Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Way off Topic

Would all car manufacturers please note the following:

1) 'Sport' is an activity carried out for enjoyment which makes gives you a pleasant feeling of tiredness and well being afterwards, along with a good helping of mud. It is not a badge to put on the side of over powered cars which encourage dimwits like Wayne to believe that he is James Bond.

2) 'Off Road' is where walkers, runners and mountain bikers belong. Vehicles should stay 'On Road' or risk being pelted with stones.

9 comments:

alanorei said...

Roger Black is doing his best for sport in schools. He was featured on Radio 4 this morning, foraging for potential champions for the 2012 Olympics - not at St Jude's, though.

But could parents be encouraged to assist RB's efforts by urging their offspring to walk to school, wherever possible, instead of bringing them right to the gates in scaled-down Humvees?

It would be better for the environment, too.

(Hope this comment is reasonably on-topic, even though the topic is off-topic.)

Anonymous said...

Oh, I enjoy laughing at enormous offroaders - their drivers are so obviously compensating for inadequate equipment in some part of their anatomy or another.

And I particularly enjoy the fact that they are paying the exchequer four times more petrol tax per mile and four times more road tax than I am.

They're paying a hell of a lot of money to try to hide their deep and crippling feelings of inadequacy and insecurity - and they get to be attention seeking tossers at the same time! So everybody is happy.

Can't see the problem, myself.

Don't be so grumpy about it. Join in the fun! Point and laugh like the rest of us do. You'd be amazed at how enjoyable it is.

Cynical

Anonymous said...

Hmm: some nice envy/schadenfreude here.

Speaking as someone who has to drive 3 offspring 12 miles to school every day, (because I'm lucky enough to live in a non-urban area where ZaNu-lab has destroyed the transport infrastructure), and who has been driven off the road and left upside down, whilst pregnant, by some indeterminate Wayne/Shaznay who then fled the scene, I have made a conscious decision to invest a significant amount of - very - hard earned cash in a Volvo XC-90, as it was the safest vehicle I could identify. This is not compensating for inadequate equipment on my part -it's compensating for inadequate intelligence on the part of assorted idiots who I have the ability to prevent maiming or killing my offspring.

I might even be happy to accept your environmental arguments if you always travel with at least 4 people in your far, far more guilt assuaging Toyota Prius, 'Cynical Anonymous'.

Until then, you can take your chippy, ill justified, intellectually lazy hatred of someone who has made a conscious decision to protect their children from muppets on the road, and stick it where the off-roader can't reach.

Or, for example, you might compare the greenhouse gas emissions of the average car on the UK's roads, given its age, with those of the average 4 by 4, which tends to be newer and therefore less polluting - but that might interfere with your cretinous prejudices, you glib, superficial tosser.

Anonymous said...

But do you drive a smaller car when you're on your own?

Anonymous said...

Yes actually - a tiny 2 seat eco-friendly one: but even if I didn't, it ain't the point: I'd still be generating less hot air than a tosser whining about 4 by 4's.

But of course, you won't believe me - so try this, from the Times:

"But there is a serious problem with this (anti 4 by 4) argument. At the Westminster offices of the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, a body that advises the government on emissions, a self-confessed "tree-hugger", Alex Veitch, hands me a chart. It tracks market share against CO2 emissions. The big peak — between 6 and 18% market share — accounts for vehicles emitting between 130 and 200g. The line drops very steeply indeed above 200, where almost all 4x4s live. In other words, if all 4x4s were taken off the road tomorrow, the effect on emissions would be minimal. The real task, as Veitch sees it, is to drive down emissions of the middle market — the Mondeos and Vectras. "If you focus on 4x4s, you miss the more important point that this is all about low-carbon cars. You might persuade people not to buy a 4x4, but they may just buy a high-emitting saloon."

Science is soooo anoyying, when it demonstrates that one's prejudices are just that, as opposed to rational, isn't it?

alanorei said...

My environmental comment was tongue-in-cheek, actually.

The whole environmental CO2 emission thing is a scam to enable governments to rob the taxpayer even further.

CO2 is about 0.03% of the atmosphere. Of that atmospheric reservoir, about 3% of it issues from manmade sources (industry, transport and deforestation).

So the government is using about 0.001% of the atmosphere to justify its environmental protection racket. The old-time prohibition gangsters had more honour. They were at least up front about their nefarious activities.

(ZaNu-labour is a good one. Must remember it. I have a mate who served 6 years in the Rhodesian Army during the Bush War, 1972-9. I think he'd agree.)

Water vapour, being present in the atmosphere to an amount about 30 times that of CO2, is a much more significant greenhouse gas but obviously can't be taxed in the same way.

The real danger from vehicle emissions is not CO2 but CO, carbon monoxide, colourless, ordourless, tasteless, inflammable and poisonous - in the old days, it killed a lot of coal miners.

But CO becomes a problem mainly during excessive rush hour congestion in confined spaces like the Tyne or (I guess) Dartford Tunnels, if/when the traffic stalls.

Which is of course why signs are sometimes put up in such places requesting that you switch off your engine if the traffic stops.

Our lads walked to and from school because we live only about a mile from the school gates. Much further than that and obviously some other form of transport is needed - which is why I said "wherever possible" in my earlier post, which was mainly intended to advertise Roger Black's stirling efforts - more power to him.

My comment about the Humvee was also somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

Get yourself a Warrior AFV if you can obtain and afford one. It will have zilch additional effect on the environment and if you get the chance, you can run Wayne/Shaznay over with it and help make the world a better place for FC's harrassed colleagues who have not as yet been translated into the blessed uplands of pensioned-off retirement.

We have 2 cars. One of them is a V6 2.5 litre Vauxhall Vectra, not new but it does the job. I'd be very reluctant to part with it, unless I could get a more up to date equivalent*.

*Mainly to be decided on the basis of affordability, not supposed environmental friendliness i.e. in-built susceptibility to legalised** protection racketeering.

**"I'd get a licence."

- Charles 'Lucky' Luciano, circa 1940s.

Anonymous said...

"Until then, you can take your chippy, ill justified, intellectually lazy hatred of someone who has made a conscious decision to protect their children from muppets on the road, and stick it where the off-roader can't reach."

Oh, you can't imagine how much I enjoy this sort of thing. Throwing rocks at this sort of argument is so easy it would demean a chimp - so I won't do that. I'll answer you with facts:

1. The Volvo XC90 is no safer, according to Euro NCAP tests, than (to pick a more sensible example) a Renault Grand Scénic which costs a fraction of the price and carries just as many people. And there are safer cars.

2. Environmentally, the most economical XC90 (according to vcacarfueldata.org.uk) uses twice the fuel that my car does (not, incidentally a Toyota Pius.)

3. Unless you drive in fields, you don't need a 4x4. And don't say you need it for winter driving, because only people who live in temperate lowlands believe that advertising-executive bull$^!£. Cars with seven seats start at about £14k, and the only reason for spending more is ego-compensation and the delusion that more expensive=better.

4. Re your last piece of invective: since the 4x4 manufacturers are proud of the claim that 75% of their vehicles are still being used on the road, you don't seem to be justified in your crowing claim that 4x4s are more efficient because they are newer.

Dear Frank,
I am delighted that your website is providing a forum for people who want to resurrect the lost arts of rhetoric and logic. It's such fun!

Yours, affectionately mocking the deluded,
Cynical

Anonymous said...

Oh the sheer irony!

Anonymous said...

I drive a '64 Land Rover but rarely in four wheel drive.
It is tax exempt, cheap to insure, built like a tank (never get disputes over whose piece of road it is when the Landy is there; the front bumper is enormous and steel) and very cheap to run.
The downside is that people who laugh and point offend me and are very difficult to pick out of the tyre treads.