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The Golden Rules For Passengers
Usually, we write for drivers. However, as most of us have noticed at some point, the typical car has more than one door and more than one seat (with the exceptions of a few extreme race-inspired units such as the Abarth 695 Biposto . One of the main attractions of cars is that they can take the whole family or at least another person as well as the driver.
Plenty has been written about good behaviour when driving and how to be courteous to other drivers. Not much has been said about the way passengers ought to behave. Without further ado, then, here are the golden rules that all passengers ought to obey.
- 1. Do not tell the driver what to do or what he or she ought to be doing. The obvious exception to this is if you are teaching someone else to drive. You are also allowed to speak up if the driver is exceeding the speed limit and making you feel frightened or if you have been asked to navigate using an old-fashioned map rather than a GPS. Otherwise, belt up in both senses of the word.
- 2. Inform the driver if you feel sick or need to pee in plenty of time. Please believe me when I say that we really don’t want to clean up the mess if you explode from either end. And do give the driver lots of warning so that he or she can pull over in a convenient spot where the car can be parked safely (for the driver’s benefit) and where there’s a decent large bush and/or a handy public lavatory (for your benefit). The only exception to this is if you are under the age of two.
- 3. Don’t kick the back of the driver’s seat. Lumbar support and lots of padding can only do so much and the driver can’t do all that much with a bony knee or toe pressing into his/her kidneys. If you are a tall lanky type and you like to ride in the rear on the driver’s side but the driver likes to have the seat well back, you may have to find a compromise.
- 4. Don’t touch the driver. You should even be cautious if you are the beloved of the driver and want to be in constant physical contact with him or her. Keep it to a light hand on the knee or shoulder. Anything else is off limits. If you are too young to know not to pull at Mum or Dad’s sleeve for attention when Mum/Dad is driving, you are too young to be in the front seat.
- 5. Wear your seatbelt. No exceptions. Do it.
- 6. Assist the driver by holding coffee cups if no holder is available, adjusting temperature controls and similar dials. On cold days when the inside of the windscreen is fogged or if something has smeared across the inside of the windscreen, help out by applying tissues or cloths to help clear the driver’s vision.
- 7. Open the gates. If there’s a closed gate that needs to be opened, it’s the front passenger’s job to open it.
- 8. Don’t distract the driver at crucial moments. One of several reasons why the authorities don’t like the driver texting or phoning while driving is because the person on the other end of the phone can’t see what’s going on and won’t shut up during a tricky manoeuvre. You can. Negotiating heavy traffic in a multilane roundabout is a bad moment to show the driver your finished school project, the great photo your friend just posted on Facebook or the hilarious cartoon in the newspaper. Wait for a traffic jam.
- 9. On long drives at night, be prepared to slap the driver and scream if he/she starts drowsing at the wheel. Do your bit to help the driver stay alert by providing stimulating conversation or offering to help out.
- 10. If you’re in the rear seat of three rows in an MPV, don’t start screaming for the driver in the middle of Sydney Harbour Bridge. And if you’re the driver, (a) don’t put a child who’s likely to scream in some inaccessible place and (b) grit your teeth and try to endure the screams until you get to a suitable place.
Safe and happy driving and being driven,
Megan
Back To The Future: The DeLorean DMC-12
I’m writing this on 20th October 2015, which means that tomorrow is Back To The Future day. For those of you who managed to miss out on watching Back To The Future II and don’t quite get what’s the big deal about tomorrow, the date 21st October 2015 is the date to which the time-travelling De Lorean hops forward to.
In honour of the occasion, it’s time to take a little look at the car that this movie series pushed into the limelight: the DeLorean. To be more specific, the DeLorean DMC-12.
The Back To The Future movie series is about the only place you’re really likely to see the DeLorean DMC-12. The company wasn’t a success, in spite of the sort of “product placement” that many manufacturers would pay vast amounts of money for. It didn’t flop simply because it was a small and obscure company – similar product placement of an obscure brand in a sci-fi movie during the mid-1980s worked for Reece’s Pieces in the E.T. movie. It flopped for a number of reasons, including a massive slump in the US car market, the fact that the main DeLorean factory was located in Belfast, Northern Ireland smack-dab in the middle of the notorious Troubles and the arrest of the company’s head, John DeLorean, for drug trafficking.
It’s a pity that the DeLorean didn’t get more widespread, because this two-door sports coupé had a lot going for it, really. The body styling was innovative and futuristic (which was why it was chosen for the starring role in the movie). It featured a fair amount of fibreglass, a very streamlined rocket-like shape and those über-cool gullwing doors, which also graced the Mercedes-Benz 300SL. Another innovative styling feature of the DeLorean DMC-12 was the decision to leave the metal unpainted but to let the brushed stainless steel speak for itself. Rumour has it that a small, select group of DeLoreans were plated with gold. I hope that last one is a rumour, as it sounds extremely tacky and gag-worthily ostentatious.
The engine – which was mounted in the rear like an old-fashioned VW Beetle – was a 2.9-L V6 PRV job, with PRV standing for Peugeot , Renault and Volvo. The initial plan was to have a centrally mounted Wankel engine, but this sounds like a mechanic’s nightmare, so it’s just as well that this idea never made it past the drawing board or the DMC (DeLorean Motor Company) might have flopped a whole lot sooner. The transmission came in two types: a five-speed manual or a three-speed automatic. It could do the 0–60 mph sprint (American equivalent of the 0–100 km/h time) in 8.8 seconds for the manual and 10.5 seconds for the automatic version. The suspension was a four-wheel independent job (double wishbones at the front, multi-link in the rear) that worked alongside coil springs, and telescopic shock absorbers. Power-assisted disk brakes completed the performance and handling package.
The DeLorean came reasonably well equipped with bells and whistles for a mid-1980s vehicle, featuring a cassette player, a clock built into the gearshift knob, leather seats, air conditioning, electric windows and power (central) locking. Most DeLoreans were left-hand drive jobs but a few right-hand drives were produced for the UK and Australian market. They never took off.
There were a few teething problems with the radio antenna, which had rotten reception with its first location on the front roof, and with the battery, which went flat horribly easily.
The DMC company folded in 1983 after having made about 8000–9000 units since production began in 1981, including the right-hand drive models.
A few years ago (in 2013), there were a few rumours out there that the DeLorean was going to make a comeback as an electric vehicle with the iconic body style, including the brushed stainless steel with no paint and the gull-wing doors. Although a prototype has been put around a test track and there was a bit of a buzz about it, this project also seems to have fizzled. Or do I speak too soon? A news report from Belfast, Northern Ireland, yesterday hints that an all-electric high-tech version made by the engineering department of Queen’s University Belfast is going to be unveiled tomorrow for Back To The Future Day (OK, make a few adjustments for time-zone differences!).
Today, DeLoreans are mostly found in the United States in the hands of enthusiasts. You are unlikely to see one on Australian roads. If, however, you have been lucky enough to spot a real one, tell the world!
Cheers,
Megan
Nicknames For Cars
General Lee
There’s something about cars – at least cars that have been well designed by human beings rather than computers and algorithms – that makes them into a sort of mechanical animal. Given that we spend as much time with our cars as we do with our pets, it’s no surprise, therefore, that we give silly nicknames to our cars. Some of us go to the point of getting a personalised plate with the name on.
Oddly enough, even if you decide to give your car a nickname, it might not stick. Over the years, I have attempted to christen several of the vehicles owned by the family but only a handful of them have stuck. These have been Goldbug (Morris 1300), Suzy (Isuzu Bighorn), Roger The Blute (blue Nissan Navara ute) and Dinky-Wee (Daihatsu Charade). Why these nicknames stuck while others didn’t is uncertain. My attempts, for example, to christen the Saab I used to own and the Volvo I currently drive The Valkyrie and Hilda respectively, never quite came off. However, somebody else referred to that Saab as The Eurobeast and that name stuck. Sometimes, I wonder if the car itself has a say in its naming.
Kitt
How cars acquire nicknames is another story. Colour, make and the letters on the licence plate all seem to play their part. My grandmother, for instance, used the letters on the licence plate to christen her Alfa Romeo Lorenzo (plate had LZ in it) and the red Fiat Uno Orlando (plate with OR) (Italian names for Italian cars – my grandmother was nuts about all things Italian). Sometimes two factors get used: our Roger The Blute takes its name from the licence plate letters (RJ) and the colour (blue), with “blute” being a portmanteau word combining “blue” and “ute”.
Bumblebee
Research seems to support this hunch. One survey in the UK found that 30% of people who gave their cars nicknames used the licence plate, while 27% used the car’s “personality”, 16% used the make or model name as a starting point, 8% used the colour and another 8% just chose something they liked. The same study found that 50% of female drivers and 33% of men gave their cars names, and that those aged 18–24 were most likely to name their cars: 70% of this age group in the study had done so, compared to 30% of those over 65.
That same British study found that the most popular nicknames for cars were as follows:
- Names with ‘Blue’ in them (Bluebell, Blue Boy, Bluey, etc.)
- Fred, Freddie or Freda
- Betsy
- Babe/ Baby
- The Beast
- Penelope/Penny
- Names starting with ‘Little’ (e.g. Little Ripper)
- Bertie/Bert
- Bessie/Bess
- Bertha
- Katie
- Names starting with ‘Old’
Herbie
Other people have turned to movies or TV shows to find the right moniker for their car. Herbie, Bumblebee, Kitt, General Lee, and Lightning McQueen are all fairly high in the popularity stakes for VW Beetles, Ford Camaros, anything sleek and black, Dodges and anything sleek and red respectively. Batmobile is also a contender for slick black vehicles. We’d have to include Daisy or Miss Daisy here, which is either a reference to Daisy Duke or to Driving Miss Daisy.
What about you? Do you have a nickname for your car? What is it? How or why did you choose it? Let us know in the Comments below!
Safe and happy driving,
Megan (one of several drivers of Roger The Blute)
Oh Volkswagen, How Could You???
Dear Martin Winterkorn and the rest of the VW team,
Why did you do it? Why, oh, why did you fit your common-rail TDI diesel engines with cunning devices that cheated during emissions testing? Did you mothers never tell you that “cheaters never prosper” and that honesty is the best policy? Didn’t you realise that it was just a matter of time before you were busted?
Make no mistake about it, Martin. We like your cars. We all know how iconic Beetles and Combis are. The Beetle is the quintessential car that gives everybody a smile and has real personality. Even if practicality dictates that a Beetle can’t be part of our driving life, we love them anyway. We love the tough Amarok and Touareg, the snazzy Golf and Passat. We like the practicality of the Caddy and the Transporter. The fact that the recall affects five million cars worldwide just goes to show how much we like your vehicles.
We also like diesel engines. We like the way that a diesel engine tends to be more forgiving in the hands of a learner driver who’s learning not to stall. We like the way that diesels have better torque for towing and off-roading. We also like the way that diesel can be produced from environmentally friendly and sustainable sources like algae and waste oil to make biodiesel.
Surely, if you’ve got designers with the intelligence and skills to come up with an engine that’s smart enough to recognise when it’s being put through lab testing and adjust its emissions readouts, you have the team needed to develop an engine that has lower emissions all the time. Let’s face it: developing that took a lot of skill and sophistication. The same skill and sophistication could easily have been applied elsewhere to make your already good cars even better. So what was the point of cheating?
Now you’ve got the bother and expense of recalling all the affected VWs (and Audis and Skodas) with the engines in question. And several have been banned for sale here in Australia, which is really bad news for all of us in the automotive industry. All those lovely Golf hatchbacks, Tiguan SUVs, Passat sedans and wagons, Audi A4 sedans and wagons, Audi A5 coupes, Audi Q5 2.0 TDI SUVs, Skoda Yeti SUVs and Skoda Superb sedans and wagons suspended from sale here Down Under, languishing in car yards instead of being on the roads where they belong. Anything with a fitted with 1.6 or 2.0-litre EA189 diesel engine, in fact.
The news informs us that a few of your engineers and suppliers spoke up as early as 2011 (or even 2007) warning you not to misuse the technology. I hope you’ve been nice to them. You should have listened.
Now you’re stuck with damage control. You will be able to bounce back from this. Lots of vehicles have bounced back from scandals, from the Ford Pinto fiasco to the Mercedes that rolled over in the Moose Test. Your cars are certainly good enough. We will buy them again… once you’ve made honest vehicles out of them.
Possibly, you have done the automotive world a service. You have highlighted the fact that driving in a lab test isn’t the same as driving in the real world. Maybe after this, cars will be put through real world tests in real-world conditions so their fuel economy (and emissions) stats will reflect the real thing. Lab testing is like sucking your tummy in when you get out the tape measure: it might make you feel nice inside at first but will leave you feeling horribly squeezed later. So thanks for highlighting this issue.
Yours sincerely,
Megan
PS: VW Owners: More information is available at the VW website as it becomes available.
Level 2, 9 Help Street