access to the phone. But it comes at the expense of being able to see anything out the right side of the windscreen. At one point in the video you even see a pedestrian disappear behind the phone because of it's location in the car.
The sad thing is I see people mount their phones and GPS's like this all the time, and it amazes me how they haven't the common sense to realise how dangerous they're being when doing this. But to see a company selling a phone mount and doing this bad a job with their PR video was a real facepalm moment for me.

RIP Top Gear - we knew you well

So the BBC did what we expected the old dinosaur to do - they cancelled Top Gear. Well technically, they haven't yet - all they've done is sack Clarkson. But given that James May and Richard Hammond won't do the show without him, effectively Top Gear is dead. If Chris Evans - the rumoured frontrunner replacement - becomes the main presenter, then the BBC will have pulled off the impossible by making a show that is actually worse than the US Top Gear. And believe me - that would be hard to do.
The BBC mishandled this in the style only they could. They should have kept this quiet and done the investigation whilst continuing to finish (and air) the three remaining episodes. The presenter's contracts were all up for renewal at the end of this season anyway. The BBC could simply have not renewed Clarkson's contract, and then stated the reason for it. But to blow this up out of all proportion and turn it into the public airing of their dirty laundry has cost them a lot. It's cost them credibility, to start with. We know it's also lost them about 4M viewers in the UK. Worldwide, the financial cost is pretty steep. They're in the hole for at least £250,000 for cancelling the Norway Top Gear Live - and that's just in ticket sales alone. Lost revenue from the 180 countries that air the show could come to anything up to another £200M per year. Factor in the magazine, live events, books, DVDs and all the other tie-ins and merchandising and that could creep up to £250M per year. Then there's the lawsuits that they will have to settle with all the TV stations with whom they're now in breach of contract to supply the show - that'll be a one-time cost but it will be expensive.
And why? Because the hyppocritical leeches at the BBC continued to make money hand-over-fist whilst publicly complaining about Clarkson at every opportunity. They're archaic dinosaurs who have no idea how to handle their own talent and deal with their own problems without them becoming public. Interviews with other former BBC alumni like Noel Edmonds have revealed just how terrible the Beeb are to work for.
So what now? My money is on Sky or Netflix - my hope is Netflix because they have no advertisers, which means Ambitious But Rubbish could shine there. The BBC will continue to attempt to make Top Gear, I suspect, but it will slowly die a long, agonising death. My suspicion is that it'll take a couple of years for them to realise they have nothing, and they'll swap presenters three or four times trying to come up with the magic combination before the inevitable happens.

Be wary when filling a rental car near an airport.

It almost goes without saying but I'll say it anyway: if you're returning a rental car to an airport and you need to fill up, use your brain. A couple of weeks ago I was returning a car at Orlando airport and needed to fill it. On the road out of the north side of the airport I came across two filling stations opposite each other. One was over $6 a gallon and the other was $5.95 a gallon. My initial reaction was a very loud WTF. Why? Because literally 15 seconds further north, on the next block, petrol was under $2 a gallon. Think about that for a moment. For the sake of driving an extra 15 seconds I spent 66% less for the petrol. You see this everywhere of course - the petrol stations near Heathrow Terminal 4 and 3 ask silly money for petrol. The big Shell station just south of Amsterdam airport is 25% more than anywhere else in the country.  But triple the price? This was the most blatant price gouging I've seen in a long long LONG time. I'm calling these guys out: Suncoast Energys and Sun Gas on South Semoran Blvd: you guys are criminals of the lowest order. 

For everyone returning a car at Orlando, drive one block further to the Wawa and save yourself a crapload of money. 

The BBC don't understand Top Gear

So we were all robbed of Top Gear this weekend because that dinosaur of broadcasting - the BBC - doesn't understand the very show it produces. Yes, Jeremy Clarkson shouted and swore at a producer. Maybe he hit him - that bit is still unclear. If I'd worked all day in the cold and rain, with the expectation of a hot meal at the end of it, I think I would have had the same reaction if the person who's job it was to arrange that meal had (for whatever reason) not done so. But for the BBC to react the way it has is symptomatic of a larger problem - they've had it in for Clarkson for a year or so now and they're looking at this as the golden opportunity to get rid of him.
The BBC demonstrably don't understand Top Gear. They said this weekend that it would survive without Clarkson. They indicated that Dancing With The Stars survived a change of host, and that was proof enough. The difference is - people don't watch a dancing show for the presenters - they watch it for the dancing. Top Gear's success hinges on the presenters as well as the cars. Proof of that can be seen in the failed Japanese, American and Australian versions of the show. Despite the same format and the same filming and editing quality, the 'talent' was just not there.
So what to do? The obvious choice would be for Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May to abandon The Olde Worlde and offer their services to Sky or Netflix. The show wouldn't be called Top Gear but those of us who understand the show would follow them to wherever they end up. For sure, both of those companies would give an arm and a leg to have the hosts come to their networks, to the point where they stated this weekend that they would pay Hammond and May out of their contracts with the Beeb. The BBC claim that the three of them wouldn't have the freedom to do what they do now if they were beholden to a commercial TV station with advertisers to satisfy. Again - the BBC don't understand the power of Top Gear. Despite the idiocy of the show, manufacturers are clamouring to get their products on there. They know that any publicity is good publicity, even if three middle-aged farts hate the car.
The worst outcome could be that Top Gear is cancelled, and Clarkson, Hammond and May go their own ways never to do another motoring show. If that happens, we can all look back on this week as the week that the BBC demonstrated that they had no idea how to handle their single biggest intellectual propery. 350M viewers, 170 countres, magazines, DVDs, specials and all the other ancilliaries. Financially speaking, if Top Gear goes away, the BBC will have to shut down at least one of its other TV stations (likely BBC4) and at least one of its radio stations as it simply doesn't have the cashflow with TG out of the picture.
#bringbackClarkson

Top Gear made a valid point.

Everyone loves to hate Jeremy Clarkson, especially the Daily Mail with their not-so-secret hate campaign against him. But every once in a while a jewel of information pops out that is both funny and actually true.
A couple of weeks ago, Top Gear asked why the speed limit on motorways in England is still 70mph. The answer it seems is because of the decades-old advice that states that it takes 315ft to come to a complete stop at 70mph. Maybe in the 60's that was true, when cars had drum brakes, cross-ply tyres and flimsy frames. But as Clarkson pointed out, in modern ABS-equipped vehicles with independent suspension and radial tyres, the stopping distance from 70mph is nothing like 315ft - even in the wet. Less still if you have any of the current crop of brake assist technologies.
The point was well made when they indicated that to actually take 315ft to stop, you could be cruising at over 120mph nowadays. The point was made in typical Top Gear fashion but it was an important topic nevertheless. The highway code has not updated it's guidance on stopping distances for decades, and the speed limits on modern roads are not commensurate with modern driving practices or vehicle design. Maybe it's time we all revisited that particular topic.....

Once again, higher speed limits = lower accident rates

A couple of months ago, our local roads authority (UDOT, in Utah) decided that the speed limit on the motorways should be raised from 65mph to 70mph. At least up in the north of the state. The press and media were full of hysterical women screaming "won't somebody think of the children" and dire warnings from random people interviewed on the street about how it was going to be a bloodbath, a massacre, a dark day for road safety etc etc blah blah blah. The highway patrol were remarkably quiet about it - the one spokesman who did get interviewed said they would reserve judgement.
Well - as has happened pretty much everywhere this has been tried - guess what? Accident rates have fallen. The same happened in southern Utah when the limit was raised to 80mph. The same happened in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Greece, Sweden, Norway and all the other locations where enlightened authorities have realised that it's not the speed that is the problem, it is the DIFFERENCE in speed that is the problem, especially on motorways.
Now I know this isn't a popular view - the truth often isn't. But the facts speak for themselves and the theory behind it is simple and sound. It is this: A huge percentage of drivers are already breaking the speed limit and driving at 75. The law-abiding drivers are doing the posted limit - 65. This means the largest speed differential between the average driver and the law-abiding driver is 10mph. Raise the limit to 70 and the faster drivers don't suddenly all do 80 - they keep going at the speeds they're used to - 75. The difference is that the law-abiding drivers are now doing 70 and the differential has been cut in half to 5mph. That gives you a lot more time to react when everyone is travelling at speeds that are more closely matched. In areas where the limit was raised to 80, the speed differential has effectively become zero. In those areas, people were already doing 80, now the law-abiding drivers are doing the same speed.
Meanwhile back in England, they're crusading to lower the limit from 70mph to 50mph on the motorways. Although that's nothing to do with safety and everything to do with making money through automated speed cameras.