The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
I couldnt agree more. Even as I get older I am quite happy to have none of this crap fitted to my car.
What's made you not grumpy but not smile either today?
- Thread starter dave
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What's made you not grumpy but not smile either today?
Driving and safety is a government game of math. They know that a large number of drivers are completely unsafe, but they are willing to let them have a licence because keeping the country moving is more beneficial to the economy that the few people who get killed each year. Obviously accidents cost the government money so we set the police to task to filter out the most unsafe as best they can, but someone’s ability to pass a test does not reflect there ability to drive safely afterwards.
The obvious way to deal with this would be to have regular routine testing every 5 or 10 years but that costs a lot of money and would affect the economy in taking huge numbers of drivers off the road… so better to make it a manufacturers problem and tell them they need to make cars safer, than have a more robust system in place to deal with the problems.
While there are many perfectly good drivers out there, there are plenty more who need things to stop them driving into stationary objects or not swerving out of their lane.
If you haven't already, try to get a workshop manual for it - almost everything Honda is still obtainable somewhere, as long as you can find a part number.
The most obscure part I've found so far was the ignition coil for a 37 year old rotavator. Eventually tracked down a company in Mexico which still made them, and got one shipped by surface mail. Took 5 weeks to get here, but fitted perfectly and worked faultlessly for 5 years, before it got sold as the Rotavator had become too cumbersome for my father, who was in his 80s.
The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
Its all back to the use of mobile phones then. Im sure that 90%+ of lane indiscipline is down to that alone. People eating pies and drinking coffee come nowhere on the scale!
Currently from what I see at the moment I am inclined to agree with you.
I suppose its what you consider a "risk" based on your view point. Imagine if someone right now was trying to sell this new form of transport that ran on highly refined highly flammable liquid, that in the event of a fire could spill everywhere and go up in massive, instant flames, and every "car" will carry about 60 liters of this highly volatile liquid, and you will fill your car up in "stations" with massive underground tanks of the stuff which will be supplied by even bigger vehicles also powered by flammable liquids and will tow a trailer with 38,000 liters of even more highly flammable liquid in a big metal tank that is comprised of just a thing skin of aluminum or steel.
If someone were proposing something like this today everyone would think they're insane, but that's what we all drive day in day out, without giving any thought to it.
There is plenty of regulation when it comes to electrical safety standards in the UK, We are one of the best countries in the world for our electrical safety.
Its not like a plug in a house where the wires are live as long as the socket is plugged in and turned on. The car talks to the charger and the charger will not start the high power charging unless that handshake takes place and both pieces of technology are happy. It only takes the slightest issue or error and the charger will cut the high power charging for safety. The biggest safety issue with batteries is when they rupture with the inside of the battery coming into contact with air, and the chemicals in the battery catches fire..... but that said, you walk around with a phone in your pocket. there are a million devices we all pass every day with the same type of batteries in them, again its all about how you interpret the risks.
In a country of 60+ million and a world of 7 ~ 8Bn people. there is always going to be a story or situation where something scary happens. someone getting killed by a pencil or bitten by an ant and dying from sepsis. Or not having anything happen to them at all and dying from sepsis. I can't worry about electric car batteries or chargers. There are probably a dozen more electrical hazards in your home you don't even know about than an electric car charger.
The driving test is a test of ability. It is being constantly updated to reflect current driving situations, including nearly half the time following satnav. But this is a test of ability.
Once passed, attitude takes over. Most of the people we encounter driving badly do so due to personal choices, not level of ability. A retest will not check attitude, as the drive will be very different to their normal behaviour. As such, retesting will be a huge waste of time and money.
The biggest influence on early driver behaviour, is their parents. They've had 17 years to subconsciously absorb the attitudes, decisions and actions of their parents, and a driving instructor has to undo the damage. On test, if they feel pressure, especially if a situation develops that they've not seen on lessons, they will react like their parents, not as they've been taught. Every day they fail to have a collision, reinforces their behaviour.
A sparrowhawk arrived in the garden, complete with attached sparrow. Sad, but nature at work. Cat showed an interest, sparrowhawk decided to leave, with prey.
As regards cables, throttle, operator presence etc. - which can be a particular problem with my love of old horticultural machinery - My local wee bike shop has helped out in the past by making cables up using the old ones as patterns. Bowden cables he'll knock out all day long (who'd have believed how many cable end types there are?) Solid wire ones, of the push/pull variety, like throttle cables often are, are a little more challenging, but he usually comes up with a solution.
I still have some lengths of Bowden cable and some fittings from my old motor bike days, doing the throttle and brakes etc.
Talking Honda engines. I've noticed some of the cheaper machines with far eastern made engines have engines that look remarkably like Hondas? Our 18" Rover Mower, like this one: https://www.sweeneygrassmachinery.com/product/rover-835m103-18/ had a genuine Honda engine - which made it more expensive than the Briggs option at that time. Being the only 18" machine we had, it did a lot of running doing smaller areas and around border edges where the bigger machines were more difficult to manage. It ran pretty much every day and never went wrong in all the time we ran it - probably 10 years or so. It got it's oil changed every 2 months through the season, as did all my daily used machines - straight SAE 30 in them all - It also used noticeably less petrol than the Briggs engined machines, although, to be fair, they were larger more powerful machines. This is the modern version: https://masportlawnmowers.co.uk/col...r/products/widecut800alsp-selfpropelled-mower which has changed very little compared to the ones I had except that ours had the "trusty" old side valve, cast iron bore, engine. The Hondas which were there when I took over the squad were very good indeed engine wise, never had a problem, but transmissions and chassis parts weren't in the same league. The Masports had aluminium decks whereas the Hondas had pressed steel ones which rusted. The Hondas were good, but the Masports were even better. I think Masport is now owned by Briggs, or maybe vice versa? The biggest single thing I liked about the Masports was the swing blade system which eliminates the possibility of bent crankshafts and makes the blades a lot cheaper to replace. Here's a good video which shows how it works: We didn't have the chipping blade but we had 2 with the 2 blades and one with the 4 blades - The Rover also had a 4 swing blade system and ally deck, I like ally decks, My own wee 16" cut Harry has an ally deck - Can't say the 4 blades really made any difference I could see - the lawn looked the same no matter which machine was used and all seemed able to cope equally well with longer grass.
By the way, I mentioned earlier that I ran my 4 stroke machines - all the smaller ones anyway, so I don't include the Ferris or Simplicity - on SAE 30. When I started getting involved with small machine maintenance pretty much all these small 4 strokes ran on SAE 30, so Briggs, Tecumseh, Victa, (although Victa were big on 2 strokes) etc, etc. but as the years went by some started specifying multigrades. Of course I initially followed this advice as new machines were bought but I ran into an interesting situation. It's largely associated with machine abuse. I found that some of my machine operators, no matter how much I tried, just didn't seem to have an "ear" for when an engine was straining excessively. This would happen mainly in two situations, either when cutting long grass or failing to empty the grass collector when it was full and just continuing to mow. The result of this use is that the blades can't clear the cuttings into the collector so get clogged with the result that the engine has to work very hard. In the end the engine will stall, but before that it will have been working on full throttle as the governor attempts to maintain engine revs. The result of this is the engine gets very hot indeed and this subjects the oil to extreme stress. Air cooled engines are prone to localized overheating much more than water cooled units and I think the combination of extreme hot spots and overheated - so very thin - oil film causes problems. I had a few problems with the engines running multigrade, bore scoring, rings loosing their tension, etc, but no problems with the ones on straight 30 weight and, knowing a wee bit about engine oils, I think the binding polymers were failing in the multigrade products. I've stopped an operator using a Briggs, running on SAE 30, that had got so hot the engine was smoking - not from the exhaust but from the head and barrel - and after maybe 15 minutes it restarted and carried on as if nothing had happened. I think the straight oil just gets progressively thinner the hotter it gets but the multigrade holds viscosity until it suffers some sort of structural failure when it's performance just "drops off the cliff". So it's SAE 30 for me, until a machine gets really old and worn when some SAE 40 may extend it's working life for a while.
Edit. By the way folks, did you notice how the chap in the video tipped up the machine to look at the blades? that's the way to do it on most machines - I won't be foolish enough to say all machines - Do it this way and the oil is contained in the sump and there's very little risk of fuel leaking out if the tank cap is in good order. I always tip my machines up this way and rarely have a problem unless I'm silly enough to do it with a very full tank. Tip most machines sideways and they'll either leak oil or fuel or both. By the way, you may find it'll need a few more pulls than normal to start after you've put it back on it's wheels because tipping it up may flood the carb.
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At one point I had a conversation with a gentleman who believed the only thing you would be prosecuted for was driving offences that have a specific offense code. Eg TS10 for traffic lights, CU80 for phone etc etc.
He failed to grasp that although many sections of the highway code do not start with must or have an offense code attached... They could be used to determine if he was a competent driver.
Which oddly enough would be the basis of driving without due care and attention...but hey no mate ignore roundabouts, and pedestrians at side roads and if you cause an accident by contravening something starting with the should...I'm sure the law will be on your side.
Those people get away with it for years then it comes as a surprise when something does happen.
I can think of at least one person I know who drives very badly to the extent they actually scare people who get in the car with them But so far like a real life Mr Magoo, it seems accidents and the police have never managed to catch up with them.... rear facing dash cam would probably be interesting.
Mr and Mrs. Magoo are out their, at least they were when I was being driven back by a customer of a garage I used to work for. I recall the old lady driving around a blind left hand bend and the centre white line was passing my passenger door! Needless to say I didn't allow it to happen again.
Before that as an apprentice I recall two elderly sisters making a "pigs ear " of reversing out of our workshop, apparently they were in the habit of one steering whilst the other changed gear in their Austin A40.
At the same garage we had a retired Welsh boxer who owned a farm who drove to our garage for fuel sat on the bonnet of the tractor with massively overloaded trailer as that was the only way he could keep the front wheels on the ground, I would mention the road was always busy and had a 70Mph limit!
Before that as an apprentice I recall two elderly sisters making a "pigs ear " of reversing out of our workshop, apparently they were in the habit of one steering whilst the other changed gear in their Austin A40.
At the same garage we had a retired Welsh boxer who owned a farm who drove to our garage for fuel sat on the bonnet of the tractor with massively overloaded trailer as that was the only way he could keep the front wheels on the ground, I would mention the road was always busy and had a 70Mph limit!
Well...this word has occurred.
It's pretty much as expected, some opportunities for it to be less horrible due to structure changes and certain immense pains in the backside seeking new pastures.
Quite an amusing moment when being giving a tour of how things stand/have apparently changed over the previous year since I left.
I'd either been present for, prototyped or introduced all the changes mentioned...so at least I wouldn't have much to catch up on
Well...the interview for the better paid job I've kinda decided I do want was today.
Seemed to go reasonably well...we shall see.
Fingers crossed for you.
Going back to what NCAP should be testing..
You may look at this and think "and?" this platform will underpin next C3 and probably Panda replacement...
Nevermind the lack of airbags which they could rectify, the basic structure being unstable is not acceptable regardless of if you fit a bouncy castle worth of airbags.
Current one would be a 5 star car if they'd fitted auto brakes.
You may look at this and think "and?" this platform will underpin next C3 and probably Panda replacement...
Nevermind the lack of airbags which they could rectify, the basic structure being unstable is not acceptable regardless of if you fit a bouncy castle worth of airbags.
Current one would be a 5 star car if they'd fitted auto brakes.
The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
I was in the garden on Saturday afternoon and a barn owl flew over carrying a mouse, thats a sight I never saw before
Noises outside. Much revving of engine, slipping of clutch, with abrupt movements of the vehicle. Royal Mail, presumably new recruits. "Have you got a licence, good, there's the van." They all used to get training, which was a thankless task, as once on their own, they were either stopped, or flat out.
All the effort was to try to park neatly. Yet they are there temporarily. Just abandon it.
We recommend delivery drivers of all types park a little selfishly. Neat can get your van trapped in. Taking a little more space helps avoid that, meaning an easier exit. Always have an escape plan.
All the effort was to try to park neatly. Yet they are there temporarily. Just abandon it.
We recommend delivery drivers of all types park a little selfishly. Neat can get your van trapped in. Taking a little more space helps avoid that, meaning an easier exit. Always have an escape plan.
The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
That has been my approach to driving for the last 49 years. In around 1.8million miles I have not had a serious at fault coming together yet and the being prepered for plan B has saved me for definite on several occasions from major crashes. Its much easier to change if you have something in mind and that includes constant scanning of surroundings for exits even from major roads at speed should the need arise.
My worst crash was hitting the kerb at around 10mph in trsaffic while looking at a map in almost stationary traffic. That took out all thr front suspension two tyres and thethe rear suspension arms too. Thanks to Beds CC for the non standard kerbing around non approved drain installations for the extent of the damag resulting from my carelessness. But.... hey ho what are company cars for apart from learning! I called the AA and was towed to a tyre firm. THinks... Change the tyre and keep quiet about the whole thing. Then the tyre man said thte back tyres flat too, then pointedout the front wheel was nearly 6" too far back. I can't remember what old cobblers I spouted to excuse this debacle..... Plan A should have been pull over to look at the map!
And to finish someone else got it...
Oh well given I'd describe my attitude towards at it as ambivalent at best and at worst poison chalice probably done me a favour.
Money would have been nice though...
