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.