Author archive
What They Didn’t Teach At Driving School
More years ago than I really like to think about, I got a few lessons from a professional driving instructor before I went and sat the practical driving test for my licence. To this day, I’m really, really good at three-point turns, which was the main skill that my lessons covered – as far as I can remember; it was quite a few years ago.
Driving schools and “proper” driving courses are usually great at covering the basic skills of driving – road rules, use of gears, use of brakes, watching out for hazards, changing lanes and so forth. This is the sort of driver education most of us think about when the topic of training young drivers comes up. A few of us also think about the track-based courses, where you get to practice handling a car in a “risky” situation in a comparatively safe place. They’ve certainly got their merits, if you’re lucky enough to have access and/or the funds to attend one of these courses.
However, there are a number of things that they don’t teach you in these courses. They just can’t, for simple logistic reasons. There are some things that you have to learn the hard way (hopefully not too hard!). Things like the following:
- Backing a trailer down a windy driveway. I still can’t do this very well, although I don’t usually have to, as my other half is an expert at it. (Niche market, anybody?)
- Coupling up a trailer, caravan or other thing to be towed.
- Driving with a caravan or horse trailer on the back. A lot of driving instructor vehicles tend to be little hatchbacks along the lines of Suzuki Swifts, which may explain this one.
- How to tow another vehicle that’s broken down – and how to “drive” the car that’s being towed.
- Driving at night. Driving instructors have a life… (More niche market potential here.)
- Driving long-distance and learning how to cope with fatigue.
- Driving in extreme weather conditions – heavy rain, frost, snow, fog, strong winds… You can’t arrange what the weather is going to do during your scheduled slot, no matter how much you want to practice driving in wet weather. I suppose a very good track-based course might be able to give some practical training in these under controlled conditions with the use of fog machines and fire hoses, but the cost of these would be through the roof. I guess simulators might be able to do it but again, these are pricey.
- Driving in extreme weather conditions while towing.
- Driving through a mob of sheep or cows being moved down the road.
I was going to add driving a 4×4, as this was something I had to learn the hard way when my folks got a Mitsubishi Chariot, but there are proper courses for off-road driving in a 4×4 these days.
Where you learn to drive can also affect what’s covered by a “proper” driving course, as opposed to the teaching you get from your parents. Teenagers learning to drive in rural areas get good at open-road driving, dirt roads and going through stock, but aren’t so hot at multi-lane roundabouts and parking in tight spaces. With urban teenagers, it’s the reverse. So if you’ve got a teenager, make sure that you get them to drive in a lot of contexts. As a parent of a teenager learning to drive, I’m certainly going to make sure that my son gets a go at all of these as much as possible.
The Ford River Rouge Complex
Ford in Australia is, unfortunately, dying. It has received a mortal wound and is going through the process of twitching and groaning before ultimately giving up the ghost, more’s the pity. However, the same can’t be said of Ford in other parts of the world. So to cheer all my fellow Ford fans up, here’s a bit of info about one of the oldest and possibly largest Ford factories: the Ford River Rouge Complex in Detroit, founded in 1917, which started manufacturing Model Ts since the late 1920s and still at work churning out Fords today.
The Ford River Rouge Complex, often just known as “The Rouge”, has been called one of the wonders of the industrial world and “a city without residents”. It’s got its own transport system – right from the beginning, it had 100 miles of railroad track and its own internal bus system as well as its own electricity generators. It was a completely self-sufficient factory: raw materials came in at one end and finished cars came out of the other. Even the plastic parts originally came from soybean derived oils grown in Ford-owned fields and the rubber came from a Ford-owned plantation in Brazil. Today, it’s not quite as self-sufficient or as big, but it’s still pretty impressive. It covers 600 acres and employs over 6000 people.
Originally, the factory buildings were designed to be reasonably pleasant to work in, with lots of glass all over the show so that it felt light and spacious for the workers inside. Today, it’s still doing the architectural design for living thing, with the largest “living roof” in the world to tackle stormwater, and has lots of green space all around the place as well as other eco-friendly features to minimise pollution.
However, all has not been rosy for the Rouge over the years and this massive complex did nearly close its doors in the early 1990s when they decided to stop making the Mustang there. Sure, they were still churning out Dearborn trucks from The Rouge (and still do), but there were howls of protest. People wanted to save the Mustang and keep the Rouge in production. Happily, both the Mustang and the Rouge stayed – although the Mustangs are being made elsewhere. The Rouge is still being redeveloped, with the Henry Ford Museum being closely linked with the Rouge and sharing the site, as well as running tours through the plant. (Hmmm… Ford Australia, take note.) They’re still in the redevelopment process, so it will be interesting to see what happens.
One of the few actual Ford vehicles made at this heritage factory is the Ford F150. We don’t get this over here, as the Powers That Be at Ford have said that the Aussie-made Ford Ranger does the job for this part of the world and they won’t be making the F150 with right-hand-drive. The F150 is, however, one of the best-selling vehicles in the USA (and has been for over 30 years) and is a tough, stylish ute (or “pickup truck”, as our American friends call it). With any luck – and I’m guessing here – this will change, given that (a) Ford Australia is shutting its doors, (b) Ford USA is coming out with a new F150 soon and (c) we like our utes over here. Fingers crossed, everybody.
Biofuels – What’s Currently Being Researched?
There’s no doubt about it: there is only a limited amount of fossil fuel in the world. Even running around in hybrid or purely electric vehicles may only go part of the way towards solving the problem, depending on how the electricity used to power the cars in question is generated. If the electricity is generated by an oil-fuelled generator, electric cars merely move the issue of burning fossil fuels further along the production line. If the electricity is generated using something sustainable, then that’s less of a problem.
Enter biodiesel and other biofuels. Biodiesel is almost just like normal diesel except that it can be refined from vegetable and animal fats. At the moment, these oils are a tad more acidic than regular diesel, so biodiesel, if used pure (B100) has a tendency to wear out the rubber hoses and gaskets inside your vehicle. Car manufacturers are beginning to respond by making cars with bits that can handle biodiesel, but at the moment, only a few cars can handle pure B100. The Saab 93 Biopower is one example. Most require a blend, although this may be starting to change. Car manufacturers aren’t stupid.
The other main biofuel is ethanol, which can be mixed with petrol and used to power that sort of engine. Ethanol is an alcohol produced by fermenting suitably sugary feedstocks. It’s really popular in Brazil, which has a massive sugarcane industry and all petrol in Brazil has at least 25% ethanol in it. We use a bit over here, too, also using waste from the sugar industry, although we don’t use as much as Brazil does.
However, all is not rosy in the world of biofuels and biodiesel. Yes, a good chunk of waste bits and pieces can be used to produce biodiesel and ethanol. However, leftovers aren’t going to be enough to power the world’s fleet of vehicles. This means that feedstock will have to be grown somewhere. There’s only a limited amount of land, so feedstocks are going to compete for land and water (and other resources such as fertiliser and labour) with crops grown for human consumption and for animal consumption. This is where a lot of research is being concentrated: how can we solve this problem?
Sorghum – a potential FFF plant.
One thing that is being researched in this area is finding suitable plants that are multipurpose – the so-called FFF (Food, Fodder and Feedstock) varieties. There’s been some pleasing results with varieties of sorghum, a grain used widely in Africa, where the grain is used for people, the leaves are fed to cattle and the sugary stems are used for ethanol production. Research is looking into which varieties are the best and whether or not breeders can come up with the perfect variety. Sweetcorn is another potential FFF plant. Along the same lines, they’re looking into plants that can be grown on not-so-hot land and thus taking up fewer resources – a recent paper published in the specialist journal Biotechnology for Biofuels proposed agave cactus as a possibility.
Another strand of research is looking into finding bacteria that do a great job of fermenting waste material and turning it into ethanol. If they can find some really good strains that can ferment just about any plant material, then this widens the scope for what can be used as feedstock.
The Jatropha bush.
On the biodiesel side of things, as well as hunting for crops that produce decent oil but don’t compete for resources too heavily. So far, the best crop is the jatropha shrub, which doesn’t mind drought, is poisonous enough to not have many pest problems and produces a really oily nut. The leftovers after the nut has been pressed for oil can be used for other bits and pieces, such as pesticides, medicines (yep) and as an ethanol feedstock. The issue here is that jatropha wasn’t originally a crop plant, so they’re working on finding good varieties that grow well on marginal land but produce a whacking big crop.
Also on the biodiesel front, they’re looking into algae. Some algae are oilier than you might think and could be used to produce biodiesel. The good thing about algae is that they can be grown on land that’s useless for farming other things, and they can be grown on wastewater – settlement ponds at the local sewage works are looking very promising so far. Of course, they’ve got to find the right strains of algae that produce the most oil, improve the extraction and harvesting process, and find a way to do all this commercially.
Algae even looks green.
Bad Car Paint Jobs
Customised paint jobs. They can be a fun way of personalising your car and making it look one of a kind. One of my husband’s friends has given his station wagon a customised home-made paint job, all in camouflage. He made a pretty good job of it and it’s good to be able to spot that car trawling around town and know at a distance that there goes Trev. OK, the camo job would have been even more appropriate on a big 4×4 – a Jeep, for example. Except then people would think it was the military in town.
Not all customised paint jobs go so well. Some are absolute shockers, and I don’t just mean because the paint job was done at home with a paint brush and leftover roof paint. The paint may have been applied well and evenly, but what has been painted on the car is tasteless, garish or tacky. Thankfully, the place I’ve seen these most often has been online rather than in the actual metal – with the probably exception of some of those Wicked Campers campervans that sometimes have some rather adult humour painted all over them – not what you want to be stuck behind with a car full of children who are old enough to read but too young to really have that sort of thing shoved in their face (right, stop the rant there).
So steel yourselves. Here comes the hall of shame. You have been warned…
Fake bloodstains to make it look as though you’re a homicidal maniac behind the wheel. Or a tampon on wheels. I feel sick.
Lovely classic Rolls-Royce. The yellow would have been an insult enough to such a fine piece of engineering but the Gypsy/Indian artwork?
What have they done to this poor Beetle?
If you drive this Mini, don’t expect to impress any woman with even half a brain. It makes me want to yell “Grow up!”
Apparently, this leopard-print Audi R8 is the latest folly of Justin Bieber, replacing the mirror-plated wheels of the past. Audi owners, start weeping now.
Part of me confesses to almost liking what they did to this Honda. Almost.
This is not Smart at all.
This isn’t a Smart idea either, although the BMW bike beats Hello Kitty hands down.
Mercy on us… time for Goodbye, Kitty.
Another one that gets the reaction “Grow up!” The actual paintwork looks badly done into the bargain. Where did I put that sick bucket?
What is this woman thinking? It’s got to be a woman in this car… surely?
Stop, stop! Enough already! Time for some relief in the form of paint jobs that are different (to say the least) but at least show a touch of imagination and a sense of humour.
As advertising for a zoo goes, this eye catching bus is a winner.
Here’s hoping the dorsal fin helps the aerodynamics.
This might not be to everyone’s taste but would be good for a professional florist.
Garish and over the top, but this road hog Beetle puts a smile on a few people’s faces.
Level 2, 9 Help Street