Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.

[james_s]

LED's save fuel and reduce emissions compared to incandescents. It's a shame they don't make the LED packages to produce the same 3D profile of light output.

Guess I'll just continue reducing my environmental footprint by not using turn signals. Every little bit helps.

If it was that easy they would. It took years just to develop LED replacements for domestic lightbulbs that reasonably matched the light distribution of a standard  bulb. An automotive headlamp has a filament only about 1mm diameter and 5-8mm long that is very precisely located. LEDs just don't have the same physical characteristics.

The amount of energy consumed by the headlights is negligible compared to what is required to move the car. I am skeptical that you'd even be able to measure a difference if you drove a 3,000 mile trip with the headlights on and then did it again with the headlights off. I suspect any difference would be down in the noise floor.

[PlainName]

Because Halogen is so dim you do need good night vision, once your night vision is gone its like driving in the dark.

It is in that situation where I find myself on a regular basis and it ticks me off to no end.

That's a problem with getting old, not the fault of the lamp.

[paulca]

I don't think my night vision is that bad, you would be right to say that the halogen reflector is old in my car.

Give it 10 years and any halogen out there is flaking its reflective coating off, maybe even less time than that.

There is a condition where your sensitivity to bright light in the dark increases as you age.  I believe it's to do with how fast your iris and lens responds to constrict.  So you get more blinded as this condition progresses.

10 years for a car?  Hmm.  10 years or 100,000 miles and it's done, sell it to a new driver, move on or it will just start costing you more than the payments on a brand new car.  This is of course location dependant.  If you live in Arizona your car is going to have a lovely dry life.  I live in Ireland about 1/4 mile from the beach/sea.  Strong sea winds blow tons of salt over the land every month.  Cars rot out here in 10 years.  If you look after them but still drive them daily, they might last 15 if you are lucky and it will require some work to keep it road legal.  If you want it to last longer, best keep it in a garage and only drive it on sunny dry days.

[CatalinaWOW]

Any car with steerable rear view mirrors has a defense against following bright lights.  Unfortunately it is seldom effective, either the clutz behind can't figure out the solution or it incites a retaliatory road rage incident.

[PlainName]

My fifteen-year-old Golf has an auto-dim rear mirror (switchable on or off) which deals with most rear blinders. The only ones it hasn't coped with have been very recent LED megawatt jobs that the driver has left on main beam. You'd think they'd notice everything to the horizon being ultra-bright and figure perhaps they forgot to dim, but it never seems to occur to them.

[PlainName]

And, while I'm here...

Lack of joined-up thinking for roadworks. Current aggravation is a collapsed road on a rat run, so traffic that would normally go through there now has to go into town and back out. So, of course, on the only other main road in - to which they've diverted the through traffic - they've set up 4-way lights that take forever to allow for a possible cyclist to traverse the full length before switching queues. And if you happen to take the scenic route and go right around town to come in from the other way, there's a road closed on that route and more roadworks for putting in fibre. At 8am today it took an hour to do a journey that would usually take 20 mins in rush hour.

[themadhippy]

Lack of joined-up thinking for roadworks. Current aggravation is a collapsed road on a rat run, so traffic that would normally go through there now has to go into town and back out

and dont forget 2 weeks after they've reopened the road it will have a lane closed to allow for road markings to be painted, once there dry  open reach will turn up to dig up the lovely smooth  asphalt to install new fibre,and in doing so disturb the water main  causing a  leak.Or does that only happen on the main through road here?

[paulca]

There is a trend around here of inserting pedestrian crossings and traffic lights in random places.  The most annoying are the crossings right on the roundabout exits which cause many rear end clips because people start braking mid exit and at rush it the right hand turners block the whole roundabout while the wait on the constant stream of kids hitting the button, sometimes just for fun.

The another annoying thing about them is... the placed a new one exactly halfway along the main street to stop people crossing through the traffic.  Please STILL cross through the traffic.

On having your entire interior cabin lit up in cold sun light by the car behind.  In traffic I use the light to make shadow rabbits and butterflies on the headliner.  It sends a signal to the car behind as my hands are lit up for them   Not that anyone does anything about it or can do anything other than replace and/or align their lights!

Road side spot checks in October, £50 on the spot fine for failing the alignment test.  That might help!

[PlainName]

Lack of joined-up thinking for roadworks. Current aggravation is a collapsed road on a rat run, so traffic that would normally go through there now has to go into town and back out

and dont forget 2 weeks after they've reopened the road it will have a lane closed to allow for road markings to be painted, once there dry  open reach will turn up to dig up the lovely smooth  asphalt to install new fibre,and in doing so disturb the water main  causing a  leak.Or does that only happen on the main through road here?

Oh yes. Further down the road are potholes due to previous works (from 4 months ago) not being finished properly, so they will need to be done again.

[PlainName]

And... on the topic of travel...

This is westbound on the M4 out of Reading, courtesy of Google Maps. We are just getting to the end of the variable speed limit gantries - the blue sign you see there says "Variable speed limit ENDS". Today, there was allegedly congestion (there wasn't) so the variable limit was 50mph - the big sign in front had a big "50" in a red circle - so the 50ft or so of motorway between those signs was 50. Urggh. What's the point? All it did was confuse half the drivers into going slow unnecessarily until a few miles later when they twig.

[Nominal Animal]

All we need now is some energy-saving activists pushing for automobile high beams to be PWM'd at about 2 to 10 Hz to save power, just like many bicyclists do.

Who cares if it makes others dizzy and vomit?  Think of the energy savings, the future of future babies and the environmental devastation averted!

[james_s]

10 years for a car?  Hmm.  10 years or 100,000 miles and it's done, sell it to a new driver, move on or it will just start costing you more than the payments on a brand new car.  This is of course location dependant.  If you live in Arizona your car is going to have a lovely dry life.  I live in Ireland about 1/4 mile from the beach/sea.  Strong sea winds blow tons of salt over the land every month.  Cars rot out here in 10 years.  If you look after them but still drive them daily, they might last 15 if you are lucky and it will require some work to keep it road legal.  If you want it to last longer, best keep it in a garage and only drive it on sunny dry days.

That's so bizarre to me. I've never in my life owned a car that was less than 10 years old or had less than 100,000 miles on it. My last car was 30 years old with 330,000 on it when it got rear ended and was totaled. My current daily driver is 33 years old with 275,000 on it, zero rust, still has most of the original paint and the leather is holding up fairly nicely. Maintenance cost is negligible, I probably spend $500 annually on maintenance and repairs.

Salt is horrible, evil stuff that should be illegal to put on roads. It costs billions of dollars a year in destroyed cars and infrastructure. I'll drive in snow no problem but I won't drive in salt. I can't even comprehend how someone could be ok with such a major investment as a car only lasting 10 years.

[IDEngineer]

You're a bit more extreme than I am, but I agree with your sentiments! We typically buy our cars new (so as not to inherit other people's problems and lack of proper maintenance) and then we drive and fastidiously maintain them until ~150K miles or so. Generally that's when larger maintenance items start to surface. Those could still be more economical to repair that to buy a new car, but we dislike the unpredictability of age-related failures. So to my family the incremental cost of a new car after ~150K on an existing one is insurance against unpredictable failures.

I should note that I dislike working on cars as a hobby. Regular maintenance items are fine, but if it requires a lift or tearing into the engine or transmission I am honest enough to admit it's outside my sphere of experience. Those who love working on cars can keep them running for hundreds of thousands of miles and I applaud such folks. I'm just not one of them.

[SiliconWizard]

All we need now is some energy-saving activists pushing for automobile high beams to be PWM'd at about 2 to 10 Hz to save power, just like many bicyclists do.

Who cares if it makes others dizzy and vomit?  Think of the energy savings, the future of future babies and the environmental devastation averted!

 

And speaking of speed limits, over here they are deploying several hundreds of speed limit checking cars - of course with absolutely no indication of it on the cars, so you'll never know if there is one on the road - on our highways. They'll be able to fine any vehicle they detect as driving over the limit, without you knowing (until you receive the fine.) Just like radars, but moving on the road in the traffic.

Nice times I say!

[MarkS]

My pet peeve are egotistical engineers and engineers that cannot "turn it off".

[james_s]

You're a bit more extreme than I am, but I agree with your sentiments! We typically buy our cars new (so as not to inherit other people's problems and lack of proper maintenance) and then we drive and fastidiously maintain them until ~150K miles or so. Generally that's when larger maintenance items start to surface. Those could still be more economical to repair that to buy a new car, but we dislike the unpredictability of age-related failures. So to my family the incremental cost of a new car after ~150K on an existing one is insurance against unpredictable failures.

I should note that I dislike working on cars as a hobby. Regular maintenance items are fine, but if it requires a lift or tearing into the engine or transmission I am honest enough to admit it's outside my sphere of experience. Those who love working on cars can keep them running for hundreds of thousands of miles and I applaud such folks. I'm just not one of them.

Well I am thankful of people like you for subsidizing my transportation. I've always bought vehicles around the time you'd be getting rid of them, fix the typical age related problems that crop up and anything else they need and then just drive them. I enjoy working on cars though and have done a handful of engine swaps, transmission swaps, several auto to manual swaps including my current daily driver. As with most stuff that breaks, I take it as a personal challenge and am not about to let some fault get the best of me.

These days nobody is making a car that interests me in the slightest so I'm pretty much stuck keeping old cars going. Some day I'll be forced to get a boring more modern beater that is easily replaceable so I don't have to worry about something happening to it but I'm not at that point yet.

[IDEngineer]

These days nobody is making a car that interests me in the slightest so I'm pretty much stuck keeping old cars going.

That's one of the reasons we bought a brand new Lotus in 2020: A new, warranted, modern vehicle (so we "reset" our ownership timeframe) that is a more pure analog environment instead of a bunch of needless touch screens. Analog gauges. Manual transmission. Bulletproof Toyota engine (same V6 as a Camry!) and transmission, parts and service available everywhere for decades.

Last year we bought a 2022 Toyota Sienna Hybrid minivan. It has all of the electronics, gadgets, bells and whistles, etc. that the Lotus left out and a LOT more. Kinda over the top, honestly. But the mileage is mind-blowing and my wife likes it, being her second Sienna she's very comfortable with the environment and controls.

Meanwhile, our 2006 Dodge Ram 3500 with its Cummins diesel engine just keeps crankin' along....

[james_s]

Meanwhile, our 2006 Dodge Ram 3500 with its Cummins diesel engine just keeps crankin' along....

Those old Cummins diesels are fantastic. Take good care of them and they just keep going and going. Modern requirements have pretty much ruined diesels unfortunately, DEF, particulate filters, etc, more trouble than they're worth.

[IDEngineer]

That was exactly the rationale we used to justify buying it when we did.

2006 was the last model year with the 5.9L inline 6 Cummins engine, WITHOUT all the next-gen exhaust nonsense and DEF and so on. Just add fuel and go. (BTW, we get ~26 MPG in mixed driving.) Also, that same 5.9L Cummins powerplant is used in everything... boat engines, generators, construction equipment, you name it. They're everywhere, which means parts and service will be available anywhere. We've had boat yards say "Let us handle the maintenance on your truck, we know that powerplant inside and out".

Also, 2006 was during the period that Mercedes-Benz owned Chrysler. As a result, the six speed manual transmission used in that era is actually an MB transmission designed for Class 5 truck applications (up to 19,500 pounds). Our one-ton 3500 doesn't even remotely approach the design parameters of that transmission so it lives a nice, easy, comfortable life and should last basically forever.

I have zero loyalty to Dodge or any other brand. What I wanted was a hyper-reliable powertrain since that's where all the value is anyway. Research told me Cummins was the way to go, so I tell people "I bought a Cummins engine and it came wrapped in a Dodge truck".

[SilverSolder]

All we need now is some energy-saving activists pushing for automobile high beams to be PWM'd at about 2 to 10 Hz to save power, just like many bicyclists do.

Who cares if it makes others dizzy and vomit?  Think of the energy savings, the future of future babies and the environmental devastation averted!

 

And speaking of speed limits, over here they are deploying several hundreds of speed limit checking cars - of course with absolutely no indication of it on the cars, so you'll never know if there is one on the road - on our highways. They'll be able to fine any vehicle they detect as driving over the limit, without you knowing (until you receive the fine.) Just like radars, but moving on the road in the traffic.

Nice times I say!

Radar detector, or similar tech?

[IDEngineer]

And speaking of speed limits, over here they are deploying several hundreds of speed limit checking cars - of course with absolutely no indication of it on the cars, so you'll never know if there is one on the road - on our highways. They'll be able to fine any vehicle they detect as driving over the limit, without you knowing (until you receive the fine.) Just like radars, but moving on the road in the traffic.

1984 is becoming very real.

[SilverSolder]

You're a bit more extreme than I am, but I agree with your sentiments! We typically buy our cars new (so as not to inherit other people's problems and lack of proper maintenance) and then we drive and fastidiously maintain them until ~150K miles or so. Generally that's when larger maintenance items start to surface. Those could still be more economical to repair that to buy a new car, but we dislike the unpredictability of age-related failures. So to my family the incremental cost of a new car after ~150K on an existing one is insurance against unpredictable failures.

I should note that I dislike working on cars as a hobby. Regular maintenance items are fine, but if it requires a lift or tearing into the engine or transmission I am honest enough to admit it's outside my sphere of experience. Those who love working on cars can keep them running for hundreds of thousands of miles and I applaud such folks. I'm just not one of them.

Well I am thankful of people like you for subsidizing my transportation. I've always bought vehicles around the time you'd be getting rid of them, fix the typical age related problems that crop up and anything else they need and then just drive them. I enjoy working on cars though and have done a handful of engine swaps, transmission swaps, several auto to manual swaps including my current daily driver. As with most stuff that breaks, I take it as a personal challenge and am not about to let some fault get the best of me.

These days nobody is making a car that interests me in the slightest so I'm pretty much stuck keeping old cars going. Some day I'll be forced to get a boring more modern beater that is easily replaceable so I don't have to worry about something happening to it but I'm not at that point yet.

For a modern beater, I recommend the Ford Escape Hybrid 2009 - 2012.   Decent size, good on gas, cheap to own and fix, and (much) more reliable than the V6 equivalent with its glass transmission.  If you can get the "Limited" package, it is a very very nice car - quiet, AWD, good in snow, etc.   Taxi drivers used to routinely put 500K miles on these things, they are solid.

[SiliconWizard]

All we need now is some energy-saving activists pushing for automobile high beams to be PWM'd at about 2 to 10 Hz to save power, just like many bicyclists do.

Who cares if it makes others dizzy and vomit?  Think of the energy savings, the future of future babies and the environmental devastation averted!

 

And speaking of speed limits, over here they are deploying several hundreds of speed limit checking cars - of course with absolutely no indication of it on the cars, so you'll never know if there is one on the road - on our highways. They'll be able to fine any vehicle they detect as driving over the limit, without you knowing (until you receive the fine.) Just like radars, but moving on the road in the traffic.

Nice times I say!

Radar detector, or similar tech?

There's a driver behind the wheel and they will spot the offenders and trigger the flash. I don't know the details of the kind of radar they use as it must account for their own vehicle's speed.

One of the most concerning point, beyond the orwellian factor, is that this isn't cops behind the wheels. It's outsourced to private companies.

[james_s]

One of the most concerning point, beyond the orwellian factor, is that this isn't cops behind the wheels. It's outsourced to private companies.

That's the part that I find disturbing. It's clearly a revenue machine, otherwise they'd have police out there patrolling.

[SiliconWizard]

One of the most concerning point, beyond the orwellian factor, is that this isn't cops behind the wheels. It's outsourced to private companies.

That's the part that I find disturbing. It's clearly a revenue machine, otherwise they'd have police out there patrolling.

I wouldn't mind police cars patrolling highways to spot risky behaviors and prevent accidents. Whatever this is, it's none of that.