I did a 12 mile round trip every day in Dallas for a summer. Sweat a lot, but didn't have too much trouble. Just take the middle-left of the lane if you don't want the cars 10" from you. Oh, and there are no bike paths in Dallas that aren't recreational only (curved, slow, packed with old people, and follow streams/water).
True only for a well-built area already suffering congestion. Building roads where there isn't congestion, reduces congestion.
If they were to build enough roads to eliminate, not reduce congestion, then the studies would all be wrong. Because they are looking at places massive congestion (meaning pent-up demand to travel people are passing on because the congestion is so bad), and making them a little better.
This "causes" more traffic by allowing the pent-up demand to use the roads. But if the roads weren't already well above capacity, then that effect wouldn't happen. More roads reduce congestion, for uncongested roads, and increase congestion for congested roads when you don't build enough of them.
In short, these studies are deliberately extrapolating narrow results past the range studied, and using that in an anti-road anti-human agenda, based on bad science.
They make 700cc scooters. But yes, a "moped" is generally limited to 50cc (or so, varies on location). But a scooter looks the same, and many have larger engines. Or just any motorbike. The Honda CBR 250R is a great commuter. You should expect 60-75 MPG on it. I've found I do better than that because lane splitting prevents idling, and keeps the speeds more moderate.
The goal instead is to try to promote more efficient use of the road - a whole city block of (single occupant) cars can be cleared up by one bus carrying the same number of people.
The problem is that nobody wants to take the bus. They are slower and more expensive than driving (based on my usage of them in Dallas, Chicago and some other places that one might not expect good bus service), but I haven't been a bus user in LA. The times I've lived in LA, the buses simply didn't run where I needed them to. The 10 mile walk would have been much faster than busing in, switching buses, and busing out, as they required a trip to a hub for a bus change, rather than running rings around the city.
Buses compare with cars like flying cars compare with cars. Perhaps in theory they work. But in reality, they are usually the worst option, used only by the desperate and poor with no other option, furthering the stigma attached to them.
When I lived in Dallas, I saw a few Ferarris, Lambos, and tuner cars (Hennessey and Saleen) stuck in daily traffic on a regular basis. Just yesterday I drove past a McLaren stuck in traffic, and routinely pass R8s, Masaratis, and Aston Martins. But I'm not in Dallas anymore. The R8 (assuming the big engine) would be able to get about 11s.
I've driven non-streetable cars as daily drivers for years. You get used to the fact that 1/10s lapse in concentration can kill.
Yes, the anti-bikers claim that you shouldn't count stop lights against bike waiting time because the bikes don't stop anyways. While also calling for the laws to be enforced against the bikes.
1) Time spent on a bus is time not spent concentrating on traffic. Relax, read a book, maybe do some work.
How does a manual laborer do work on the bus?
2) Every person on a bus is a car not on the road, and that results in sharply lighter traffic.
And every bus with less than X number of people takes up more space and resources than them all in cars. And with a bad bus system that's poorly used, reducing traffic is something they don't do.
I've also found that all libertarians hate democracy. They want a dictatorship, with them as the dictator. None really believe the "anyone else can do what they want" philosophy. They want to tell others what to do just as much as everyone else, but their list is different, so they are better.
Hennessey claims their Viper is streetable (i.e., could be use as a daily driver, is no less practical than a "stock" viper), and will run the 1/4 under 10s.
In my experience you get one pass faster then you safety equipment allows. Then the tech guys are on you.
Not in my experience. Ah Houston Raceway Park, abut 20 years ago, on open days, they'd be pretty relaxed about the rules. Sure, they turned away a 240Z with a 10s dial-in who hadn't made a single run, but some of the guys with a higher dial in were allowed multiple too-fast runs. I think they were really worried about tranny shields, so those close to those numbers were given scrutiny, but they didn't care about roll cages, for those close to the numbers for them. But if you watch a few transmissions blow up under high load, you get worried about the explosion that leaves a corpse that looks like 100 shotgun blasts hit it.
"Still, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, thermoelectric power generation accounts for only 3.3 percent of net freshwater consumption with over 80 percent going to irrigation."
I'm not sure the use in power is as bad as you assert.
How many farms are covered by your utility? There's a large industrial and agricultural use of water in CA. A town of 500k might not have the same level of industry, and if the water utility is catering to residential use inside the city limit, then the usage would be well below CA's per capita.
100% legal to disarm your own airbag. Illegal to sell the car after. You may pay someone to disable it for you, but nobody will (there's uncertain liability around the act, so nobody will do it). After all, what's the first S stand for?
I've never heard of any where it's legal to pull a 3-point system to install a 5-point system, and I've seen 50-state organizations indicate that a 5-point harness is likely illegal (SCCA) and shouldn't be done without care to all local laws and regulations. You may improve a safety system, but any 5-point harness without pre-tensioners would be removal, not improvement of a safety system.
A 5-point system helps even without a cage. So where would you mount it without one? Or don't improve your safety by 50%, if you aren't improving it by 100% you are a fool for only improving it slightly?
Every automaker has complained about having to raise that line to deal with legal requirements, not to make them better pass crash tests, but because they've been legally required to raise the rear impact zone.
Who told you that? The complaints about bumper height are old, and that sounds like someone complaining about bumper height regulations in a new way. I've never seen any regulation that raises the rear impact zone, and I doubt one exists.
Raising the rear increases drag, on its own; when you kick it up over the rest of the lines of the car, you're ultimately just increasing area.
Nope. The high-back is more aerodynamic than any other shape (for practical car shapes). The "teardrop" was considered best for a while, but they learned that the long tail caused more drag than it reduced, and it was more efficient to stop the point nearer the middle of the teardrop. That makes for a very high back. And that's more efficient than a low-back.
You've been reading too many 100 year old aerodynamic books. They managed to make cars, designed with aerodynamics in mind that were better in reverse than going forward.
Reliability. If it works, you have a better result. When it doesn't you have the same result. Behavior assertions assume the answer, then say "but behavior" to justify the pre-determined result, thus were ignored as adding nothing to the discussion. I read it. You are wrong. That I think you are wrong doesn't mean I just didn't understand you. It means I think your augment is invalid, thus your conclusion is wrong.
What would a spacer do? My personal problem is that the pedals are too close, the seat too high, and the steering wheel too far away. I've sat in cars with adjustable all of that, and moved the seat back and down as far as it'd go, the pedals as far away as they'd go, and not counting that the steering wheel was too far away, the pedals were still too close.
I was thinking of the unofficial official tuner cars. The Hennesseys and Saleens of the world. Many of those can beat the 11s time you gave while being streetable. The supercars are very streetable. McLarens and the like. And an NHRA event might not let you run if you put a dial-in time that requires safety gear you don't have. But I've run at NHRA tracks where you can put a 20s dial-in time on a street legal car, and break out with a 10, and they'll give you a talk, but will let you run again, at open days, I've not tried official competitions. Running on a budget, I know plenty of people that put a dial-in time that was just above the level for the next set of safety gear, and would deliberately run slow so as to not break out. It was no longer about the best reaction time and driving for the car, but how to just barely beat the guy in the next lane. When you are against a slower car, it's not hard. You time it to just barely cross first. But against a faster car, it's much harder.
Oh, and SCCA has 55000 members, and NHRA has 40000, so SCCA is larger. The difference is that every NHRA membership is a "license", and SCCA members don't need to be drivers, and there are separate licenses for different events (though most have none required). So the NHRA claims to be bigger, but only by ignoring SCCA members it finds "inconvenient." Counting purely "members" or "drivers" as a while, SCCA is bigger, not 1/10th the size. Counting those with competition licenses only, NHRA is bigger, but only because it has lower requirements for a "license". If the SCCA called every membership an autocross or rally license, then they'd go from smaller than to bigger than the NHRA. Also, if you count unique drivers in officially sanctioned events, SCCA would be even bigger still.
The problem with safety devices is that they are illegal unless they'd let a mostly blind old lady with no reflexes and zero attention span provably improve her driving with no training and no practice or instruction. I've had safety inspectors assert that any 5-point harness is illegal because they've never seen one that would allow the sandard 3-point system to work properly both while the 5-point was in use and not in use. That and most people (illegally) mount a 5-point harness to the existing mounting points (unless they replace their entire driver's seat). So a 5-point harness is essentially illegal in the US for street cars, despite being provably better than 3-point belts.
With that in mind, I expect things that make people feel better, rather than actually increase safety.
But we are too stupid to walk away. "But it's pretty."
I've had to walk away from a Nissan because there wasn't enough headroom. My head was solidly on the ceiling when the seat was adjusted for the proper position. I've also had to scratch off the Ford Taurus because the steering wheel column interfered with my ability to work the pedals.
The only car I've ever sat in where I couldn't work the pedals with the seat in the rearmost position was the Totota MR2 ('91+). Not that that was disqualifying, but that it was interesting at the time.
I've never found a car that had the steering wheel protrude enough for me. I prefer to be far from the pedals and close to the wheel, in a more upright position. I've seen people drive with the seat adjusted such that if they are leaned back into the seat, they can't touch the top of the steering wheel. They drive only using the bottom half of the steering wheel. Yesterday, I passed someone on the highway (going slow int he fast lane) with locked elbows and hands at 10 and 2. And I know people who buy a car and constantly complain about the seating position, as if they never sat in it before buying it, and would never take it back, but want to tell everyone about it. Part of the test drive is making sure you actually fit. I think my best fit was in the '99+ Miata. Headroom was an issue, but I lived in Dallas with covered parking at home and work, so that didn't bother me often. In Dallas it rained hard, but not often (not like Seattle or other places with many light storms). So I'd leave the top down most of the time. Sometimes a month or more between uses. I have no idea what the headroom would have been like under the hard top. But I like the low seat, straight legs, and close wheel. The aforementioned MR2 was also a good fit, but wasn't purchased for other reasons. My current RX-8 has good seating position, but the visibility is shit. My "family" car is a Scion xB, and it's actually not a bad seating position, though much more truck-like than I prefer.
What, you saw that I proved my point so solidly in another post, that you ignored the ones where I proved you wrong, and went after all the other posts I made and went straight to ad hominems. That makes you the troll, not me.
So, because it's an improvement you don't like, it's no longer an improvement? That doesn't work for me. It helps or doesn't help. And it never hurts. So there's no valid argument against it from an engineering perspective.
I think you are the troll, deliberately missing the point. Making someone empathize with a toaster isn't offensive, as you claim. Just because it's "a trick" doesn't make it offensive. People have the tendency to anthropomorphize everything. IF you can get the audience to anthopomorphize a toaster, then empathize with it, then how is that a "trick"? And why would that be offensive?
Sounds more like you are offended at the idea that he's a Replicant, and are irrationally lashing out at anyone that doesn't support your answer.
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I did a 12 mile round trip every day in Dallas for a summer. Sweat a lot, but didn't have too much trouble. Just take the middle-left of the lane if you don't want the cars 10" from you. Oh, and there are no bike paths in Dallas that aren't recreational only (curved, slow, packed with old people, and follow streams/water).
True only for a well-built area already suffering congestion. Building roads where there isn't congestion, reduces congestion.
If they were to build enough roads to eliminate, not reduce congestion, then the studies would all be wrong. Because they are looking at places massive congestion (meaning pent-up demand to travel people are passing on because the congestion is so bad), and making them a little better.
This "causes" more traffic by allowing the pent-up demand to use the roads. But if the roads weren't already well above capacity, then that effect wouldn't happen. More roads reduce congestion, for uncongested roads, and increase congestion for congested roads when you don't build enough of them.
In short, these studies are deliberately extrapolating narrow results past the range studied, and using that in an anti-road anti-human agenda, based on bad science.
They make 700cc scooters. But yes, a "moped" is generally limited to 50cc (or so, varies on location). But a scooter looks the same, and many have larger engines. Or just any motorbike. The Honda CBR 250R is a great commuter. You should expect 60-75 MPG on it. I've found I do better than that because lane splitting prevents idling, and keeps the speeds more moderate.
The goal instead is to try to promote more efficient use of the road - a whole city block of (single occupant) cars can be cleared up by one bus carrying the same number of people.
The problem is that nobody wants to take the bus. They are slower and more expensive than driving (based on my usage of them in Dallas, Chicago and some other places that one might not expect good bus service), but I haven't been a bus user in LA. The times I've lived in LA, the buses simply didn't run where I needed them to. The 10 mile walk would have been much faster than busing in, switching buses, and busing out, as they required a trip to a hub for a bus change, rather than running rings around the city.
Buses compare with cars like flying cars compare with cars. Perhaps in theory they work. But in reality, they are usually the worst option, used only by the desperate and poor with no other option, furthering the stigma attached to them.
When I lived in Dallas, I saw a few Ferarris, Lambos, and tuner cars (Hennessey and Saleen) stuck in daily traffic on a regular basis. Just yesterday I drove past a McLaren stuck in traffic, and routinely pass R8s, Masaratis, and Aston Martins. But I'm not in Dallas anymore. The R8 (assuming the big engine) would be able to get about 11s.
I've driven non-streetable cars as daily drivers for years. You get used to the fact that 1/10s lapse in concentration can kill.
Yes, the anti-bikers claim that you shouldn't count stop lights against bike waiting time because the bikes don't stop anyways. While also calling for the laws to be enforced against the bikes.
1) Time spent on a bus is time not spent concentrating on traffic. Relax, read a book, maybe do some work.
How does a manual laborer do work on the bus?
2) Every person on a bus is a car not on the road, and that results in sharply lighter traffic.
And every bus with less than X number of people takes up more space and resources than them all in cars. And with a bad bus system that's poorly used, reducing traffic is something they don't do.
I've also found that all libertarians hate democracy. They want a dictatorship, with them as the dictator. None really believe the "anyone else can do what they want" philosophy. They want to tell others what to do just as much as everyone else, but their list is different, so they are better.
In my experience you get one pass faster then you safety equipment allows. Then the tech guys are on you.
Not in my experience. Ah Houston Raceway Park, abut 20 years ago, on open days, they'd be pretty relaxed about the rules. Sure, they turned away a 240Z with a 10s dial-in who hadn't made a single run, but some of the guys with a higher dial in were allowed multiple too-fast runs. I think they were really worried about tranny shields, so those close to those numbers were given scrutiny, but they didn't care about roll cages, for those close to the numbers for them. But if you watch a few transmissions blow up under high load, you get worried about the explosion that leaves a corpse that looks like 100 shotgun blasts hit it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
"Still, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, thermoelectric power generation accounts for only 3.3 percent of net freshwater consumption with over 80 percent going to irrigation."
I'm not sure the use in power is as bad as you assert.
How many farms are covered by your utility? There's a large industrial and agricultural use of water in CA. A town of 500k might not have the same level of industry, and if the water utility is catering to residential use inside the city limit, then the usage would be well below CA's per capita.
Yeah, the EPA is causing the traffic, it's Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton that are causing it to not rain.
100% legal to disarm your own airbag. Illegal to sell the car after. You may pay someone to disable it for you, but nobody will (there's uncertain liability around the act, so nobody will do it). After all, what's the first S stand for?
I've never heard of any where it's legal to pull a 3-point system to install a 5-point system, and I've seen 50-state organizations indicate that a 5-point harness is likely illegal (SCCA) and shouldn't be done without care to all local laws and regulations. You may improve a safety system, but any 5-point harness without pre-tensioners would be removal, not improvement of a safety system.
A 5-point system helps even without a cage. So where would you mount it without one? Or don't improve your safety by 50%, if you aren't improving it by 100% you are a fool for only improving it slightly?
Every automaker has complained about having to raise that line to deal with legal requirements, not to make them better pass crash tests, but because they've been legally required to raise the rear impact zone.
Who told you that? The complaints about bumper height are old, and that sounds like someone complaining about bumper height regulations in a new way. I've never seen any regulation that raises the rear impact zone, and I doubt one exists.
Raising the rear increases drag, on its own; when you kick it up over the rest of the lines of the car, you're ultimately just increasing area.
Nope. The high-back is more aerodynamic than any other shape (for practical car shapes). The "teardrop" was considered best for a while, but they learned that the long tail caused more drag than it reduced, and it was more efficient to stop the point nearer the middle of the teardrop. That makes for a very high back. And that's more efficient than a low-back.
You've been reading too many 100 year old aerodynamic books. They managed to make cars, designed with aerodynamics in mind that were better in reverse than going forward.
You mentioned ABS, I was thinking it was like the blocks they put on pedals for short people.
Reliability. If it works, you have a better result. When it doesn't you have the same result. Behavior assertions assume the answer, then say "but behavior" to justify the pre-determined result, thus were ignored as adding nothing to the discussion. I read it. You are wrong. That I think you are wrong doesn't mean I just didn't understand you. It means I think your augment is invalid, thus your conclusion is wrong.
What would a spacer do? My personal problem is that the pedals are too close, the seat too high, and the steering wheel too far away. I've sat in cars with adjustable all of that, and moved the seat back and down as far as it'd go, the pedals as far away as they'd go, and not counting that the steering wheel was too far away, the pedals were still too close.
I was thinking of the unofficial official tuner cars. The Hennesseys and Saleens of the world. Many of those can beat the 11s time you gave while being streetable. The supercars are very streetable. McLarens and the like. And an NHRA event might not let you run if you put a dial-in time that requires safety gear you don't have. But I've run at NHRA tracks where you can put a 20s dial-in time on a street legal car, and break out with a 10, and they'll give you a talk, but will let you run again, at open days, I've not tried official competitions. Running on a budget, I know plenty of people that put a dial-in time that was just above the level for the next set of safety gear, and would deliberately run slow so as to not break out. It was no longer about the best reaction time and driving for the car, but how to just barely beat the guy in the next lane. When you are against a slower car, it's not hard. You time it to just barely cross first. But against a faster car, it's much harder.
Oh, and SCCA has 55000 members, and NHRA has 40000, so SCCA is larger. The difference is that every NHRA membership is a "license", and SCCA members don't need to be drivers, and there are separate licenses for different events (though most have none required). So the NHRA claims to be bigger, but only by ignoring SCCA members it finds "inconvenient." Counting purely "members" or "drivers" as a while, SCCA is bigger, not 1/10th the size. Counting those with competition licenses only, NHRA is bigger, but only because it has lower requirements for a "license". If the SCCA called every membership an autocross or rally license, then they'd go from smaller than to bigger than the NHRA. Also, if you count unique drivers in officially sanctioned events, SCCA would be even bigger still.
Topic? What topic?
The problem with safety devices is that they are illegal unless they'd let a mostly blind old lady with no reflexes and zero attention span provably improve her driving with no training and no practice or instruction. I've had safety inspectors assert that any 5-point harness is illegal because they've never seen one that would allow the sandard 3-point system to work properly both while the 5-point was in use and not in use. That and most people (illegally) mount a 5-point harness to the existing mounting points (unless they replace their entire driver's seat). So a 5-point harness is essentially illegal in the US for street cars, despite being provably better than 3-point belts.
With that in mind, I expect things that make people feel better, rather than actually increase safety.
But we are too stupid to walk away. "But it's pretty."
I've had to walk away from a Nissan because there wasn't enough headroom. My head was solidly on the ceiling when the seat was adjusted for the proper position. I've also had to scratch off the Ford Taurus because the steering wheel column interfered with my ability to work the pedals.
The only car I've ever sat in where I couldn't work the pedals with the seat in the rearmost position was the Totota MR2 ('91+). Not that that was disqualifying, but that it was interesting at the time.
I've never found a car that had the steering wheel protrude enough for me. I prefer to be far from the pedals and close to the wheel, in a more upright position. I've seen people drive with the seat adjusted such that if they are leaned back into the seat, they can't touch the top of the steering wheel. They drive only using the bottom half of the steering wheel. Yesterday, I passed someone on the highway (going slow int he fast lane) with locked elbows and hands at 10 and 2. And I know people who buy a car and constantly complain about the seating position, as if they never sat in it before buying it, and would never take it back, but want to tell everyone about it. Part of the test drive is making sure you actually fit. I think my best fit was in the '99+ Miata. Headroom was an issue, but I lived in Dallas with covered parking at home and work, so that didn't bother me often. In Dallas it rained hard, but not often (not like Seattle or other places with many light storms). So I'd leave the top down most of the time. Sometimes a month or more between uses. I have no idea what the headroom would have been like under the hard top. But I like the low seat, straight legs, and close wheel. The aforementioned MR2 was also a good fit, but wasn't purchased for other reasons. My current RX-8 has good seating position, but the visibility is shit. My "family" car is a Scion xB, and it's actually not a bad seating position, though much more truck-like than I prefer.
What, you saw that I proved my point so solidly in another post, that you ignored the ones where I proved you wrong, and went after all the other posts I made and went straight to ad hominems. That makes you the troll, not me.
So, because it's an improvement you don't like, it's no longer an improvement? That doesn't work for me. It helps or doesn't help. And it never hurts. So there's no valid argument against it from an engineering perspective.
You just D-K'd your self. You know just enough about cars to think you know something about cars.
The trunklines didn't go up for crash safety. They went up for aerodynamics.
I think you are the troll, deliberately missing the point. Making someone empathize with a toaster isn't offensive, as you claim. Just because it's "a trick" doesn't make it offensive. People have the tendency to anthropomorphize everything. IF you can get the audience to anthopomorphize a toaster, then empathize with it, then how is that a "trick"? And why would that be offensive?
Sounds more like you are offended at the idea that he's a Replicant, and are irrationally lashing out at anyone that doesn't support your answer.