The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

chris_m

:j

Pyxis wrote: »

Ooh how boring! I really like doing hill starts!
It looks like all the fun's being taking out of driving.

It's the usual "work to the lowest common denominator" process.
Some people can't do hill starts so we'll make cars that can do it for them - doesn't matter about the people who can actually drive

Of course, the fact that they can do these things doesn't mean that they get it all right.
A real bugbear of mine, in both the Merc and the Duster, is the stupidity of the gear change prompts which insist that I should be in a higher gear - even when the higher gear would be too high for, say, the 1 in 4 gradient I'm climbing. They've got a flippin' inclinometer built in for the hill start assist so why can't they link that in to the gear change nags?

PasturesNew

When I get in my car I've remembered what google maps said about where I was going ... and off I go. When I get there I just park....

It's only recently that I've realised that other people get in their car, type their destination into a little box ... arrive, then use technology to park properly.

All that ... "stops me looking good"

I'd be quite happy with a robot car - if it just came down to cost. I don't need to drive... quite happy to sit there while a car does it for me ... but I doubt I'll even own an electric car for 20 years... so a driverless one'd be completely out of the question.

My "little man" is 3 minutes late.... lateness bugs me as you're all at sea wondering when/if people will arrive.

My friend can set her clock by me. If she says any time at all, she can open her front door "on the dot" and see me standing there.

PasturesNew

9.10: Tick ... tock .... tick ...tock ...

Place your bets please.

9.18: Oh dear...

It might be Plan B: do it yourself ....
But if that were the case, I wish I'd known that 10 days ago when I last saw him.

9.25: He arrived!

10.55: Front door's been painted. Up the stairs emulsion next.

michaels

All our recent cars have a foot operated hand brake and you never use it whilst driving cos they are automatic so you just go from brake pedal to accelerator whether on the flat or a hill.

I will often use google on my phone even when I know exactly where I am going as it will no how long it will take given current traffic conditions and reroute me round delays.

silvercar

It's only recently that I've realised that other people get in their car, type their destination into a little box ... arrive, then use technology to park properly.

That's what I do. OH can send an address to the little box without leaving the house!

Pyxis

Pastures, traffic is really unpredictable at the moment.

Firstly, you have to get used to much less traffic in the mornings due to the lack of school run, but just as you compensate time-wise for an easy run, there will, inexplicably, be loads of traffic on one day!





Re. hillstarts, I'm sure that used to be mandatory in a driving test. Has that been dropped, too?

From the number of cars I see that do a little roll-back, that may be so? Or is it just a question of having got into bad habits?

PasturesNew

When I went away, my companion used her phone to get us to a track, that lead to a field, where we could walk for 30 minutes to something specific.... just about 10 minutes of that with a google speaking satnav killed her phone battery and she daren't use the phone again for fear of how much of a bill that might've run up.

I can't see me being able to use such an app.... I'd be spending far too long faffing about and poking at a tiny screen I can't see, trying to get a signal .....

Pyxis

PasturesNew wrote: »

When I went away, my companion used her phone to get us to a track, that lead to a field, where we could walk for 30 minutes to something specific.... just about 10 minutes of that with a google speaking satnav killed her phone battery and she daren't use the phone again for fear of how much of a bill that might've run up.

I can't see me being able to use such an app.... I'd be spending far too long faffing about and poking at a tiny screen I can't see, trying to get a signal .....

Plug it into a car phone charger, and keep it plugged in while you use it?

chris_m

Pyxis wrote: »

Re. hillstarts, I'm sure that used to be mandatory in a driving test. Has that been dropped, too?

From the number of cars I see that do a little roll-back, that may be so? Or is it just a question of having got into bad habits?

It's still in the list of things one might be asked to do.

I suspect it's not so much a case of bad habits as, in some cases, just being lucky on the day one got it right with a driving examiner in the passenger seat :rotfl:

PasturesNew

Pyxis wrote: »

Plug it into a car phone charger, and keep it plugged in while you use it?

I have got such a beast.... but it really dribble charges. We tried charging the phone with that and it'd just take too long. So it must use a lot more than it offers out. Maybe when the car was built about 13 years ago they never thought beyond the power needs of a little fag lighter... I bet these days those sockets are wired for more power.