Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition
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This morning, I got cut off by someone right-turning onto my road. I knew he was there but intentionally held off on braking so he'd think I was about to rear-end him. If someone does something really freaking stupid, I have a hard time being nice. Eventually I had to hard-brake.
Well he thought I was about to rear-end him so he switched over to the left lane just as I slowed down, cutting off a second car in the process (he hadn't accelerated yet and was going 15 - 20 under the speed limit). I started accelerating, the second car got pissed at being cut off, and then I had to slam on my brakes a second time as Car #2 decided to squeeze between me and the first vehicle and cut me off.
Three cut-offs in five seconds.
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If someone does something really freaking stupid, I have a hard time
being nice.putting my outrage aside in order to react safely.Might want to attend to that before it kills you.
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He drives a huge truck, so he might want to attend to that before it kills someone else.
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Correction: Huge truck with really good brakes.
I wouldn't call it outrage. I just don't like enabling people to do stupid things.
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Allow me to revise what I said to better suit what I intended:
@Intercourse said:
He drives a huge truck, so the worst that will happen is someone commits suicide by not paying attention to what they are doing and causing a collision with a huge truck due to their own idiocy. @mott555 would just be accelerating natural selection.
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Actually if we'd collided it would have been worse for me. The vehicle that cut me off was a dump truck.
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Ouch. I give up then.
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I stand by my existing advice :)
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0:14 slightly annoyed by a passing red truck
0:17 swearing in Russian at the truck driver
0:18 dusting off his sleeve,
0:20 checking that his soul is still in his body
0:24 soul verified ... life continue as usual... walks away.
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It should be. Depends on the car. Mine has lots of fiddly clips, springs and levers that you have to manipulate with one hand in a space less than inch across.
I have to remove the damned air hose going to the air filter to start with. That is followed by twisting your arm in a way it was clearly not designed for and blindly reaching around to find the right knob you need to unscrew.
I thought I must be missing something so I consulted the manual. Of course all that shows is the whole light suspended in a void IKEA style with some arrows and the following helpful instructions (paraphrasing):
- Unscrew a thing
- Replace the bulb
- Screw the thing back in
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One I just ran across: Driving at 30mph, with your flashers on, on the interstate, in the fast lane. If your vehicle will not, or you are not able to, drive at the speed limit, you should get off the damned interstate.
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all that shows is the whole light suspended in a void IKEA style with some arrows
These days I google that shit. "how to change the headlight 2004 kia sedona" or whatever.
Of course all the results at the top are some garage with 12 separate 1-minute videos, each consisting of a bunch of logo and blather that boils down to "unscrew this cap", instead of just giving you those three words.
I hate most video explanations because of that.
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Sign on a shopping cart
Sign on a shopping cart: "This shopping cart will automatically stop if taken beyond the yellow line at the end of the parking lot"
Walmart had these things available to the stores at least 10 years ago. When I was a kid, I fielded phone calls from stores ordering supplies and stuff like these shopping cart wheel locks (and those plastic cylinders that go over the concrete bumpers at the door; that part number was a bitch to find that one time). I've never seen one in real life, but stores ordered them. They're locks that can be put on the wheel of a shopping cart. I always assumed it worked off a radio signal being transmitted from the store. I suppose a buried cable could make them work to stop a cart at a particular line. Like those invisible fences with the shock-collars.
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I think I probably mentioned this a long time ago, but since moving into the city I see an antipattern where drivers use the wrong turn signal. Left blinker, but turns right.
I think this was covered in that show Burn Notice. I believe a number of people in your city are burned spies trying to lose a trail or people that think they're being followed.
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I see them at a number of grocery stores. I thought I mentioned this but my son and I actually tried it out a couple of weeks ago--there were a handful of carts just inside the line, so he grabbed one and rolled it across the line and the wheel locked up.
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I wonder how hard those are to reset? When I encounter things like that, I have to find out a way around it. I imagine the steel body of my SUV would be an adequate RF shield to prevent it from locking. Or perhaps just carrying it over your head might get enough distance?
Not that I even want to steal a shopping cart, but damn it, now there is a challenge...
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Those wouldn't work around here, not at Wal-Mart anyway. Most of their carts already have 3 broken wheels, locking the fourth one wouldn't make much difference.
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It would make it more stable and keep it from rotating.
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@Intercourse said:
I wonder how hard those are to reset? When I encounter things like that, I have to find out a way around it.
Yeah, me too, but I haven't tried.
My theory is underground wire, because some kind of RF projector would almost never match the lot shape. Probably a couple of feet in the air would do it.
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First time I see one around here I will report back because that is the kind of thing that I have to find out.
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my son and I actually tried it out a couple of weeks ago
BTW, this sounds exactly like something I would do with my son. Great minds and all that...
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@Intercourse said:
It would make it more stable and keep it from rotating.
Hmm, it might be easier to push actually, simply because you'd have constant force to push against instead of three wheels which lock and unlock at random and a fourth that's normally stuck 90° away from the direction of travel.
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Had a 2.5 hour meeting in a conference room that's in the corner of my building near a T-junction. Saw all sorts of anti-patterns.
-people walking across the street in front of traffic
-cars turning left with no regard for oncoming traffic
-cars cutting off 18-wheelers
-car going 20mph in a 35mph zone, holding up traffic
-car going 10mph in same zone, with no traffic behind
-cars flying through stop signs
-cars slamming on the brakes, pulling over to the side with no signal, and pulling out their cell phone
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Probably a couple of feet in the air would do it.
Am I being dim here but... if all it does is lock the wheels then lifting any amount will work - all you need to do is carry it over the line. I'd also expect to be able to put cardboard under the wheels and slide it over the line. When the wheels re-engage it will roll off.
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Am I being dim here but... if all it does is lock the wheels then lifting any amount will work - all you need to do is carry it over the line. I'd also expect to be able to put cardboard under the wheels and slide it over the line. When the wheels re-engage it will roll off.
Yes.
The wheel will remain locked until manually unlocked. The cart can still be stolen, but won't be as useful to homeless people.
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The wheel will remain locked until manually unlocked. The cart can still be stolen, but won't be as useful to homeless people.
Ah, fair enough. I thought the locking only occurred in and around "the line".
My only experience with wheel locking trolleys happens on the moving walkway thingy that takes you up or down a level. You walk on the walkway and the wheels lock. At the bottom, they unlock and you roll again.
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I've encountered those as well; they work differently. The walkway is ridged; the wheels drop in a slight distance lengthwise, and rubber blocks behind some/all wheels press on the walkway locking the trolley. At the end of the walkway the wheel is pushed out, the brake no longer presses against the underlying surface, and the trolley rolls again.
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When the wheels re-engage
You mean "if" the wheels re-engage, which I didn't bother to test. If just moving them away unlocked them, then this wouldn't be any kind of deterrent.
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You mean "if" the wheels re-engage, which I didn't bother to test. If just moving them away unlocked them, then this wouldn't be any kind of deterrent.
Yes. @chubertdev exposed my lack of understanding of the trolley wheel lock process up there
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They do use a buried wire. Some use radio transmission and others use magnets. The wheels don't re-engage beyond the line, but they must have to be on/very close to the floor while passing over it, so you can apaprently lift them to get them out without locking.
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Are Night Breaker Unlimited available outside of the UK?
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[quote=Osram]Up to 20 % whiter light via partial cobalt coating of the glass bod[/quote]
I agree with Daniel Stern here. I completely fail to see how putting an absorptive filter on the glass envelope of an incandescent bulb could possibly do anything but make it perform worse than it would without the filter.
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However they do it, and whether it's related to them being whiter or not, these are a significant improvement over standard bulbs.
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I don't doubt it. But put aside the marketing fluff language about length of light cones and percentage increase of light on the road for a moment, and look at some actual specs (under Technical Data on the following pages):
Both are rated at 68 watts input, 1550 lumens output, and 3400K color temperature. That has to mean their performance on the road is pretty much indistinguishable.
But the ones with the blue filters - the Night Breakers - only have 2/3 the expected lifespan of the ones with the clear glass.
Now check the specs on their Offroad Super Bright Premium: 93 watts in, 2600 lumens out, 3200K color temperature. So they're not quite as blue but they're brighter, and their expected lifespan is four times that of the Silverstars and better than six times that of the Night Breakers.
For an incandescent source, color temperature and actual filament temperature are pretty much the same thing. So it's no real surprise that the bluer lamps sacrifice so much lifespan for the pretty color of their light - they're running their filaments 200 degrees hotter.
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Both are rated at 68 watts input, 1550 lumens output, and 3400K color temperature. That has to mean their performance on the road is pretty much indistinguishable.
Yeah, I agree looking at those numbers.
SIlverstars might be a better bet then seeing as changing the bulbs on my car requires the hands of a small child, if not for the fact I can buy the Night Breakers near here, and I can't the Silverstars.
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SIlverstars might be a better bet then seeing as changing the bulbs on my car requires the hands of a small child, if not for the fact I can buy the Night Breakers near here, and I can't the Silverstars.
Then Silverstars are a crap choice too. Sylvania's quote:"Since our SilverStar(r) ULTRA
headlights are up to 50% brighter than standard halogen, they will have
a shorter life span when compared to our other products. Part number
9005SU will last for approximately 125 hours of "on time", 200 hours for
part 9006SU."Consumer Reports tested nine premium headlight bulbs and found that although they were slightly brighter than standard bulbs, they couldn't see any further down the road with any of them.
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Part number9005SU will last for approximately 125 hours of "on time", 200 hours forpart 9006SU."
well... that's crap for lifespan!
i've had my car for about 4 and a half years and my lights are always on when i'm driving (not the high beams though, those are as needed) i don't drive much on the weekend so a quick back of the napkin calculation says that based on my commute my bulbs have at least 770 hours of on time and counting, and that's not including the time on them from before i bought the car (she's used) as i haven't had to replace them yet.
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Then Silverstars are a crap choice too. Sylvania's quote:
"Since our SilverStar(r) ULTRAheadlights are up to 50% brighter than standard halogen, they will havea shorter life span when compared to our other products. Part number9005SU will last for approximately 125 hours of "on time", 200 hours forpart 9006SU."
The Osram site linked above has completely different part numbers that it quotes next to the life of Silverstar 2.0. THOSE are the ones I was referring to. It's also basically a guess anyway as there are too many differing factors. YMMV and all that.
EDIT- it's also still irrelevant considering that I can't buy Silverstars in any version near here.
Consumer Reports tested nine premium headlight bulbs and found that although they were slightly brighter than standard bulbs, they couldn't see any further down the road with any of them.
My Consumer report is this: I can definitely see farther with Night Breaker Ultimates and with the previous Night Breaker Plus I had on my previous car. And on top of that, signs reflect from MUCH further away.
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Sylvania's quote:
"Since our SilverStar(r) ULTRAheadlights are up to 50% brighter...
As Daniel Stern explains near the bottom of this page, Osram and Sylvania both sell something called Silver Stars; the Osram ones perform well (apart from reduced life compared to most of Osram's other offerings) but the Sylvania ones are rubbish. To add to the confusion, Sylvania is now an Osram subsidiary.
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apart from reduced life compared to most of Osram's other offerings
Which just goes back to my point that Silverstars would be bad for loopback0 since his specific complaint was that the bulbs are difficult to change in his car.
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@Intercourse said:
One I just ran across: Driving at 30mph, with your flashers on, on the interstate, in the fast lane. If your vehicle will not, or you are not able to, drive at the speed limit, you should get off the damned interstate.
Flatland, or several miles of 6% grade? But yes -- normally, in mountainous territory, the rule is "slow traffic keep right".
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Flatland, or several miles of 6% grade?
Flatland, city interstate loop in the Midwest. No reason to be driving that slow.
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@Intercourse said:
Flatland, city interstate loop in the Midwest. No reason to be driving that slow.
Yeah, then they fail at driving.
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But yes -- normally
, in mountainous territory,the rule is "slow traffic keep right".
FTFYThere was a similar thread on reddit. Some guy actually recommended driving in the center lane at or under the speed limit, on the grounds that it made it easier for cars entering the freeway.
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whacks other driver over the head
If you get into the passing lane of a section of the highway that only has two lanes in our direction, PASS the idiot doing 60mph in a 70mph zone doing 70+ mph... don't go 61mph to pass them!
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I used to work with a guy who insisted that driving in the middle lane s of a three lane motorway was the safest approach because:
- the most dangerous part of driving is changing lanes to overtake
- if you're driving at the speed limit then anyone who wants to overtake is speeding and therefore fuck them.
He didn't accept the counterpoint to 2) that all speedos underread so if he was convinced he was going exactly 70 then he was actually under 65
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In a 3+ lane freeway, I would totally agree with the "driving in the center" lane part (aka, the second lane over from the right), for that reason.
I do not agree with, endorse, or otherwise sanction driving at or under the speed limit. +5 or get off the road!
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if you're driving at the speed limit then anyone who wants to overtake is speeding and therefore fuck them.
So he's one of those people who observes the speed limit and wants to make sure that you do so as well? It's not really worthwhile arguing with them.
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In a 3+ lane freeway, I would totally agree with the "driving in the center" lane part (aka, the second lane over from the right), for that reason.
I often use that approach too; the left lane (UK, so driven like for the right lane in the US) is typically too full of traffic entering and leaving, and also the inevitable large numbers of lumbering goods vehicles. The etiquette is different in a 2-laner (or when there's extra lanes because of a major ascent or large junction).
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It wouldn't surprise me if he got a GoPro at some point and started sending videos of people driving slightly faster than him to the police
