Parking Made Complicated

This story took a bit of getting my head around.

Here in the UK, you can rent out the driveway of your home to someone who needs a parking space in the vicinity.  Martin Lewis has an article about it here.

Similar schemes seem to run in Australia.

One of them is called "Parking Made Easy" and it is them who feature in the story above.  The story is headlined...

Wish someone would pay your parking fine? Now they can.

If you sign up to their service, they will pay off your parking fines or help with putting together appeal letters if you want to challenge your fine.

So what is to stop you parking wherever you like and then getting them to pay your fines?

Herein lies the catch.

They will only pay off the fine of one lucky winner of a draw performed every month.  Bad news for the motorists of Queensland at least...

Queensland motorists owe $42.3 million in unpaid parking fines

So the initial headline is misleading.

Maybe not surprising since the author, Kathryn Fisk admits to having worked for The Sun - a paper aimed at the hard of thinking.  She has also apparently worked on two "renowned" UK regional publications although I can't find anything by her outside of Australia.  Google does come up with the message, "Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe." which means that someone has stated that they don't want irrelevant stuff they've done searchable.  So I tried Bing.  Someone in Silicon Valley must have been briefly excited that somebody outside of Microsoft had just used Bing but they also couldn't find anything by her.

You'd probably have more luck finding an article by me.

Florida Man

There's this thing on The Internet whereby you put "Florida Man" and your birthday into Google and you get stories about idiots.

Florida Man makes Norfolk Man look normal.

If it is your birthday today you will find this Fox headline

Florida man's 'very unusual parking' job leads to DUI arrest

Here's the picture:

And here's the story.

I decided to put "Florida Man Car" into Google:

• Florida Man Drives Bizarre Chopped Car For An Unbelievable Reason
• Florida Man Steals Two Police Cars During Chase
• Florida man threw his two-month-old baby at police after high-speed car chase
• Florida man 'crashed car through airport gate before running into cockpit of Coast Guard plane'
• Florida man dressed as Fred Flintstone pulled over for driving 'footmobile'

Dazzling

My Easter treat this year, apart from a large Yorkie Easter Egg, was discovering I could get at the Car+Driver website again.

It is just a bit less than a year since I reported losing access to one of my favourite car sites - but now it's back!  I wonder if they suffered any advertising drop through reduced world-wide clicks?

I now have access to this story for example which shows the result of a 40mph crash-test on a Honda HR-V:

Not to be confused with their model for middle-aged women, the HR-T.

 

Sobering, isn't it?

 

Anyway, I now have no need to visit the Google-Translated version of the Spanish language Car+Driver site.

 

However, if I didn't go there, I may have missed this story about a German Porsche Panamera owner told to repaint his car:

The Police have responded to complaints from other motorists that they are being dazzled when out driving in the sunlight.  He is looking to contest this decision in the courts.

 

It is true, as mentioned in the article, that other people have gold supercars such as this one:

But they are probably all in Dubai - where everyone is used to the glint of gold all the time.

A Crushing Blow

If you happen to use the underground car-park in a certain block of flats in S.E.London, you'll have had a shock when you came to get to your car today.

I say "today"- I read this BBC report from today but it doesn't actually say when the event happened.

It's a strange one.  A water pipe has burst causing polystyrene insulation under the floor to expand, raising the cars until they were damaged by the car-park roof:

You wouldn't think polystyrene would be that strong.

I spent ages trying to work out what this car actually is.  It's obvious from the badge that it's a Ford and I've finally decided that it's an Explorer.  It was particularly unfortunate that it was a tall car parked under some pipework - the Fiat 500 next to it looks like it might have got away with it.

The article goes on to say that if any of the cars were removed too hastily it could result in a gas explosion.

An interesting engineering problem.

I wonder who will be paying for this damage - I bet there's no wording in motor insurance policies about vehicles being crushed by rising polystyrene.

Meanwhile, this chart shows rising polystyrene prices:

It is the bit at the end - and it is just Chinese polystyrene prices.  Following plant closures in April, production of polystyrene has been reduced, tightening supply and causing prices to rise. Increased demand for high impact polystyrene (HIPS) and expandable polystyrene (EPS) in particular further supported the price rise. However, despite lower production rates and rising production costs, coupled with high demand, prices still remained down 20% year-on-year.

It's amazing what you learn when you put "rising polystrene" into Google.

A Couple of Daft News Stories

In a difficult week, we need some lighter news.

Last Friday, Car+Driver gave us this story:

It involves a Google Self-Driving car being stopped by a traffic cop in California for driving too slow.  Another reason to dislike these horrible little vehicles.  The Google marketing spin was quite good though:

"We’ve capped the speed of our prototype vehicles at 25mph for safety reasons. We want them to feel friendly and approachable, rather than zooming scarily through neighborhood streets. Like this officer, people sometimes flag us down when they want to know more about our project. After 1.2 million miles of autonomous driving (that’s the human equivalent of 90 years of driving experience), we’re proud to say we’ve never been ticketed!"

Not yet anyway.  They've not yet had their CHiPs.

Talking of Friday 13th and ghosties and googlies, do you know what this is?

Well I'll tell you.

It's a ghost trying to recall.

While today, The Telegraph tell us that Rolls Royce are trying to recall a Ghost.

Just the one.

Literally one car.

Not one model range - one car.

In America.

They have a product recall out on a Rolls-Royce Ghost like this one but with a dodgy airbag labelling issue:

Now, with possibly ineffective airbags, I hope it doesn't go bump in the night.

Now There's Two of Them

I've always hated the BMW X6:

I've made it no secret that I categorise it alongside the Fiat Multipla, the Google Self-Driving car and the Hyundai Atoz as a completely stupid looking car.

Unfortunately, it looks like 250000 sales means that there a lot of people who like it.

Including Mercedes:

Meet the GLE Coupe.

Or BMW X6 as I'd call it.

This interesting little article from caradvice.com.au, Mercedes-Benz’s global chief of design Gorden Wagener spills the beans - or the Benz.

Looking at the comments at the bottom of the article, the car fans of Australia tend to agree with me.

Wagener admits that BMW invented the SUV coupe segment but reckons it overcomplicates its designs with complex surfacing.  It may have been true in the Chris Bangle days but not so much now.

He goes on to say, "...in the end I think we managed to do a very unique car, a very clean car that is essential for our purity philosophy, it’s quite sexy and sculptured."

Very unique!  Very unique!   OK, I'll let that pass since English isn't his first language - but it isn't even slightly unique and it certainly isn't sexy.

Sexy like James Bond is sexy?

But then again, the Mercs are always driven by the baddies.

Driverless Cars are not Good-ish

Perhaps they are Rubb-ish.

I went to see Dave Gorman live a few weeks ago.  He was more than good-ish.  If you don't know him, he presents a series on the Dave Channel called "Modern Life is Good-ish".  Part of this involves him performing seomething called a Found Poem which is where he takes comments made by idiots on the Internet at the bottom of news stories and turns them into something very funny.

Here is his found poem about the beef-being-substituted-by-horse-meat scandal from earlier this year.


He also produced a very fine poem about Google's driverless cars - although the funniest line in it wasn't made by an idiot - it was made by a genius (which is incidentally the name of another show Dave Gorman did)

That line was:

"Why does it have wing-mirrors?"

Well, it looks like that question has now been answered along with my main worry from July when I looked at driverless cars.

The answers appear in this article from caradvice.co.au

The article states that:

The long-awaited Google self-driving car has been uncovered with the technology company claiming it is “the best holiday gift we could’ve imagined”.

No it isn't.   It now has legal requirements such as those mirrors and working lights and safety features that the lack of concerned me - such as a steering wheel and controls.

 

It provides more Found Poem fodder...

...and it still looks stupid.

A Software Engineer and a Hardware Engineer are in a Car Driving down a road...

Suddenly, there is a catstrophic steering failure and the car slams into a tree and catches fire.

The engineers manage to get out and the hardware engineer suggests phoning the emergency services.

But the software engineer says, "No, let's just get back in and see if it happens again."


So, who's Getting Excited About Driverless Cars?

Not me.

But The BBC are.

Three stories from them since it was announced that driverless cars will be allowed on British shores.

Here's the first one that makes the announcement.

Then Business Secretary Vince Cable had a ride in one.

Then a BBC Journalist had a go.

The Government want cities to bid for the right to trial driverless cars next January.  I hope none do.  But if are going to get lumbered with them, at least let them be like in the video with someone competent and sober at the steering wheel to take control.  I could live with that.

I don't like Vince Cable much since he helped his mate get the Lib Dem leadership by shafting the likeable Charles Kennedy in return for a senior post within the Party.  But that's beside the point.  He was asked in the report whether or not he was nervous.  Stupid question - he was travelling slowly-ish on a private test-track with massive run-off areas next to a professional test-driver who could take control at any second.  It's not like he'd accepted a high-speed lift across London off Charles Kennedy.

Maybe it is because I like cars and driving that I don't like the idea of driverless cars - I foresee accidents unless these cars go so slowly that they can cater for all of the eventualities that may or may not have been programmed in to them.  They are unlikely to travel above the speed limit and I doubt if they will get the concept of accelerating OUT of trouble.

But at least if someone in the driver's seat can arrest control, it shouldn't be too horrific - assuming he isn't texting or reading a book or having forty winks at the time.  Or blind drunk.  Or blind.

The Google driverless cars seem much scarier.  They have no steering wheel or pedals and a top speed of 25mph.  They will have no facility for a human to take control, other than an emergency stop button.  That will be really useful when an out-of-control bus is heading straight towards you.  I chose bus for dramatic effect but a motorbike would be bad enough.

Oh yes, and they look stupid.

Patently Daft

This story from engadget.com tells us that Google has applied for a patent on gesture-based car controls.  Their proposed system relies on both a ceiling-mounted depth camera and a laser scanner to trigger actions based on an occupant's hand positions and movements.

 

Examples they cite are: Swipe near the window and you'll roll it down; point to the radio and you'll turn the volume up.

Examples they don't cite are: Wave both arms in the air and you'll crash; give a one-finger salute to a Police vehicle that is following you and you'll get arrested.

Apparently, Google has acquired a motion control company so they will be looking for uses for it.

I'm not convinced this is the best one.

Voice-activated controls are improving so that they are actually usable now, combining them with this may actually make it more dangerous to be in a car - what if a nervous passenger finds a spider in the car?

Besides, Google are also developing their driverless cars so none of this should be needed.

As ever, I do enjoy reading the comments at the bottom of online articles - this one produced some good ones:

Examples I cite are NewGawker, who states "This won't work in Italy" and my personal favourite, fsmarin who, on seeing the picture above asks, "Why is a monkey driving a bus?"