Balls to Bad Road Signs

This sign infuriated me recently.

Or did it?

 

No, I don't suppose it did really.   But the road layout it "helps" you with did.  It's like a big square roundabout on the edge of Swansea near the waterfront development.

 

If you don't go there often and you don't have a sat-nav it is a bugger to negotiate it.

 

But it would have infuriated this man for a different reason:

His name is Matt Parker and he dislikes the representation of a football so much that he started a petition (signed by 20000 people) to get it changed. The BBC have the story here. He is a maths geek and knows that a football made up of all hexagons, like the one on the sign, could not exist.  You need some pentagons.

 

Now I am a football fan and a maths geek. I could argue that this representation is OK because the roadsign is flat but that would be missing the point.

 

The Department of Transport say:

 

"The purpose of a traffic sign is not to raise public appreciation and awareness of geometry which is better dealt with in other ways.

If the signs were corrected, it would only be visible close up and not from the distance at which drivers will see the sign.

The higher level of attention needed to understand the geometry could distract a driver's view away from the road for longer than necessary which could therefore increase the risk of an incident."

But what about the distraction for drivers trying to mentally recreate a sphere from hexagons and realising that there is a fundamental error on the sign?

Meanwhile, for any Americans reading this - I would like to point out that the item in the picture that you think is a football is actually a rugby ball.  The football is the round item.

Here is a rugby picture for no other reason than I think it looks nice:

Working Up Your Speed

The BBC report today that the Motorway roadworks speed limit could be increased.  It is currently 50mph.

There's been a study.

The tests took place at 60mph on the M5 between junction 4A and junction 6, and at 55mph on the M3 in Surrey between junction 3 and 4A.

The study found 60% of those who drove in the 60mph trial zone had a decreased average heart rate, while it was lower for only 56% of those on the 55mph journey.

Therefore, if they raised it to 100mph, there would be a decreased heart rate for 100% of those taking part.  (I have a Degree in Statistics)

But the heart-rates of the road-workers would be much higher.

That is the main issue here I think - the safety of the workers on these sites.  A union spokesman said: "Sadly, in recent years there have been several deaths of motorway workers and these changes will make their work even more dangerous. Already motorists frequently drive into coned-off areas. At increased speeds, it will make such potentially lethal accidents even more common."

However, many stretches of motorway roadworks look like this:

...without a worker in sight.  These are the places they can up the speeds - the workers can then bring with them signs reducing the speed limit when they set up in the morning.

Or would that be too sensible?

Dodgy Policemen

The BBC tell us today that "Humberside Police defends social media pictures of officers on dodgems."

This annoys me.

Not the officers.

Or the BBC for telling us about them.

Here they are, by the way:

No, what annoys me is that they feel they have to defend themselves for what is, after all, just a bit of fun PR.

But The Sun doesn't see it like that.

The Sun claims that "residents were furious".

But, since The Sun is a pointless Tory rag read by thick people and most famous for its lies, I don't think Humberside Police have any need to defend themselves.

A spokesman for the killjoy Sun said the "newspaper" stands by its story.

He added: "We are happy with the story we ran and it speaks for itself."

They said that about Hillsborough too.

Cooking Up Something Interesting

A couple of Autoguide stories piqued my interest today.

The first was this.

Apparently, the 2018 Chevrolet Traverse RS isn't very good.

I'd never heard of the Chevrolet Traverse (it obviously hasn't traversed the Atlantic Ocean) - but it certainly doesn't look very good:

Which is odd because it is basically just a slightly stretched 2017 Land-Rover Discovery without the off-road skills...

 ...or interior, or badge, or engineering.

And the Land-Rover looks OK.

Which brings me on to the other Autoguide story.  This tells of how Land-Rover Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) division have turned a Discovery into a mobile kitchen for Jamie Oliver - who I didn't realise had traversed the Atlantic Ocean.  He must have done so though because Autoguide seem to know who he is.

Apart from the daft looking hub caps, it is quite an impressive kitting-out job they've done.

I'd have been happy with just the toaster:

Murray's Looking Mint

At least he is for someone who turns 94 in nine days time:

I speak, of course, of Murray Walker.  Although he does now remind me of Waldorf from Statler & Waldorf: 

It was good to see him so spritely and knowledgeable when interviewed today on ITV4 while attending the season finale of the BTCC at Brands Hatch.

 

And what a season finale it was.

 

My favourite, Colin Turkington (actually my favourite is Colin's team-mate Rob Collard but he was recovering from a nasty crash at the previous meeting in Silverstone) went into the first of today's three races slightly behind on points but miles behind on the starting grid.  The race went badly for him and it looked like he, realistically, was out of the running at the end of the race.  He then brilliantly stormed through to win the second race and was suddenly back in contention.  Unfortunately, he got knobbled by a bit of bad luck early in the third so the 2017 BTCC Champion is: 

Congratulations and full marks to Ash who has been consistent and raced like a champion - especially since he had an uncompetitive car for the first couple of meetings - and it's only his second season racing in the BTCC.

 

Meanwhile, his more famous team-mate has had a very poor season - as I discussed back in May.

 

While Colin and Rob's other team-mate has also done relatively poorly - as I sort of predicted back in November.

 

Meanwhile, this guy has had a pretty good season:

I know he looks like a stand-up comedian there, but he is Tom Ingram.  He won the Independent Drivers Championship and came third overall in the main championship.  Which is very impressive because he drives for Speedworks - which is a teeny tiny team.

 

Congratulations, Tom - definitely not a muppet.