Danger Lurks In Chinese Imports
The automotive press have got stuck into the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for not taking decisive action against Chinese auto makers Great Wall and Chery.
Great Wall is the most successful Chinese brand in Australia, ranking in the top half of all imports, and is continuing to make significant inroads into the Australian market. So, are the press, and the motor repair trade justified in getting het up, or is it just a media beat up?
Making Cars The Old Way
The Morgan Automobile Company
Until Henry Ford developed the assembly line approach to mass production, automobiles were assembled individually by hand. Each part was painstakingly machined, fitted and finished by workers who were more artisans than they were mechanics. Even the body parts were hammered out on wooden bucks and then carefully fitted in place. No two vehicles were exactly the same and parts were not interchangeable. In the early days of the automobile, blacksmiths were the mechanics. Most parts were individually forged and machined with the smith being the only craftsman skilled enough to do the job.
Seagull magnets?
The exterior colour of a car presses many a person’s button but I wonder if the colour of a car has any other flow on effects?
Something a little funnier, though. Britain’s Daily Mail has recorded some results that some scientists have found out about car colour. Crimson coloured cars are much more likely to be splattered by bird poo! In a study, the scientists found that 18 percent of red cars were found to be poohed on, compared to just the 1 percent of green cars. Green cars were the least soiled of the car colours. I wonder if the red colour of a car spells danger for birds, which results in the bird having a bowel movement.
The Latest Vehicular Danger: Distracted Drivers
Five teenage girls were enroute to a school athletic function. They were all chattering away, both with their friends in the car and on their cellular telephones. The driver was even texting to her boyfriend, whom she expected to meet at the game. The car was traveling too fast, but not so fast that the driver couldn’t have reacted in time had she not been multi-tasking. She pulled out to pass a slower moving tractor-trailer just as she was sending a text and ran head-on into a loaded dump truck coming the other way. All five girls were killed, snuffed out before their lives had really begun. The oldest was sixteen and the youngest was fifteen and all were dead.
Level 2, 9 Help Street