Archive for 2013
Tasmanian Sojourn: How Does The Southern Isle Drive?
My spouse works for a university and has a role which requires her to attend interstate conferences. Last week it was a ride to Hobart; three days of work then a bit of down time.
Day one: arrival on a cloudless Sunday and hotel right next to Constitution Dock (finish line for the Sydney to Hobart yacht race). Do the basics of unpacking and walk around the immediate harbour precinct; some wonderful fish and chips (bad luck if you’re a vegetarian seeking anything other than fried potatoes though, as my partner is) and a topless double decker bus ride around to Wrest Point, to the base of Mt Wellington and the Cascade Brewery, through town and back to the harbour. What becomes increasingly obvious is Hobart is a living museum, locked in a time bubble with regulations forbidding development and buildings of a residential nature past a double storey. Being Australia’s second oldest city is one thing, making it look like a time traveller’s paradox is another.
An odd piece of road design has the main north western entrance streaming past Constitution Dock, leading to Hobartian gridlock morning and afternoon. I say odd as it is right next door to what is the town’s main tourist attraction, in real terms and having to wait for traffic that should be a block or two away isn’t tourist friendly. Having said that, at least the delay between greens and reds and turns is minimal to NSW’s laughably titled “world class system”. Sadly, Hobart is even more infected by colour blind drivers than the rest of the country, with eight of ten drivers having no idea what an amber or red light stands for, to the detriment of pedestrians that thought they were safe to cross….
Come Wednesday lunchtime (whilst the boss was at work, the kids and I had visited the Cadbury factory, overrun with American OH&S laws and a trip to a wildlife refuge), after solid rain since Monday and no chance to visit the 1200+ metre peak of Mt Wellington as a result, it’s a lazy 90 minute drive to Port Arthur. The one thing about maps, which brings to mind the old stories about tourists visiting the mainland and going “it was only this far on the map (spreading finger and thumb)” is that everything really isn’t that far away. Cold, wet and grey skies dominate the landscape and here is another sign that the insiduous desease of bad driving has clearly spread to our southern cousins; no one, but no one uses headlights if they are locals. Our hire car, a Nissan X-Trail (thankfully upgraded from a what would have been too small i20, with petrol and CVT box), with a West Aussie trained driver at the wheel, has lights ablaze, only to be greeted by confused Tasmanian faces.
Port Arthur itself, a marvel of convict construction, is probably best seen when it’s not being covered in Niagara Falls….sadly, poignantly, there’s no apparent acknowledgement of those that lost their lives during the mass shooting in 1996 with that absence overshadowing what we should have felt. The roads themselves are generally well built and maintained, plus there’s a welcome reliance on the driver to be more aware of road conditions on hillside roads in some areas by having only the vertical reflector posts rather than the crash barriers automatically expected.
Thursday morning, still wet and the schedule is to drive to Cradle Mountain. Due to a minor navigational hiccup we end up heading north on the highway to Launceston rather than the planned route through the mid western coast. Again, the roads are easy to drive, causing the X-Trail no issues although I had switched it into torque-sensing 4WD for the expected wet roads. The highway to Launceston is not particularly engaging until we head west, south of Devonport, with the spectacular bluffs of the Mt Roland and Gog Ranges in view. Unfortunately the route taken takes us north and out of view of the beautiful Lake St Clair but leads into some tight and steep roads through the quaintly named Mole Creek before finally arriving in 5degree air temps and Cradle Mountain.
The X-Trail has performed well; two adults, two kids and probably 70kg of luggage for around 570kms from the unleaded fuel. Cars passed: not that many. Cars with headlights on: not that many. Cars of a dark colour: just about every one. Safety factor:….ummmmmmmmm…..
Friday morning; it’s back down to the Cradle Mountain view point at Dove Lake as it’s a clear and almost cloudless day; it’s a spectacular sight but the wind chill precludes a planned walk. To drive to the lake, the authorities have put in place a 40kmh limit along a 8km long road most of one lane. It’s smart, simple and effective but surprisingly not to do with traffic control, as a night time animal spotting tour the evening before confirms. It’s solely to do with minimising animal fatalities, with wallabies, possums and “paddy melons” (a almost kangaroo version of a quokka) plus the declining Tasmanian Devil population finding their lives ended by vehicles. A quick visit to the Tasmanian Devil refuge just up the road, an effort to help stem the shocking facial tumour disease that’s decimated a terrible 80+ percent of the island’s devil population shows them as they are; a surprisingly cute, almost puppy like creature curled up in the morning sun.
Most of the state limit is either 100 or 110 kmh; that’s most comfortable enough with the roads generally not straight enough on the western side to offer a higher velocity, whilst the highway north to Launceston clearly had room to increase. From Cradle Mountain, to Burnie, across to Devonport and finally Launceston (with a diversion to the cataract chair lift ride on the western fringes, plus a Devon Tea shared with the 
numerous peacocks and peahens) was a leisurely drive, along some quality surfaces. For the most part, Tasmanian roads are smooth, maintained and ask the driver to be aware of the conditions and take responsibility for their safety. A noticeable not quite downside is having a sign, say 300m before a turnoff alerting you to a potential sight to see….yet no sign AT the actual point you were meant to turn and the distances certainly weren’t always accurate….Another noticeable lack was police or highway patrol cars. I genuinely don’t recall seeing one until Friday evening coming into the airport at Launceston where JetStar lived up to their reputation with another two hour delay….
Mainland drivers should visit Tasmania, to experience a less restrictive, less “nanny state” way of doing things. For example, the road to/from Port Arthur and up to Cradle Mountain encompasses plenty of areas where there’s no speed advisory signs nor crash barriers. You, the driver, are expected to do what a driver SHOULD be doing: be aware, drive to the road and the conditions. The downside is the lack of genuine safety enforcement, not just in Tasmania but Australia wide, when it comes to wet road situations. Using headlights and indicators is a basic safety function, as is stopping for red lights. The argument for speeding as a revenue raising exercise is fair yet, mitigated somewhat, by the fact that there’s no police action on other safety aspects which WOULD also contribute to revenue. Currently, NSW’s stance on non-indication is 2 demerit points and $140 per infraction; if policed as a safety initiative it would be a massive contributor to the coffers, yet……
One final point of note: the Government provided indication signs with two markers; one each for a fatality or a crash, each clearly defined. Thankfully and welcomingly, we didn’t see many at all….so, perhaps, apart from the lack of regard for other drivers under dark skies, there may be safer drivers in Tasmania due to the lack of other over policing….
Why The Motor Racing Industry Is Better Than The Yacht Racing Industry
I guess a few of our readers will have been taking at least a passing interest in what’s been happening with the America’s Cup yacht race and the attempts of Team New Zealand to get the Auld Mug down on the right side of the equator, even if it’s not coming back to Australia… yet. Back in the 1980s when the Americas Cup race was held in Fremantle, the yachts looked a lot different to those catamarans with hydrofoils they have today.
And that got me thinking about the motor racing industry. It’s time for a small rant. You see, a lot of the things that designers and engineers tinker about with and fine-tune in racing cars eventually find their way into regular production cars driven by the average Joe and Jane Smith. More and more cars these days are tested on racing circuits to make sure that their handling’s perfect (the Holden VF Commodore and its recent feats on the Nürburgring circuit, for example). Paddle-shifters and carb-fibre components were the sole preserve of racing machines, but now they’re everywhere. Even something as simple as a spoiler – back in the 1980s, you hardly ever saw a regular car on the road with them, even though you did see them on racing cars. Nowadays, lots of cars incorporate them into the design.
The racing industry has been good for drivers in general. It’s been a way for designers to make cars – all cars, not just race cars – lighter, stronger, safer, more fuel-efficient, more powerful and more responsive.
However… the yacht racing industry. Most sailing boats I see look pretty much the same as they did back in the 1980s or even before. Now, with all the emphasis on being environmentally conscious and using renewable resources and all that, wouldn’t you think that somebody somewhere would be interested in making water transport more eco-friendly by going back to using wind power but with all the added technology they’ve developed for yacht racing? Doesn’t somebody else want to use the sort of thing we see on the racing yachts put onto other craft?
Some people might question the demand for using this sort of technology on a yacht, as there’s no commercial need for sailing boats like there is for cars. However, there are water taxis, coastal patrols, tourism operators and light fishing boats – to say nothing of the pearl industry up in the north of Western Australia and Northern Territory. These still seem to use regular motor boats… but there’s no real reason why they couldn’t switch to eco-friendly wind power when you really come down to it. I heard a commentator on the America’s Cup say the other day that they could generate 700 hp (that’s 512 kW) from cleverly designed sails in those racing boats. Your typical outboard motor gets about 150 hp, while larger ones as seen on water taxis might have two 250-hp engines. More powerful and much more fuel-efficient… sounds like a winning idea to me. Heck, if there was some means of getting a car’s engine from 250 hp to 700 hp without using any extra fuel, we’d all be demanding it and probably getting it, too.
One could argue that wind-powered means of transport are dependent on weather conditions. But aren’t we all? Ever slipped on ice while driving? Ever felt a strong wind buffet you or create a bit more drag? Ever had to slow down because the rain was so strong that you could hardly see, in spite of the best efforts of your windscreen wipers? Cars are affected by weather conditions, too.
The motoring industry is doing its bit for the planet, playing around with alternative fuels, hybrid engines and electric vehicles, as well as making petrol-powered things work more efficiently, and what’s been learned on the race track has helped these efforts. The airline industry is also getting on board with improved design features and even fuel types. But what about the marine industry?
I’ll close by saying that I’ll be overjoyed if I’m proved wrong and there are some operators who are using wind-powered boats on a commercial basis somewhere. Let us know.
Toyota Corolla in the 1980s and from 2013: spot the little additions from the race circuit?
Should Petrol Cars be Banned?
Should petrol cars be banned?
The UK’s Liberal Democrats have recently proposed that petrol and diesel cars be banned from the country’s roads by 2040. The idea that any nation could be using vehicles fuelled by alternative fuels by 2040 seems like a very remote possibility and Australia is no exception. As of 2011, there were almost 12.5 million passenger cars, with New South Wales and Victoria making up around two thirds of that figure. The environmental necessity of replacing these vehicles has seen many potential solutions offered, from the sensible (better public transport) to the weird (dolphin-shaped cars) so we asked ourselves the following questions: what are the possible alternatives to petrol and diesel cars; and will they be any better for the environment?
Electric Cars
The electric car has some way to go if it is ever to usurp the petrol car. But Evans Electric in Australia has come close to perfecting the electric car. The problem with the idea of running on electric cars is that recharging batteries the raft of batteries will be so much more time-consuming than just filling up at the pump. Evans Electric has designed more energy efficient in-wheel engines which bypasses the need for gears and transmission and deploys energy into each wheel as required. They also generate a nifty 800-horsepower and 1250nm of torque.
Ammonia Engines
New Scientist recently published an article discussing whether ammonia is the future of clean fuel? When burned it produces nothing but water and nitrogen, the most prevalent gas in the atmosphere. However, production of ammonia itself is highly energy-intensive to produce and involves burning a fossil fuel to produce the hydrogen necessary to react with nitrogen. It accounts for the somewhere between 2 and 3 per cent of the world’s energy budget. Ammonia has been used as a fuel during World War II and as one component fuel of the X-15 supersonic aircraft, however it is much less powerful than petrol or diesel and would not work in standard, Otto cycle engines on the market.
More hybrids
This is a much more realistic vision of the future. As if to quash the dreams of the Liberal Democrat party, Exxon Mobil, the world’s richest company, has predicted that by 2040 half of all new cars will be hybrids. The batteries for hybrids, much like for full-on electric cars, add a significant amount of weight to the cars. This is where the experts come in: nine European manufacturers are developing energy-storing body panels which will charge faster than conventional batteries and reduced the weight of car by around 15%. Toyota is also researching body panels that would harness solar energy and store it.
The big question is what will happen to all the current vehicles if petrol is banned in the future. Will governments have to subsidise the retrofitting of electric or ammonia engines to petrol cars? And unless these measures were employed in China and the US it’s doubtful we’d see a dramatic change in the environmental impact of motoring. For now we’ll just have to make do with our petrol cars.
What do those lights mean…?
Do you know what those dashboard warning lights mean?
There are currently more than 15.5 million drivers on Australia’s roads. While a growing population expects to see an increase in motorists, it doesn’t necessarily expect to see an increase in traffic accidents. But that’s what has happened. Research shows that by June 2013 19.6% of motorists had been involved in at least one accident, a figure up from 18.7% in 2008.
Another recent survey conducted in the UK has found that 98 per cent of motorists don’t know what all the dashboard warning lights mean. With most of the accidents coming from new and old drivers, we ask whether being unfamiliar with or forgetting the signals your car gives you can lead to more accidents.
It shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise that people don’t pay much attention to their dashboard. After all, when was the last time you picked up your car’s manual? And, if memory serves, it’s not as though driving instructors are required to take learner drivers through the meaning of dashboard indicators. Most of us simply pay attention to the fuel level indicator and, it seems, rarely wonder what the other symbols represent, assuming that it’ll be self-evident.
The problem has been compounded by a lack of consistency among car manufacturers, with only 12 dashboard warning symbols being the same across 15 of the most popular, recent models. The Mercedes E Class has the most warning/information lights, with 41, and the least was the Volvo S40’s 21. Many of these correspond to newer functions from air-conditioning options to sat-navs.
In another survey conducted by the British Car Auctions (BCA) it turned out that over 20 per cent of drivers had ignored warning lights and decided to address the problem later in the journey. Five per cent admitted to hoping it would eventually switch off of its own accord and six per cent of motorists had gone more than a month without checking a warning light.
Clearly, for the well-being of your vehicle and your safety on the road it’s a good idea to know the most common symbols. Check that you’re aware of the following problems and their corresponding symbols and you’ll be a good deal safer on the road:
Brake System – This is usually indicated by an exclamation mark within a circle. It will automatically illuminate when the handbrake is engaged but should disappear when it is released. If not, it could indicate low brake fluid level or something more serious. Any issues with the braking system should be checked out immediately.
Battery – This is usually indicated by a square with a positive and minus signs. If the light illuminates, it means your car will not be able to travel much further as the battery is no longer being charged. The reasons for this are usually a broken alternator belt, a failed alternator or a faulty battery terminal.
Tyre Pressure – Very few people can recognize this symbol: it resembles a bulging tyre with tread at the bottom. Lit-up, it indicates low pressure which can be dangerous, especially when travelling at high speeds. You should stop at the nearest services to put air in your tyres.
Coolant temperature – Indicated by a symbol that resembles a thermometer sitting in a liquid. If you see this warning light illuminate, your engine could be in danger of overheating. This is a problem that requires stopping straight way as overheating an engine can cause irreparable damage.
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