Reorte

So my Fiesta is faster than a fighter jet (if it's parked in a hangar)? :D

1 hour ago, Steadfast said:

Mk4s on the TFW loco hauled for the last few years, which have always been power doors.

Hadn't realised they were Mk4s!

9 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Like this you mean?

I just wondered when I saw the Manchester - Cardiff train pass by yesterday, from a not-very-detailed glance the doors looked pretty much like I always remember them being.

Odd-looking train though, appears to have been cobbled together from whatever was lying around, 67, four coaches (IIRC) and a DVT.

10 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

I have a little knowledge of horses and can say that as herd animals they react to each others' moods, hence mass-panic here, and as flight animals they run from the unknown if feeling threatened. That they ran into vehicles and damaged themselves is no surprise, as they really aren't very bright - my 6-month ownership of a donkey revealed he had twice their intelligence - so all the stuff they had already learned about traffic, streets and vehicles simply had no bearing on their behaviour. I hope their scars, mental and physical, can be healed soonest, but the former will take longer, I am sure.

There's a racehorse stables near my parents and for quite a while all these fancy racehorses were accompanied by a donkey because apparently being rather more intelligent they end up leading the herd and help keep them under control and behaving themselves.

I'm guessing the few remaining Mk3s still going around in regular service have had the doors converted to power?

13 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

When I was a lad a story like "Horse bolted in the High Street, stopped by Constable Jones" would be lucky to make it to the local rag.

Handling horses has always had its hazards.

Whether something's newsworthy or not is down to how unusual it is at the time, and these days horses running around central London out of control is pretty unusual.

Seeing a car would've been newsworthy once.

Last time I used trains with slam doors semi-regularly was early 2000s, when Manchester - Scotland services were still loco-hauled (then replaced with shorter, more overcrowded Voyagers, which in turn were replaced with even shorter, even more overcrowded 185s). I'd have been in my 20s then. At any rate I assume they were slam doors, I can't remember the doors but AFAIK no-one had converted any loco-hauled stock then, but I couldn't even tell you if they were Mk2s or 3s.

And from what I gleaned Twitter is the company he's about the most hands on with. Rumours going around that most of the other companies he's involved with have people devoted to keeping him out of the way.

37 minutes ago, Bucoops said:

 

I was about to say I remember mainline without CDL, then I stopped to think. Yup, in my 6th Decade... Dang.

When did all the Mk3s end up with it? I didn't think they were built like that and it was quite a late add-on, but I'm probably completely wrong.

11 minutes ago, Nick C said:

That doesn't always work though - you can easily end up in "Think of the children" situations (especially when the more excitable media get involved) - just look at the various attempts on a regular basis to regulate the internet - It's easy for a paper or politician to say "let's ban the kind of encryption the bad guys are using", but you first need to listen to the experts when they point out that what's being demanded is impossible...

That's why you have to gauge the general level of sentiment and consult the experts about how that can actually be achieved in reality. Public opinion should rarely decide the details, but there's no other acceptable way of assessing what the appropriate general level of risk acceptance should be. The alternative is a small number of people imposing their own opinions on where the lines should be drawn on everyone else (there's no such things as an objectively correct answer to this).

The way that's done is by governments coming up with appropriate legislation. If the public doesn't like the legislation, whether they think it goes too far or not far enough, there's the opportunity to vote for someone who'll change it. I'm not talking about consulting the public over every rule.

16 minutes ago, 30801 said:

 

Well Tesla have doubled down and made the gear selector a slide control on the touchscreen in the Cybertruck.

Considering quite a few of my posts I think it's fair to assume that there's zero chance of me ever buying a Tesla.

1 hour ago, franciswilliamwebb said:

Yes, I saw the poor things earlier.

 

I was unimpressed with the headline “Runaway horses gallop past Post Office inquiry” - really BBC, is that what you take away from this? 🙄

Unfortunately the BBC seems to have gone rather tabloid in its headlines these days.

Come to think of it I'd be more nervous about doors not staying closed on modern Boeing planes than on old BR coaches...

I'll get my coat.

1 minute ago, Nick C said:

I fitted a dashcam after one of my wife's colleagues got caught up by a 'cash for crash' scam - they didn't have one, so had no evidence to dispute the lies told by the scammer...

Several years ago there was one of those in the news not far from here. It got in the news because the perpetrator was a bit of an idiot and kept crashing outside the same office, making the people in the office rather suspicious.

Agree very much on touchscreens in cars, and not simply because of my dislike of excessive electronics everywhere. They're a very bad idea for exactly the reason you say, can't operate by touch (there's an irony there I suppose).

Haven't some manufacturers started to move away from them?

10 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

After more than 40 years of doing its job to everyone's satisfaction, to suggest that the bridge design was wrong is unlikely to succeed in court. The designers of the WTC did not seem to be pilloried for failing to make the structures proof against a C21 aeroplane. This is much the same. 

I wouldn't go that far - a ship losing control when passing under a bridge that ships routinely pass under is a more foreseeable risk than someone deliberately flying a plane in to the building. There's also considerably less you can practically do with a building for the latter. Personally I'd argue that it depends on the frequency of sea traffic too - if a ship large enough to cause this much damage passing under was a once in a blue moon event vs a regular occurrence then things may be different.

2 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

Sounds as successful as the Melbourne Star! Except that it hasn't been dismantled yet, due to the cose.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_Star

Manchester had its big, spikey piece of "art." Unfortunately the spikes started falling off...

Just now, GrumpyPenguin said:

Two issues here ;

1) I don't want my entire journey recorded (there are enough ANPR & other cameras that do that anyway & that data is saved) - my Dashcam only saves a limited amount & woiuld only be downloaded/saved in the event of an incident.

2) AFAIK it is a condition of vehicle insurance in Russia to have a working dashcam fitted.

On the first one I don't fear an incident enough to feel a need for one. There's always the chance of course, the risk isn't zero, but I hate the idea of going through life with a "but what if? Better protect myself!" attitude. There's a time and a place for that but the concern has to be rather higher.

On two, well, that's sort of the point. We shouldn't want to be getting more like Russia!

1 minute ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

Ironic that there is such concern over car date being shared with the manufacturer/dealer.,when your mobile phone is doing it all the time.

Are you assuming I have a mobile phone?

Anyway the presence of other bad stuff doesn't invalidate complaints about this lot, and since this is a thread about driving it's the things in the car that'll get mentioned here.

4 minutes ago, GrumpyPenguin said:

However, in my car I feel it is an extention of my home therefore private. I drive responsibly & have an operating dashcam - that's enough thank you.

I don't have a dashcam, it would be a bit rich to complain about being recorded if I then went around doing it to others.

Cast your mind back quite a few years to when there was a widely-observed meteor in Russia (don't worry, this will get to being on-topic!) There was a lot of dashcam footage of it, and I remember hearing a lot of people here surprised by that, thinking how iffy a place Russia must be if people felt the need to drive around with a camera in their car like that. Yet here we are doing the same.

3 hours ago, StuAllen said:

I do know what you mean about the headlights though, my previous car had auto dipping and could be sluggish, probably one or twice a week I needed to manually take over as it didn’t react. Can’t say I’ve noticed with my current car, its reactions are very quick.

Even then of course it's still not quite as good as dipping the headlights before you come face to face with the car coming the other way. I usually dip mine before the other car gets around the corner or over the brow of the hill.

3 minutes ago, StuAllen said:

My car shares the data automatically, had the brake wear warning come up the other day, the following morning had an email from the dealership saying would you like to book it in. TBH I’m not sure how I feel about that, what else it’s sharing and who with.
 

I do like some of the driving aids though, are they needed - almost definitely not but I wouldn’t go without now. Automatic gearbox, dynamic cruise control, multi beam head lights (these create a gap in the lights for the car in front, or the car coming towards you - best lights I’ve had in a car for visibility).

I quite like the idea of dynamic cruise control, not sure about the rest though. I've noticed more often people come around a corner with full beam right in my face before doing anything, and I've wondered if that's down to those sorts of lights.

44 minutes ago, GrumpyPenguin said:

The "saving" in running costs of EV's will diminish as time goes on - as the revenue into HMG's coffers reduces due to the takeup of EV's they will then start to add road fund licence (already starting to be charged) & of course electricity will attract "fuel" dury &/or VAT to make up for that loss. You won't get away from it either at home - your so called "smart" meter will grass you up (maybe your car will too) & of course electricity will go up through market forces.

I've never been interested in electric cars because of any savings, just simply because burning the current amount of petrol and diesel doesn't have a long-term future.

No "smart" meter here and no desire to have one (see my post above this one). But electric cars look like being the future, and it's one of the few things about the future I find quite positive. How the tax etc. aspects of them are managed, rather the opposite, but that's not a fundamental feature of the technology, just how we (mis)use it.

10 minutes ago, johnofwessex said:

 

So, if you are involved in an accident then you dont want investigators to be able to find out exactly what happened?

 

Driving is a licenced activity not a right and it carries the potential to cause death or serious injury.  If someone is driving like a we have the right to know so appropriate action can be taken.

If the only way they can find out is to be recording everything myself and everyone else does then no, I wouldn't. I'd prefer to take my chances. And not because I want to drive like a *$@"! either (I don't).

Since the way the world is means that it's impossible for a large proportion of the population not to drive the idea of being recorded doing a basic, ordinary part of every day life is something I'm deeply uncomfortable with. It's not a sign of a healthy, tolerant, respectful society.

17 minutes ago, Wheatley said:

Several of them moaning about not being able to lean out of the doors for photos too.

Glad I travelled on it before that was stopped. It was something I did somewhat nervously though (only when the line was turning on my side so I could see right along the train if there were any obstructions before leaning out, head back in when it moved the other way).