Safety First and Last

Drive.com.au have this story today about car safety features.

Apparently drivers hate them.

I think it's mostly the lane assist and the warnings about exceeding the speed limit.

My car has both.

But it's a 2020 car so I switched off the lane assist when I first got it and the speed warning is just a subtle flashing of the speed limit indicator in the head-up display and speedo centre which is very easy to ignore.

No bonging.

Worldwide legislation has decreed that all newer cars have to have these things mush more annoying, harder to switch off and for them to switch themselves back on when you restart the engine/ignition.

The story is about a survey by AAMI, who seem to be a major Australian Insurer, about safety features drivers are turning off and why.

Although the "why" is obvious.

Apparently, AAMI have a bloke called Steve who is their "Motor Insights and Operations Manager" and he seemed surprised at how many drivers were switching them off.  He seemed to be encouraging people not to do this but his arguments were not exactly convincing:

“We're really encouraging people to understand how these safety systems work and learn how to use these and get the best out of them so it can be safer for you and all other road users.”

“If you're picking up a new car, spend that time to actually get the dealer to show you how these features work.

“They'll spend time with you to help you understand those features, which will then enable you to build trust and confidence in using them.

"These systems are there to help you, not replace you."

Car reviews are now pointing out how annoying these features are and which cars are best for mitigating the annoyance.

Which sort of defeats the whole purpose of the annoyance in the first place.

I asked Google AI about this - it was more helpful than Steve:

Easily Deactivated Systems:

Peugeots, Renaults, and Nissans:

These brands are often highlighted for having systems that can be easily turned off with a single button press or a combination of button presses, allowing drivers to quickly and efficiently disable driver assistance features.

Citroën:

Similar to the above, Citroën is mentioned for placing buttons for these systems conveniently close to each other, allowing for easy, simultaneous deactivation.

Hyundai and Kia:

These manufacturers have also incorporated a press-and-hold function on some steering wheel buttons, achieving a similar result of quick deactivation.

Systems that are Less Intrusive or More Easily Managed:

Volvo:

Volvo's driver assistance systems, particularly the lane keeping system, are often praised for being well-calibrated and only activating when truly necessary, reducing the need for frequent deactivation.

Volkswagen:

Volkswagen is mentioned for having a speed limit warning system that is quiet and unobtrusive, making it less likely to be a nuisance.

Skoda:

Skoda's systems are noted for staying off even after the car is restarted, which is a feature not always offered by other manufacturers.

Audi:

Audi's safety systems are mentioned for being subtle and effective, with features that can be easily curated or turned off. 

It seems to have got this information from an article in the Daily Telegraph but I'm not going to link to it because:

a) It wants your email address before it will let you read it

b) It's The Daily Telegraph

Anyway, the moral of this is, if you want people to be safer, don't make the safety systems that are annoying and therefore unsafe.

Back To the Future

No, it's not a DeLorean story, it's a BMW story.

Most motoring websites (like Car+Driver here) are picking up on BMW's Vision Neue Klasse which is supposed to be the electric future of the 3-Series.

and it looks bloody good:

Probably because it is s retro design harking back to the beautiful BMWs of the 1960s.  Although the back is very Alfa Romeo:

The important thing is it doesn't have the stupid nostrils/beaver teeth of the modern cars:

Interior looks more like a conservatory and the seat covers are corduroy:

Yes - corduroy!

The sort of material you would find on the trousers of the people in this video from the past:

Trussed Up

I'm getting fed up of Autocar's car news.

It seems to just now be "business insights" that you have to register for or repeats of slideshows.

So I decided to go back to my old favourite - Auto Express car news.

There they had a couple of stories from earlier in the week about how our new feeble-minded, Thatcher-Wannabe Prime Minister was trying to woo the 180000 old white men who got to choose the replacement for the bumbling lecherous Churchill-Wannabe liar.

I'm talking, of course, about Liz Truss:

Hang on, that might be the wrong picture.

Yes, this one is Liz Truss:

You can tell by the spurious union flags.

Anyway, there is one story I actually find myself agreeing with the woman on - she is not a fan of Smart Motorways and suggests the evidence she's seen indicates the concept has failed.

Too bloody right it has - people have died!

The story is here.  Every time I drive to Manchester on the M56 I get slowed down by the roadworks behind the conversion of a stretch of it into Smart Motorway - I dread the day it is opened so that doubles the torture.

Just because you call something "smart" it doesn't mean it actually is - look at Liz Truss for example.

In the other story, she suggests that she is “prepared” to look into scrapping mandatory speed limits on motorways as prime minister.  Now using words like "suggest" and "prepared to look into" means that this is as likely to happen as the 40 new hospitals Boris promised us.

And is she saying she wants to make us more like Germany!?

We could have stayed in the EU for that.

This story wouldn't have chimed with the old men voting for the PM so maybe that is why the final voting went a lot closer than most people - me included - thought it would.

Never mind.

At least Priti Patel is gone.

Renault T-Wing-O

Is this a very lucky German?

My initial thoughts are "No - he drives on old Twingo."

But he has just saved £93 by having most of his face obscured by a dove in the speed camera photo.

And he has managed to get an old Twingo up to 34mph.

The story is here with German Police citing Divine Intervention.  Apparently a number plate and an ear are not enough for a conviction over there.

I think it just means that God does not approve of 18.6mph speed zones.

The Sky's The Limit

The Gammons that infest the BBC News Have-Your-Say section are not happy.

They are using phrases like "Nanny State".

They are blaming the EU.

This is why.

Here it is in diagram form:

All new cars sold in Europe in 3 years time will have speed limiting devices fitted by law.

 

However, I don't think they should be called "limiters" - because you can still go faster - I don't think Gammons are good at reading articles.  Which is why I expect no abuse from this one (plus nobody usually reads my stuff anyway)

The Department of Transport here has stated that we will also have this rule irrespective of Brexit - not that the EU have ever forced a law on the UK (but Gammons loudly ignore that fact)

My main concern with this technology is the bit in the article where they say:

Under the new rules, cars will also be fitted with compulsory data recorders, or "black boxes"

Now we are getting into dodgy territory.

Pre-2022 cars will be more attractive for this reason.

And what do you do when your speed limit signs get dirty?

Not a problem in Notts. or Norfolk.

Viennese Whirl

The Great British Bake Off starts again next week.

I wonder if they'll make any Viennese Whirls?

I like Viennese Whirls.

Talking of Austria and bakers...

 

An unfortunate Austrian baker has been caught speeding 42 times since he started a new job.

 

He was travelling home in the middle of the night and didn't see the signs or the camera (which used infra-red rather than a flash).

 

Various news sources had the story - here is the BBC version.

 

He elected to pay the fines.

 

It raises several questions...

• Do they have infra-red cameras in the UK?
• Do they not have a points-based system in Austria for motoring offences?
• Why such a long gap between first offence and him finding out about it?
• Why would anyone have a 30kph speed limit?
• Is it possible to drive that slowly in the middle of the night?
• Why did he point out that his wife did not blame him for the expense?
• Any other bakers known for speed?

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?

Why I'm Voting Labour Tomorrow

For the past five years, The Tories & Liberals have been punishing the firemen.  And the teachers.  And the librarians, the doctors, the nurses, the binmen, the Town Hall staff, the police, the soldiers, the street cleaners, the school crossing patrols.  In fact anyone paid by the public purse.  Apart from the politicians.

They have been punishing them for the crimes of the bankers.  This annoys me.

David Cameron says that this austerity is the fault of the mess they inherited from Labour - the huge debt-pile.

Except there is nothing wrong with debt - properly regulated and properly accounted debt.  How else does he expect people to buy these properties that he's forcing the Housing Associations to sell off cheap?  It is the same way Thatcher sold off the Council-owned properties in the '80s.  It is how most of home-owning Britain buys its homes.  It's how I bought mine.

It is with a mortgage.

The problem comes when corrupt bankers decide to give mortgages to people they know cannot afford them.  Then they sell those debts on to other bankers, gullible ones or incompetent ones or greedy ones who then sell them on again.  Until the people who can't pay don't pay.  Then we have the big crash and the world governments have to step in.  That is the real cause of this austerity.

The bankers seem to have gotten away with this though - certainly there aren't any languishing in prison anywhere - and I'm pretty sure they are not worse off than they were five years ago.  Cameron says that the economy is recovering now.  I'm not convinced.  I'm certainly worse off than I was five years ago.

So what about the other parties?

UKIP are just Tories who have argued with their constituency parties.  They have some very right-wing ideas.  They would probably try to reintroduce fox-hunting.  And smoking in pubs.  And probably fox-hunting in pubs.

I live in England so couldn't vote for Plaid Cymru, DUP, Sinn Fein, SNP etc. even if I wanted to.  Although if I lived in Scotland I would be asking myself why The Sun was saying Cameron is no good, vote SNP whereas South of the Border, the Sun is saying Cameron is wonderful and the SNP are trying to hold Britain to ransom.

Next question - what is this doing in a motoring blog?  Where are the usual inane comments about Formula 1 or Top Gear?

Well that brings me on to The Green Party.  Less than a month ago, they wanted to ban my car.  And my wife's.  And, almost certainly yours too.  They have now relented a bit on that and just want to fit future-tech speed limiters to all new cars.  Bad enough in itself but reading the rest of their transport policy does sound like war on the car-owner.

So, that just leaves Labour then.

I Drive a Green Car

It's a V6 2.5 litre all-wheel-drive Jag - but it is green:

I know it's a bit blurry, but that's because it is on Google Streetview.

It also goes faster than "the majority of EU national maximum speed levels"

Which means that the Green Party want it off the road - along with just about every other car that is currently on the UK roads.

Six Green Party members have noticed that this may not be a vote-winner.

Caradvice.com.au alerted me to the story here.

Which prompted me to check out The Mirror story here.

Which prompted me to check out The Green Party's own Website for their Transport Policy.

And sure enough - it is in there - it is well-hidden but it is in there:

"TR310 Vehicles would not be permitted for road use that had the ability to travel at greater speeds than the majority of EU national maximum speed levels."

Now I could be in favour of this...

...if it meant that the majoirity of EU national speed limits were raised to 200mph - the M6 Toll Road is a bit like that now - although it is mostly Zafira Drivers who speed along there for some reason.

But what I suspect the Greens want is for us all to drive around in slow cars.

Perhaps something pre-war - with rubbish brakes and rubbish fuel economy and rubbish passenger-crash-zones and horrific emissions.  They don't want to ban that, but they would ban a Smart Fortwo II 0.8 CDi:

To be fair, I also wouldn't mind that being banned - but that's for different reasons.

The Greens' transport policy looks like war on the motorist.   There are 570 paragraphs and it includes the word "holistic" which is never a good thing.  It also advocates a lot of  "public awareness campaigns" to tell us why what we are doing is wrong.

Believe it or not - I am environmentally friendly -  I cycle and I recycle - a bit - and I don't use my car for unnecessary journeys - but if the Greens want to try to engage with me, they are going to have to be a lot more understanding of the modern world and the fact that people can get a lot of enjoyment from cars and driving.  The world looks very dark under the greens.

Dark green.

Like my car.

Clarkson et le Hamster Sont Interdits

I'm surprised not many sites have got this story.  None of the major newspapers have it, just a few motoring websites.

The story is this one:

It is from a Clarkson article so it will be in The Sun or The Sunday Times.

 

It will be hidden behind a paywall online but I wouldn't want to read either publication anyway since they are part of the odious Murdoch empire.

 

The gist of this is that Clarkson & Richard Hammond have been fined for speeding in France and banned from driving there for three months.

 

Being me, I am suspicious that if this happened, that it was just a publicity stunt for the DVD they were filming that will be out "just in time for Christmas" - the DVD that gets mentioned in the stories of the incident.

 

If it was though, it hasn't worked - yet.  Maybe it's just that nobody at The Mail has noticed it up to now.

 

They were doing 140kph in a 90kph zone that they claim to have thought was a 130kph zone.

 

There's no mention of James May - I guess Capitaine Lente would not have made that mistake.

Independent Suspension (of Belief)

After my recent rants about Telegraph & Mail readers, I think I've found another group who are worse - Independent readers. Now the Independent isn't a right-wing rag - it's relatively neutral with Liberal overtones so you'd expect its readers to be calmer and more rational.

No such luck!

Maybe its middle-of-the-roadness means that supporters of both ends of the political spectrum will read it - and then end up arguing with each other.

This week's topic for discussion is 20mph zones. They started with this story backed up by a survey commissioned by The Independent about how people agree with these zones. Unfortunately, any survey that has been commissioned by an organisation will generally ask questions in a way to back up whatever results that organisation wants to hear so I suspect The Independent want more of these 20mph zones.

Anyway, whatever the case, the readers arguments soon break down to nothing constructive with anti-zoners coming up with "Perhaps we should bring back the original 4mph limit? Complete with the man holding a flag, walking ahead of the car?" followed by pro-zoners coming up with "Or maybe we should all drive flat-out with no limits whatsoever?" Look, if you can't add anything constructive to an argument, don't add anything at all - I wonder if that's why nobody ever comments on my postings? :)

That was Monday, and also on Monday we were given a bit more evidence of The Independent's view when this appeared. It is a very short "comment" article by someone who I presume is an Independent writer called Jonathan Brown. It has the title "The 20mph limit makes streets safer, so why not enforce it?" which may be debatable (ask the ABD - I'm coming to them shortly) followed by the subtitle "As a cyclist and father of two young children I am all in favour of putting people above cars" which implies that anyone not in favour of these zones puts cars above people - a ludicrous statement that makes me not want to bother with the rest of his article - and I speak as a cyclist and father of two youngish children - aren't all children "young" anyway? - that's the definition of being a child?

Well I did read it - it didn't take long and what I learned was that he'd been driving past "signs every few hundred yards" while "driving through the area at least three or four times a week" without being aware of them! No wonder he's in favour of slowing down, what chance to pedestrians have when he's behind the wheel?

The article also told me that "compliance is entirely optional" - I was always taught that a red circle sign was compulsorially to be obeyed - this is good news that I don't need to worry about these pesky 20 zones - makes you wonder why they're there really, doesn't it?

Tuesday saw another article, this time giving the other side of the story. It was entitled "Drivers predicted to lash out at 20mph slowdown zones" It leads with the statement "Motoring organisations hit back at the spread of 20mph speed zones which they claim could make exasperated motorists drive badly." Note the use of the plural there - motoring organisations. So which motoring organisations are we talking about here? - The AA and RAC are the obvious ones - or the IAM?

No, the ABD.

Who?

The ABD - I told you I'd get to them. Keith Peat, spokesman for Alliance of British Drivers and former traffic policeman said: “20mph zones will be counterproductive and create more accidents. What you’ll get is drivers driving to the speedometer. It’s safer that drivers drive to what they’re seeing outside the car and not to what their speed needle is saying.”

Sounds fair enough - and he is a former traffic policeman so he ought to know what he's on about?

Until you actually think about it - we've already been told that these zones are not being enforced - and it's not that difficult to knock it down a gear or two and drive slower while still judging your speed reasonably accurately.

Then look further at the ABD. If you look at the IAM's news page, you get a series of sensible, campaigning, safety-related articles. If you look at the ABD's news page, you get a list of Twitter links to articles where people are angry about parking abuses or that the Russians can clear a road quicker than us or just gloating that the Scottish Police didn't sell any seized cars. This seems to be a bad link on their site, they need to re-point their news index - but it does indicate that the ABD are the Daily Mail readers of the car world. Their Press Releases section is a mixture of the sensible and the scaremongering.

So where does that leave us in the 20mph Zone debate?

Where I live was designated a 20mph Zone a couple of years back. There were signs put up but they were not the red circle type and they were put up too high to be easily noticeable to your average motorist travelling at 30. There was also no publicity that I saw in the local press. I went out to take a photo of one of these signs today and it was gone - as were all of the others in the vicinity. They must have been removed as quietly as they were put up - and nobody seems to have noticed.

20mph Zones do not seem to be the answer to anything but the debate does need to happen - between sensible and informed people - and not in The Independent.

Commuting at 80mph

I'm combining a couple of stories here.

The BBC had a reasonably interesting article today about how Americans are commuting a lot more nowadays highlighting a particular poor woman who has a 2-hour commute in each direction - although it might be better if she didn't use public transport.

It made me think of my own commute which I think I actually enjoy. It's a 25 minute 22-mile journey on motorway and good A Roads which takes me into and then out of Wales through nice bits of countryside. The only downside is, once a week, someone places a dead badger on the side of the A548.

Or, I suppose the badgers living near that road just don't cope well with traffic and it is just coincidence that one a week is being hit.

This compares with my old commute which was only 12.5 miles but took about the same time because it involved a tunnel and lots of city roads and traffic lights - yuk. Oh yes, and driving towards a blinding sun every Spring and Autumn. Never find work East of your home.

My commute would be marginally quicker if I did the motorway bit at 80mph but I wouldn't enjoy it as much and my fuel consumption would definitely suffer. There has been quite a bit of media coverage, even as far afield as Australia, of Government proposals to increase the motorway speed limit from 70 to 80mph.

My good friend in Scotland blogged this subject at the weekend and I added my 2 cents worth for good measure. Then this week, as reported in Autocar and Fifth Gear, Chris Huhne, Government Energy Secretary and prominent Liberal Democrat, came up with the idea that the 80mph limit could perhaps only apply to electric vehicles.

Twerp.

There are so many arguments as to why this is such a stupid idea but how about trying to police it for one.

Also, will Audi drivers be able to buy a stick-on plug socket to make their cars look electric?

Also, how many EVs will run out of juice on the motorway third lane?


I suppose that if you are caught driving your petrol-engined car at 80mph you could always pretend that someone else was driving.