Archive for the ‘Driving’ Category

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Drink, Kids, Cars

Wednesday, June 27th, 2007

17% of 14 to 17 year-olds never drink alcohol. That’s terrible. If you’re over the age of 5 and you don’t have a glass of wine with your Sunday lunch, something’s wrong.

Meanwhile, doctors want to reduce the blood alcohol limit for driving. Quite why doctors are more qualified than anyone else to have an opinion, I have no idea. They should stick to curing ill people. Stricter rules would just catch out perfectly safe drivers.

Oh, and drinking while pregnant is no big deal either.

Update on the doctors (strictly speaking, BMA) calling for more drink laws story: this is the kind of thing that a BMA spokesperson (in this case, one Dr Christopher Spencer Jones, the chairman of the BMA’s public health committee) says with a straight face:

We should stop having alcohol for sale in supermarkets alongside foodstuffs. If you had different doors and cash desks for alcohol in supermarkets, you would be signalling alcohol is not a safe foodstuff

There’s just no arguing with that kind of mentality. The only possible rational response is to be found over at Devil’s Kitchen, which post I found via Charles Pooter, via Brian Micklethwait.

Posted in Civil Liberties, Driving | 1 Comment »

When Is A Law Not A Law?

Monday, December 19th, 2005

When most people ignore it. According to the Times,

The proportion of cars exceeding the 70mph limit was 57 per cent in 2003, up from 54 per cent in 2002.

I don’t know how this is measured, but it means that at least this number break the motorway speed limit at some time. On certain sections of road (for example the M3 between the M25 and London) in good traffic and weather conditions, one is hard pushed to find a single vehicle doing less than 80mph.

Some questions: what does it mean in a democracy when the majority ignore a law? Is the 70mph limit merely a pragmatic attempt to control the average speed, rather than a serious law intended to be obeyed? It certainly is not enforced.

I’m torn on the issue. I don’t like being threatened with the violence of law for something that is not wrong. On the other hand, I’d hate to think that all laws were rigourously enforced in the belief that they are perfect. From that perspective, the idea of a law that everyone just knows you can ignore as long as you don’t ignore it too much doesn’t sound so bad.

In an ideal world, of course, roads would be privately owned and their owners would set the rules. What I think would happen if this were the case, is that the rules would mostly standardise for reasons of practicality and the economics of liability. Insurance companies would more or less dictate speed limits to a level that minimised their costs. They would be pragmatic and likely set a lower limit than was enforced to control the average speed, understanding that it is human nature to bend the rules. In other words, pretty much what I think is happening in the real world with the motorway speed limit.

Things would get interesting if the speed “limits” set for purley pragmatic reasons were then strictly enforced. The Times article I linked to dates back to April 2005, and is what I found when investigating what the speed camera signs on the M4 were all about. The idea that motorway speed limits might actually be enforced is, frankly, a little shocking. Clearly no-one on the M4 could quite believe it because they were all happily speeding despite the signs. Thankfully, rumours that a system was in place to automatically record the average speed of all vehicles turned out to be just that. There was no sign of the mobile camera units mentioned by the Times, either. Perhaps they are not used because it was realised early on that they caused traffic to bunch up and increase the accident rate. Perhaps there are no real cameras and the signs are just another pragmatic attempt to play on human nature and get people to slow down and pay attention a bit more.

The problem is that roads are not privately owned but controlled by the state. It is probably only a matter of time before something like SPECS is implemented on motorways by power-crazed politicians because they, unlike insurance companies, are not bound by economics.

A final question: what would happen if motorway speed limits were either abolished, or raised to 100mph? Would everyone drive everywhere at 100mph or would they settle at between 80 and 95 like they do now? Given behaviour I’ve seen on rural roads which often have limits set higher than you can safely drive, I predict the latter.

Posted in Driving, Introspection | No Comments »

Digimods

Friday, December 16th, 2005

Pete Smith takes photos of cars and digitally modifies them into, well, modified cars. It’s really kind of cool. I stumbled across his site while searching for information about Photoshop. Sometimes it’s nice to discover something unexpected.

Posted in Driving, Links | 1 Comment »

Driving Styles

Tuesday, December 6th, 2005

On an obscure Israeli website is an animation comparing European and Israeli driving styles. Even if you you don’t have any experience of driving in Europe or Israel, you should appreciate the differences between the styles and will have seen local examples of the same thing. It’s extremely amusing!

Posted in Driving, Links | No Comments »

Driving in the West Country

Tuesday, October 18th, 2005

I was driving in North Devon at the weekend. I thought London was bad for pointless speed cameras, but at least they’re merely pointless*. The ones out West are positively evil.

Consider, if you will, a two lane A-road through the rolling country hills. Going up the steep hills, an extra passing lane is added to let cars past the slow lorries. You’ve been following a convoy of lorries for six miles, so now’s your chance! You put your foot down: you want to pass all the lorries before the end of the passing lane. But what’s this, right at the end of the lane, just at the point where the two lanes merge into one? Aaaargh, it’s a speed camera!

So now, instead of completing the passing maneuvre safely, you’re forced to transfer all your attention to your speedometer. At the same time as looking at your speedo, you have to merge between two large trucks driving much too close together. It’s evil and it’s dangerous. Just when you should be looking out of your car, matching your speed and position so as to smoothly slot between other vehicles, you’re forced to transfer your attention to the secondary matter of precisely what speed you’re travelling at to the nearest mph.

I’ve seen this trick on the A303, and on urban dual carriageways around Taunton. I expect it is employed elsewhere by Devon police.

Speaking of merging, if you’re joining a dual carriageway from a minor side road and there’s a little slip lane, that’s for merging! That means you use it to get up to speed with the other cars travelling at 70 mph. If there are cars coming, stop at the beginning of the slip so you can still use it for that purpose. Don’t drive to the end of the slip road and then stop. That would be foolish, like the fool I saw doing just that on the A303 the other day.

And another thing about merging: if by some cataclysmic spasm of stupidity you find yourself stopped in the middle of the motorway slip road joining the M5, don’t just sit there with your right indicator flashing as cars swerve every which way to avoid hitting you! Pull onto the hard shoulder and use that to accelerate and merge. I know the hard shoulder is just for emergencies, but such a monumental failure to merge properly is an emergency.

(That pun really wasn’t intended, but it’s quite a good one nonetheless, don’t you think?)

* And a bit annoying. (And a bit dangerous when they cause all the otherwise free-flowing traffic to bunch up.)

Posted in Driving | 6 Comments »

BBC Controls Police

Friday, September 30th, 2005

This email went round at work recently, and it has been seen on a few usenet news groups too:

I was talking today to one of my Linux users who happens to manage the IT security for Hampshire Police he’s given me a tip off bout some filming that Hants Police are doing for a television programme series from tomorrow (26th September) for seven weeks.

If you use the M27 or the M3 this potentially affects you so please proceed with caution and pass onto anyone who you feel might just need to know. The program a BBC South commission called “Traffic Cops” will be filmed covering the area from Ringwood concentrating on Ringwood M27
up to M3 J9 and a team working the ringroad around Southampton (Totton will have a unit working it alone), Cosham M27 stretch to J5 of the M27
(Southampton Airport turn-off). The fourth concentration is working from Winchester Services covering M3 to J10 M3 (Winchester South) using five unmarked cars, two Black Skoda 03 registration Octavias, an 05 plate dark red Mondeo and two Volvo saloon cars.

The BBC unit are going to be based out of a unit in Millbrook Road in Southampton and will also be covering the armed police response unit and
the Southampton Airport Police Security / British Transport Police team.

The BBC team are in Citreon Picasso MPVs leased from Arriva.

To make it even more effective the Traffic police have authority from Chief Constable to “work to rule” So instead of the laid back approach
to the usual Hants traffic police this will be a lot more concentrated to make it effective filming.

There’s no source, so no way of knowing how true it is, but a friend called me today after seeing three police cars on the hard shoulder having pulled someone over, two of which had large cameras and microphones recording the action.

The idea that the police will go after more motorists than usual to make the BBC programme look good is particularly sinister. The fact that I’ve rarely seen police pulling people over on the M3 and now my friend sees police everywhere doing so suggests there’s some truth in the notion. Exactly who do the police work for? Who do the BBC work for?

Posted in Civil Liberties, Driving, News | 2 Comments »

Speed Limiters

Monday, August 22nd, 2005

The Telegraph has an article headlined, “Speed of cars ‘will be limited by computer’.”

The Government is examining the results of research into “intelligent speed adaptation technology” carried out by the Institute for Transport Studies at Leeds University.

I think you can see where this is going. Between this, satellite road charging and retention of mobile phone geographical data, they’ll know where you are pretty much all the time. Currently, “there are no plans to make it compulsory.” At least until, say, a small child is killed by a speeding idiot and everyone decides that Something Must Be Done.

I can just imagine the effect this will have on people’s driving too. Merging could be extremely hazardous, not just because drivers won’t be able to control their speed properly but because the expectation of that lack of control will make them more hesitant. And my experiences of satellite navigation do not fill me with confidence that the system will work very well. What happens you find yourself doing 30MPH on the motorway because the system thinks you’re on an adjacent road?

The only good thing about this is that people might start barking up the right tree for once and demand that ridiculous speed limits are corrected or abolished entirely.

Posted in Civil Liberties, Driving, Privacy | 4 Comments »

Speed Camera Deemed Hazard

Thursday, October 7th, 2004

A woman was run over while crossing the road near a speed camera. According to the coroner, John Pollard, this may have been partly because the driver was looking at his speedometer and not the road.

Mr Pollard said that cameras were sometimes responsible for “distracting drivers, even momentarily, who look at them and their speed rather than the road”.

His view was supported by the police accident investigator called to the scene. Pc Michael Jeffrey told the inquest: “They do tend to divert drivers’ attention away from other areas and they concentrate solely on their speed.”

I found Mr Pollard’s next comment somewhat poignant:

“We are becoming such a protecting society that unless individuals feel they are protected by state or legislation, they don’t seem to bother to protect themselves.”

Posted in Driving | 5 Comments »

Driving Simulators

Tuesday, July 20th, 2004

I’ve always enjoyed realistic driving games that attempt to simulate the real world physics of car control as much as possible – as opposed to arcade driving games. Most of the reason is that they’re so much more challenging; the rest of the reason is that I can pretend that skills I’m learning in a racing sim would translate to real racing.

This isn’t quite true. In a real car you can feel the forces and the movement, wheras a simulator has to convey this feedback visually and aurally. The best ones have realistic sound that provide information about the engine, transmission and tyre adherence — a bit of a squeal and you’re close to the limits of traction — a cockpit rendered in 3D that allows the driver’s simulated head to move forward, back, left and right in reaction to the forces on the car, and force feedback that gives information about bumps in the road and the grip of the front wheels through a turn (this thanks to a force feedback wheel like my trusty Logitech MOMO Force). All this means that to become good at a driving sim you have to learn to read these signals rather than the ones you’d experience in a real car.

Having said this, what’s most important about a driving simulator is that it has as realistic a physics model as possible. Development teams go to great lengths to recreate the effects of the car’s suspension, aerodynamic surfaces and weight distribution; and the way the tyre pressures and temperatures change over time and the effects this has on grip. The better the physics, the more real world racing techniques can be applied to the game.

This works so well that there is a well known web site called GPL Foolishness that describes how to drive the ideal racing line, the importance of corner exit speed, and how to trail-brake. It was written for Grand Prix Legends — an older game with one of the best physics models ever, and still available from Sold Out Software (who have an appalling website; you’ll have to find it yourself under “sport”) — but the techniques can be applied to other simulators and real racing. Even books about racing techniques can help.

Currently my favourite racing sim is Live For Speed. It’s an online game developed independently by a British team who are releasing it on the web in stages. S1 has been out for a year and features several cars and tracks to race on. Best of all it’s very easy to find a server and join a race, and racing against real people is much more fun than against artifical intelligence. It’s good etiquette in online races to avoid crashing and taking out half of the field, so thankfully LFS lets you practice offline and has a credit system that keeps you out of the more powerful, harder to drive cars.

Another good one is NASCAR Racing 2003 Season from the now defunct Papyrus, the people who brought us Grand Prix Legends. There’s a lot more to driving around an oval than you might think, and it leads to some incredibly close, tense racing.

And there’s plenty to look forward to. GTR is a GT racing sim developed by SimBin, whose CEO is a GT racing driver himself. I’ve played the press demo (password GTR_Press_Demo) and it promises to be immense fun.

Live For Speed S2 is in testing, and features new cars and tracks, better graphics, and possibly some damage modelling for the first time.

Richard Burns Rally looks to be the first proper rally simulator, with full length courses and the most unbelievably detailed physics modelling ever. (“The engine model in Richard Burns Rally simulates all of the working parts of a four stroke internal engine and each individual combustion cycle.”) I’m particularly looking forward to this one. Unusually for a simulation, it’s already out on consoles, but the PC version promises to be even better.

More information about many more games, current and upcoming, can be found at Race Sim Central. In particular their forum section is not to be missed.

Posted in Driving, Games | 3 Comments »

I’m a Criminal

Tuesday, April 27th, 2004

I passed my motorcycle test today, and had planned to go out for a ride with my Dad this afternoon. But I discovered that, in the time between failing my first test and now, the tax had expired on my bike.

This has two main implications. The first is that I can’t ride it until the insurance certificate makes it through the post, because you need that to get tax. The second is that since I hadn’t given tax, for an unused bike being kept in a garage, a second thought, I failed to send in a “statutory off-road notification” (SORN). Thanks to the new tax rules and automatic fines, I may end up in trouble over forgetting to fill in a form.

It’s not as if I haven’t had to jump through enough hoops already:

  • Compulsory basic training (at which I had to produce my driving license)
  • Theory test (at which I had to produce my license and CBT certificate)
  • Direct access course
  • Bike test (at which I had to produce my license and CBT certificate and theory test certificate)
  • Insurance

And now a combination of tax and SORN.

The automatic fines are supposed to be, “aimed at cracking down on individuals who do not tax their vehicles.” If I fall foul of them then they missed their target, because I do tax my vehicles. They are shown to be fines against forgetfulness; against failing to cope with the ever increasing arbitrary bureaucracy that defines one’s relationship with the modern state; against being one of those people who finds it much easier to apply themselves to productive activities than to spend time satisfying ancilliary whims.

But the concept of SORN is even more problematic than the fines. I may yet get away with the fine, I haven’t received a summons despite being told that they’re normally sent out 14 days after the tax expires (it’s been 27 days), and there may well be an appeals procedure. But SORN itself requires you to declare to the authorities that you’re not breaking the law. It’s an unjust requirement. One of the reasons I’m against compulsory ID cards is becuse of the principle that a law abiding citizen should not have to come into contact with the state. A law against not declaring you haven’t broken another law is absurd.

Some may argue that SORN prevents people going around in un-taxed, un-insured, un-roadworthy vehicles. I find that hard to believe. Anyone determined enough would simply fill in a false SORN and be in much the same situation as if there was no SORN: waiting for a policeman to notice the out-of-date tax disc. What’s left is a system that merely penalises people for getting out of date with the paperwork.

More generally, the concept of creating hoops for people to jump to as a preventative measure is flawed. The law should be about dealing with people who have committed crime, not hassling everybody who conceivably might.

Update: This never came to anything. I went to the Post Office, filled in the form, and got the tax disc with no drama at all. Maybe the notion of 14 days and then you’re automatically fined is just a threat; maybe the DVLA was too incompetent to catch me; or what the hell, maybe they really can tell the difference between forgetfulness and deliberate evasion. The point remains that according to the letter of the law you can get fined for not filling in a form.

Posted in Civil Liberties, Driving | 142 Comments »

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