April 2019
Simply remove the opposing two of the four wheel bolts, thus keeping the wheels balanced. Wheel attachments are heavily over-engineered, so for normal driving, taking corners gently, two bolts are sufficient to hold the wheel in place. These eight bolts are quite heavy, and the energy required for continually increasing and reducing their rotation speed and centrifugal force is considerable. This is described in a research paper by Prof. Lo Lai from Hong Kong’s University of Science’s Department of Anticyclonic Forces Technology, who claims a 1% fuel saving. For cars with asymmetrical five bolts, counting from the top clockwise, remove numbers one and three from the nearside wheels and numbers two and four from the offside wheels. This will ensure no vibration from the out of balance wheels as the imbalance forces will cancel each other out.
so the poor who run older cars get hit hardest???? Read more
Does anyone see the brainwashing which is going on? Tax because it pollutes? Tax on fuel, the more you use, the more tax you pay? Think about it, it's all a cunning plan to collect more money from the ever-giving motorist, because we have little choice. By putting just enough tax on this, and just enough on that, the taxman can keep collecting without putting us off our means of getting to work, for work we have to. Yet we have no real alternative but to use what we have, or many of us don't. As some have already pointed out, the poor are hit hardest, those with more than average size families on a low income running an older people carrier or SUV, who were stung once when a previous government went back on promises not to retrospectively apply new VED duties. LPG has largely disappeared, as has the grant to convert. The grant for electric vehicles has been reduced, and what's happened to the hybrid grant? And how much is a new or used EV? The difference in price between a used Leaf and a used diesel Focus is vast, and will buy a lot of fuel. And just supposing you do believe the taxing the polluting motorist is saving the planet myth, where does all the money collected in pollution tax go? A lot of vehicle pollution is caused by traffic jams, I think that's well known. So what has been done to ease congestion and traffic jams? Many lanes have vanished and replaced by bus and cycle lanes, forcing the cars into tighter lanes and more jams, which creates more pollution.
Errr, there has already BEEN a REAL Jet powered road bike - with a Rolls Royce badge to boot. Read more
The penalty for this selfish and dangerous behaviour should be the same as for drink driving, and should include the mandatory confiscation and destruction of the offending phone. Read more
Did it ever go down?
On the few occasions I have to brave the local rush hour, I see dozens of drivers obviously looking down into their laps, several with their phones to their ears or held in their hands, and 2 suicide jockeys watching films on hand held phones.
This is a drive of no more than 10 miles, with much of the phone use spotted on a single 2 mile stretch of bypass.
In the last week, at one junction I have seen a near head-on miss because one driver was staring at her phone and not turning the wheel; and a pickup truck stop and block the junction whilst looking at their phone.
Plus one idiot drift into the l/h lane then suddenly swerve right, straight across the road in front of me to make the turn.
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Seriously, I've seen rice grains suggested for that. They are supposed to rattle around abrading the deposits and then burn off/blow out the exhaust....