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We Have it Easy Today
Modern vehicles coddle their drivers with electronic ‘nannies,’ creature comforts that were unimaginable a few years ago and virtually trouble-free motoring. Not too many years ago an extended trip by automobile involved a great deal of preparation and the packing of emergency repair items. When is the last time a modern driver had a flat tire that had to be addressed on the roadside? Fixing a flat used to involve patching an inner-tube, after removing the punctured inflatable from the tire by the application of a pair of tire-irons and a mallet. Today a flat tire is confronted with a call to the motor club, or at worst, the removal of the offending tire and wheel and the installation of the spare tire.
Clara E. Sipprell was a world renowned photographer. In her day, Clara captured the images of some of the world’s luminaries including: Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, the great American poet Robert Frost, the royal family of Sweden, Igor Stanislavsky, Pearl Buck, Albert Schweitzer, Dag Hammerskold and many more. Aunt Clara wasn’t really my aunt, but she was part of my family for so many years that my siblings and I thought of her in that manner. She loved fast, open cars, corncob pipes and strong drink. Clara’s automobile adventures were legendary, photographic safaris they might be called today.
She would fill her touring car with equipment, cameras in the boot and tripods strapped to the sides and then set out on a trek across the USA or along the Croatian coast or on the Trans-Siberian Highway. She recorded these adventures on photographic plates, the subjects being most often the interesting people she encountered, but sometimes just the scenery. She used no artificial lighting, made only contact prints with no enlargement and did all of her own processing.
Clara often said that the trip was the important part of her travels, not the destination. She truly loved to drive. Once while traveling across the USA, she was speeding through Georgia and the local police hauled her into a rural courtroom to face the judge. She and the judge got on famously and she was let off with a warning. On the return trip she detoured back through the little country town so she could continue her conversation with “his honor.” She liked people almost as much as driving.
I imagine that Clara wouldn’t like the motoring as much today what with superhighways and the total reliability of vehicles. Part of the adventure of traveling in her day was a little bit of uncertainty.
Flashers legal in USA but not here
I’m talking about flashing your headlights as a warning against police activity, OK?
A judge in Florida had to pass judgement in a case where a driver was prosecuted for flashing his lights to oncoming traffic to warn them of a radar trap. He got off, with the judge citing that the defendant was ‘engaging in behaviour protected by the US constitution’.
But don’t think it’s safe to do the same thing in Australia. There is no specific statute that covers the event, but the police can get you on a more general law that says it is an offence ‘to use high beam on an oncoming vehicle less than 200 metres away’ even though he may thank you for it. Instead you’ll get a fine and lose some points in most states in Australia
Flat Battery? Certainly we can fix it, sir. That will be $45,000.
Oh my God! How would you feel if you buy a new supercar, let the battery go flat and then get charged $45,000 to replace it?
Hmm. Not happy, Jan.
But that’s what’s happened to some owners of the new Tesla Roadster Electric Supercar.
The car costs around $200,000 in Australia, is fully electric, with a range in a single charge of 400kms. and will accelerate to 100kph in under 4 secs. which sure is supercar territory.
In fairness the maker does make it clear that the battery must not reach full discharge and that there are numerous warning signals. Despite that some owners have had to face the unbelievable – ” I’ve got a brick!”, a totally immobile vehicle that cannot be started or even pushed to the side of the road.
The owner is forced to pay around $45,000 to replace the entire battery – and possibly a lot more if the car fails far from its home base in the USA, like the unfortunate owner who suffered severe shipping delays when he imported his car to Japan and it arrived with a flat battery! It seems that neither Tesla’s new car warranty nor normal car insurance policies provide any protection for the unfortunate owner.
The full story, including Tesla’s response can be seen here
BUT HERE’S THE GOOD NEWS! That’s not symptomatic of electric cars, though keeping a charge in the battery is much like keeping oil in the engine or petrol in the tank for a normal car. The first experience that local buyers will have for an appoachably-priced electric car will probably be the Nissan Leaf, scheduled for sale this month. It has already been launched overseas and has had a launch event here, supported by a really interesting and award-winning ad campaign- World Without Petrol (and it’s worth a click through), which will probably be used for the public launch in Australia.
THE GOOD NEWS is that if the battery does go flat it can be easily re-charged. There’s also plenty of warning that it’s running out of petrol-sorry, electricity. Finally, in some markets Nissan also offer a free ‘pick up and tow’ service, although that hasn’t yet been confirmed here (and Nissan HO were unavailable for comment). We’ll be telling you more about the new Nissan Leaf shortly, but it offers around 100-120 km range on a single charge, and it is expected that it will not need specialist charging points (it should be able to be done at home). It will be sold at a premium price to its petrol competitors at around $51,000.
Bull Bars – A Load Of Bull?
They would have to be one of the most common and the most visible car accessories. Here in Australia, we tend to call them roo bars rather than bull bars simply because we’re more likely to encounter Old Man Kangaroo in the middle of the road. But are bull bars, roo bars, nudge bars or whatever you want to call them really worth it? Should you install them on your vehicle?
Opinion is, of course, divided, and whether you put them on your car or not is really up to you, the sort of car you have and what you plan on doing with it.
There’s no denying that a set of big bull bars/roo bars have tough-guy good looks on a big 4×4 like a Mitsubishi Pajero – and that they look a bit silly on a little hatchback (although nudge bars might have a sort of ironic humour installed on a Mini) or on a sports car. But don’t just blindly get them put on your set of wheels. Think first.
The idea behind bull bars is simple. If you’re driving down a country road at night and some stupid cattlebeast or kangaroo (or some other big animal) wanders out into the road as you bucket around a corner at the full legal limit, there’s going to be one heck of a big mess. You won’t be able to stop the mess that will be made of the poor dumb animal but the mess it makes of your front bonnet can be minimised if you have bull bars attached, as the bull bars take the impact better than the headlights. You can also get smaller versions that protect the front of your vehicle from the scrapes and bumps of shrubbery; these are usually called nudge bars, bush bars or brush bars.
Bull bars also fit in very well with other off-road accessories, as they make a handy place to mount a winch or extra spotlights.
However, bull bars have their downside. In fact, there’s noises going around about them being banned in the European Union, especially the metal ones. This is because if a car fitted with bull bars hits a pedestrian or a cyclist, all the force of the car is concentrated into the bull bar as it strikes the person, and the result is much worse than if the pedestrian or cyclist hit the bumper and the headlights – a person might be able to survive being hit by a car without bull bars but the chance of serious injury or death is much higher when the metal bull bars are there. Have a look at the ANCAP or other crash test sites and have a look at the tests for pedestrian safety and you’ll see why. These problems get worse if people pop accessories onto bull bars, such as winches, lights, fishing rod holders and the like, as the brackets can be sharp and act like a spear in a collision.
Bull bars can also interfere with airbags, as it’s a hard blow on the bonnet that triggers the airbags to deploy. If the bull bars are put on in such a way that they deflect most of the force from the bonnet, the airbags might not go off during a head-on collision, which means the drivers and passengers are more likely to be injured.
The verdict? If you do a lot of rural driving or off-roading, then roo bars will certainly save you a few panel beater’s bills. However, if you’re a mostly urban driver and just like the looks of them, it’s probably better if you leave them off for safety reasons.
Those who want to fit bull bars to their new 4×4 can find out more about the Australian legal requirements at this link.
Level 2, 9 Help Street