Extremely dumb things people do

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Awrrr
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#2596775 3-Nov-2020 09:06

Earbanean:

Rikkitic:

I have decided to start a new thread dedicated to human foolishness.

Why?

Why not? People do foolish things. Some are amusing (entertainment value), some tragic (educational value), some simply incomprehensible (metaphysical value).

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

pom532

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#2596798 3-Nov-2020 09:29

richms:

BlueShift:

I used to work with some engineers who had done the calculations on the increase in fuel usage from having headlights on full time. I can't recall the numbers, but it wasn't a huge amount on an individual basis - most people could save that much by accelerating a bit slower. But when the numbers were applied to the whole country, if it was made compulsory for instance, it was a large amount more fossil fuel being burned than otherwise. Enough that it would be a nightmare for a government to try and justify the sums for - turn the lights on and potentially save x number of lives, but burn x amount of extra fuel affecting climate change, etc.

Anything is like that tho, I get sick of articles saying that "If everybody in the country did 'thing x' it would save 8.4 million dollars" - I dont care. I care about what it saves me, which at $2 is not worth the effort do do thing x.

Exactly. While I do like to turn off appliances when I can, I understand that for a lot of people, saving an extra $100 a year is not worth their effort of continually switching on and off their appliances. It does confuse my parents when I switch off their jug :-D.

GGJohnstone

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#2596803 3-Nov-2020 09:35

Special rules could apply in some areas:

1 if you are off the tar seal you are off the road.

2 a car lights On duing full day light indicates Brain off

3 know where to go go with the flow.

4 open highway is not an extra long car park

5 All Westland roads are very dangerous more so within half a kiometer of a camper van moving or not in any direction

6 you should not mind being late; comare with being "the late"

xpd

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#2596807 3-Nov-2020 09:43

I see dumb things people do every day.

Hi, I'm Gavin and I work in IT.

XPD / Gavin

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Fred99

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#2597174 3-Nov-2020 17:02

From an article in Stuff:

A 42-year-old woman caused approximately $50,000 worth of damage when she stole a police car while under the influence of alcohol, drove erratically at speed through Christchurch streets and crashed into three parked vehicles.

Stu1

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#2597182 3-Nov-2020 17:39

GGJohnstone:
Special rules could apply in some areas:

1 if you are off the tar seal you are off the road.

2 a car lights On duing full day light indicates Brain off

3 know where to go go with the flow.

4 open highway is not an extra long car park

5 All Westland roads are very dangerous more so within half a kiometer of a camper van moving or not in any direction

6 you should not mind being late; comare with being "the late"

2 is recommend on open road don’t have an issue with that as can save an idiot crashing into you head on. Most new cars have day time running lights now for this reason

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neb

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#2597293 3-Nov-2020 21:24

Stu1: Most new cars have day time running lights now for this reason

When I looked at this a couple of years back, all of the studies showing they helped were carried out in places like Scandinavia and Canada where half the year "daytime" is a state of mind rather than a physical effect. The ones carried out in countries with normal daylight showed little to no effect.

elpenguino

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#2597301 3-Nov-2020 21:44

If you use rotating machines and have long hair, don't be stupid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xaz4TeeJ5v4

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

pdh

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#2597337 4-Nov-2020 00:26

neb: ... were carried out in places like Scandinavia and Canada where half the year "daytime" is a state of mind rather than a physical effect. ....

Lousy data...

Canada's capital Ottawa, plus 5 Provincial capitals and the majority of the Canadian population live closer to the equator than Invercargill. Thus enjoying less daylight variation than this corner of NZ. Also, a little thought will show that (to within a few minutes) the whole planet gets the same number of daylight hours.

NZ would have saved many lives - had we adopted daylight head-light use in the 70's - after Sweden had paved the way.
Our variable weather/visibility and many high-speed intersections have reaped a high toll. They continue to.
However, our transport authorities have never had much of a clue.
Remember their refusal to build any median barriers on the (then new) motor-ways in the early 80's ?
They finally gave in after 7 deaths in about 6 months - just on the harbour bridge (all from head-ons).

Now the whole world runs day-light running lights - except for the half the fleet that are too old to have them.
Turn on your headlights or fogs, all day, every day.
If the energy cost worries you, turn off your air-con.

neb

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#2597339 4-Nov-2020 00:45

pdh:
Also, a little thought will show that (to within a few minutes) the whole planet gets the same number of daylight hours.

Yes, but it's not evenly distributed, tons of light in the summer, very little in the winter. And that's what the studies showed, in countries where you're driving in semi-gloom during the daytime, daytime running lamps helped. In ones with normal sunlight during the daytime, evidence in support was lacking. In particular there was an RACV review done some years ago for Australia which concluded that they were "at best marginally useful" under Australian conditions, which presumably are about as representative as you can get for NZ compared to, say, Sweden.

richms

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#2597342 4-Nov-2020 02:09

They are annoying because when you are parked up somewhere on a call or meeting or something with the motor on so you have aircon, you have lights on and people think you are leaving the carpark and will stop and wait. Also if you're parked up at the side of the road waiting for someone, again, lights on drawing attention in an otherwise dark street. Would not recommend unless they can be turned off, which it seems is a feature that is lacking on cars with them.

Richard rich.ms

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Sidestep

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#2597359 4-Nov-2020 07:27

richms:

They are annoying because when you are parked up somewhere on a call or meeting or something with the motor on so you have aircon, you have lights on and people think you are leaving the carpark and will stop and wait. Also if you're parked up at the side of the road waiting for someone, again, lights on drawing attention in an otherwise dark street. Would not recommend unless they can be turned off, which it seems is a feature that is lacking on cars with them.

In Canada they've been compulsory on new and imported vehicles since 1989. They're a great idea with a proven increase in visibility/reduction in accidents - especially on light coloured vehicles in daytime low-light conditions and at dawn and dusk - which New Zealand also has every day.
Specifically pedestrians were much less likely to be hit by vehicles they 'hadn't seen'.

For several years (before running lights became common there) I had to retrofit nearly all the vehicles we imported to Canada from the US with a physical relay/wiring kit.
DRL's were required to run at dip and reduced luminosity - easy to sort with incandescent bulbs, not so much LEDs - and required an interlock so they'd only operate with the headlights off, engine running, park brake off and with the vehicle out of 'park' ..so if you were parked up with the engine running at the side of the road they would normally be off.. unless you were still in gear standing on the brake.

More complicated was importing DRL fitted LHD vehicles to NZ. The NZTA specifically allowed import of Canadian vehicles built to CMVSS - standards which clearly required daytime running lights - but several certifiers freaked out when checking light asymmetry patterns (of our L/H - R/H dip conversions) and made us disable the running lights completely at the ECU before they'd approve them. NZTA as usual was unhelpful - on that and other issues - just referring us to the same published legislation that the certifiers were mis-interpreting.

In comparison ADR's were clear though over-zealously applied.. in Qld especially they'd fail things like luminosity/light placement on factory new vehicles, though since new LHD vehicles almost always required RHD conversion/cert by a licensed shop, the bodgy solutions they'd come up with was their problem - and the new owner's - to deal with.

One of the reasons we gave up importing to NZ.. pretty crazy that removing a vehicle's safety features would be a registration requirement.

kiwifidget

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#2597361 4-Nov-2020 07:33

pdh:

Turn on your headlights or fogs, all day, every day.
If the energy cost worries you, turn off your air-con.

From the road code:

Fog lamps should only be used when visibility is severely reduced, eg by snow or fog. It is against the law to use fog lamps in clear conditions (day or night) as they can dazzle other road users.

Delete cookies?! Are you insane?!

Dingbatt

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#2597363 4-Nov-2020 07:41

I thought we already had a thread for dumb things people do on the road/in a car?

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

trig42

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#2597379 4-Nov-2020 08:48

pdh:

Turn on your headlights or fogs, all day, every day.
If the energy cost worries you, turn off your air-con.

Do not turn your fogs on.

Especially if you have a European car with a super bright rear fog lamp (or you don't know how to turn off the rear fog lamp).

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