Claymore

 

• Large umbrella
• Warm jacket, and belt pouch for running
• 5 water bottles
• Toolbox with assorted tools and stuff, working gloves
• 2 oil bottles
• Towing strap
• Tyre fix
• Gerber multitool
• Hand-powered LED torch
• First aid kit
• Sunglasses
• Credit-card sized multitool 
• OBDII ELM327 bluetooth car diagnostic sensor
• SPF50 sunblock
• Cleaning cloth, aspirin, plaster
• Latex gloves
• Cleaning wipes
• LED torch
• Nylon rope
• Jumper cables
• 12V cellphone charger
• Matches
• Tyre pressure gauge
• Towel
• Torx screwdrivers, flathead screwdriver, phillips screwdriver
• Bluetooth phone earpiece
• Safety pins (for use at running races)
• Charge power adapter 
• Double-sided tape
• Tape measure
• Reflective safety jacket
• Seat-back cup/toy/book holders
• Notepad and pens
• Sunscreen and 3D glasses for movies
• Compact umbrella
• Two foldable bags
• Cleaning cloths
• Soft cleaning cloth
• Phone charging cables
• Another towel
• Fake key with torch
• More cleaning cloths
• Warning triangle

• Sat, 14:01: Saw a hulking guy in a red Mini (LILLETH GP) run stops/lights on 3 intersections within 1km this morning. Nice going, doos. #fb

• Tue, 07:38: RT @AkiAnastasiou: @angelameadon: I think someone just threw stones at the #Gautrain in the Jukskei valley. <- I'm also very jealous.
• Tue, 07:51: Just saw a taxi driving up the wrong side of the Jan Smuts Avenue dual-carriageway, weaving through oncoming cars. #fb

• Thu, 07:00: My car says it's 0C today. It doesn't feel like it, but it's exciting to see the red warning light anyway. #fb
• Thu, 08:27: Irresponsible parents. Two toddlers halfway out of their car's rear window, even at up to 70kph. http://lockerz.com/s/106922737

• Wed, 07:05: Spotted a Metro Police vehicle with foglights on. Don't they know the laws they should be enforcing? #fb

• Thu, 16:10: Just drove through a cloud of bubbles, blown by a guy on the side of the road. Quite amusing! #fb
• Thu, 16:40: Embarrassing to have spelling mistakes in your company name, especially on the company pickup. Yes, you, "Ilanga Skylights & Tornado's".#fb
• Thu, 18:59: RT @FakeAPStylebook: Always remember to close all parentheses. We're not paying to air condition the entire paragraph. #GreatestHits

• Wed, 13:24: Earlier I saw a Shoprite 18-wheeler doing a perfect U-turn in an intersection. Damn impressive! #fb

• Wed, 17:57: I just caught a tiny spider spinning a web from my steering wheel. That's how bad the traffic is... #fb

• Thu, 15:47: RT @phaezen: But Power Balance does work - for the easy identification of fools :-P
• Thu, 18:34: People reversing back up the Malibonge onramp to the N1 North in Randburg. Scary. #fb
• Thu, 21:12: I now know exactly what parts of my body didn't get enough sunblock. *wince* #fb

• Thu, 18:12: Ooh, that was annoying. Glad I had jumper leads in the car.
• Thu, 22:06: Who thought it was a good idea for the Gautrain airport train to stop running at 20:30? #fb
• Fri, 07:35: Time for a new car battery. Smart of me to park on a slope last night. http://myloc.me/eQZ4P

• Fri, 12:00: Time for the fitting of new rear brake pads on the car. Must check why the last ones only lasted 20000km. #fb

• Mon, 07:27: On days like this, I just turn my car off in the traffic. #fb http://myloc.me/dtryF

Miles-Per-Gallon Is Just Stupid. No, Really, It Is.
By John Voelcker, Editor-in-Chief, March 13th, 2009

Americans aren't stupid. We're just badly informed. And occasionally, stubborn.

Why else would we ignorantly cling to using miles per gallon as the way to measure how efficiently a car uses fuel?

But maybe you don't quite see the problem. OK, so here's a little test: Which saves more gasoline, going from 10 to 20 mpg, or going from 33 to 50 mpg?

If you're like most Americans, you picked the second one. But, in fact, that's exactly backwards. Over any given mileage, replacing a 10-mpg vehicle with one that gets 20 mpg saves five times the gasoline that replacing a 33-mpg vehicle with one that gets 50 does.

Don't believe it? Here’s the math. If you replace your old 1990s SUV (10 mpg) with a new 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid (20 mpg), over 100 miles you cut your gasoline consumption from 10 gallons to 5. That saves you five gallons. If you swap your old Toyota Echo (33 mpg) for a new 2010 Toyota Prius (50 mpg), that only saves you one single gallon over the same distance--down from 3 to 2 gallons.

Yes, the Prius uses less gasoline overall, and that's absolutely greener. But like it or not, lots and lots and lots of Americans need large vehicles for their jobs, their families, and their lives. Short of truly punitive taxes on vehicle weight, footprint, or engine size, that won't quickly change.

In other words, we could cut our petroleum imports, reduce our carbon output, green the planet, and all act like happy bunnies if we replaced all our truly low-mileage "guzzlers" (we're thinking 1978 Chrysler Brougham or, hey, late-1990s Chevy Suburban) with vehicles that get just 20 miles per gallon.

That'd save a whole lot more actual gasoline than, say, replacing 3% of vehicles sold in the US with hybrids. Which is exactly what we've done over 10 years. In fact, US average mileage has pretty much stalled as vehicles have gotten larger, heavier, and better equipped.

This has led to all sorts of misconceptions, including the impact of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulations now being written. We actually think that higher gas taxes are a smarter way to let the market sort out what fuel consumption it will pay for, but we're not going there. (This time.)

So that's the problem: Americans can't accurately work out how to save the most gasoline. What's the solution? Simple. Measure fuel usage the way the entire rest of the world (including Canada) does: consumption over distance. There, it's mostly liters per 100 km. Here, it'd be gallons per 100 miles.

Do you know all this and just do the math in your head? Well, you're way ahead of the curve. (Test yourself first, though...) Last summer, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business released a study that shows how much damage comes from using MPG instead of consumption to measure how green a car is.

Management professors Richard Larick and Jack Soll's experiments proved that consumers thought fuel consumption was cut at an even rate as mileage increased. Most survey respondents said going from 34 to 50 mpg saved more gasoline over 10,000 miles than did moving from 18 to 28 mpg. Their website, "The MPG Illusion," lays out the whole issue.

There are now a few moves toward putting consumption on window stickers, right next to mileage. And when both a Midwestern Republican Congressman and The New York Times agree on something, it's gotta have some merit, right?

That way, you could compare the Corolla's 3 gallons every 100 miles against the Prius's 2, calculate the extra cost, and decide if you wanted to make that Prius statement after all. For 8,000 miles a year, on $2/gallon gas, by the way, the gas will cost you $160 a year more.

But, hey, Americans are stubborn. We beat back the metric system, right? Consumption instead of mileage? Nah. Dumb idea. Never work. [sigh]

Source: GreenCarReports

Police horrified at state of SA's trucks
Henri du Plessis
October 27 2008 at 12:38PM

Trucks on our roads are death traps for their drivers and other road users, while law enforcers are neither properly trained nor equipped to ensure they are safe, traffic officers and experts warn.

And Cape Town was worst off, a heavy-vehicle expert said after a roadworthy check exercise on Friday.

Traffic officers tested 25 randomly picked trucks at the Brackenfell test centre and, to their horror, all 25 failed roadworthy inspections due to serious defects.

This discovery follows similar findings in other parts of the country and a number of fatal or near-fatal accidents involving trucks in Cape Town this year.

The exercise on Friday was part of a private initiative by transport industry magazine FleetWatch and a number of commercial partners to give traffic officers and police practical training to carry out roadworthy inspections of heavy vehicles.

But the programme showed that large numbers of poorly maintained trucks were plying their trade on the roads every day.

Badly worn and cracked tyres, non-functional load sensors, brakes that do not work properly, steering systems worn to the point of imminent failure and hopelessly inefficient cargo tie-downs were some of the problems identified in Cape Town on Friday.

Local and provincial authorities have been blamed for not taking road safety seriously, as they failed to provide law enforcers with proper support systems, training and equipment.

Officers doing the training course said they had preferred not to stop trucks for checks because they did not know what to look for.

Of 104 officers present at the start of a training course on Thursday, only two said they felt confident that they knew what to check for and only one knew about a piece of equipment on a truck called a slack adjuster, course presenters said.

During random checks of trucks in Cape Town on Friday, done as part of the practical training portion of the course, traffic officers pulled 25 trucks over and sent them for testing at the provincial traffic department's testing centre in Brackenfell. All 25 failed inspection so badly that they had to be taken off the road.

"Cape Town is the worst we've seen so far," said FleetWatch editor Patrick O'Leary, who co-ordinated the training effort.

O'Leary said the training group had been to various busy parts of the country, such as City Deep in Johannesburg, Kroonstad in the Free State and Estcourt in KwaZulu- Natal. At City Deep, officers pulled over and checked 24 trucks. Of those, 21 failed roadworthy checks.

"It is clear that the law enforcers do not have the support they need, they do not have the systems in place and they do not get given either the equipment or the training to do their work properly," O'Leary said.

"Very large numbers of heavy vehicles on the road today are a danger to their drivers and other road users, but many operators just do not care because they get away with it.

"This training exercise is a private initiative. We involved companies like Bridgestone, Alfa International, Wapco and Control Instruments to help cover the costs and provide expertise.

"We have had no support from the state at all to do this and yet it is very clear that our law enforcers are hungry for this kind of training. They desperately need it."

Traffic officers, who asked not to be named, said they were horrified when they learnt what they had been missing.

"Thousands of traffic fines are issued in situations where road safety is of no concern, but the real threats are not properly covered," one officer said.

"Those fines bring in a lot of revenue, but the priorities are skewed and the real dangers remain on our roads. We also need to do a course like this on the minibus taxi industry. We need that desperately."

O'Leary said truck operators should realise that they have a responsibility to other road users to ensure their vehicles comply with safety requirements.

Provincial traffic chief Pat Curren, who visited the Brackenfell Test Centre on Friday during the testing, said the issue of portable testing equipment was problematic, because of the calibration required.

"What we really need is many more effective testing sites, where test results cannot be doubted."

A combination of mechanical failures and negligence has led to numerous accidents involving heavy vehicles in the Western Cape this year.

Among them:

• In March, a woman and her pregnant daughter were killed when a container fell off a truck on the M5 offramp on to the N1 and crushed their car.


• In July, Franschhoek couple William and Annatjie James were badly injured when inadequately secured scaffolding pipes came off the back of a truck and speared their vehicle.


• Earlier this month, a truck driver lost control of his vehicle when its brakes failed on Melbourne Road, Woodstock. The truck struck a car and both vehicles fell off a bridge. A woman in the car was critically injured.

Source: IOL

Use turn signal? Why?

$75 TICKET | It's an all-too-common attitude, and it can cost you, cops say

August 11, 2008
BY MARY WISNIEWSKI

So you're driving along, eyes on the road, when suddenly the car in front of you starts acting weird.

The driver pauses. He weaves a little. He stops. He keeps going. He stops again. Then, suddenly, he turns -- without a turn signal.

These cars were turning from Wacker Drive onto Orleans Street — none of them using a turn signal. An observation of this intersection found that most of the cars that failed to signal were taxis. State Police report a rise in tickets for failure to signal.

Whether or not improper signal use is going up, it's something good drivers have to learn how to deal with, according to Andrew Danek, owner of the 30-year-old Illinois Institute of Driver Education in Chicago.

"If someone's doing something stupid in front of you, they're either turning or they're looking for a place to park," said Danek, who said he figures only about half of local drivers use their signals when they change lanes or turn.

State Police Master Sgt. Brian Ley said officers have been issuing more warnings in the last three years for "improper signal use," which usually means failure to signal. This could mean signaling is on the decline in Illinois, since Ley said police haven't been given any special directive to crack down on violators.

For all of 2006, State Police handed out 16,782 warnings and 2,069 $75 tickets -- a total of 18,851. In 2007, it was 18,089 warnings and 2,075 tickets, for a total of 20,164. The upward trend has continued this year. Between Jan. 1 and June 30, State Police issued 9,553 warnings and 981 tickets -- more than half last year's total.

Failure to use a signal can be a "very serious and deadly mistake," said Ley. "Officers know this can lead to a serious accident."

So why don't people signal? To paraphrase Tom Vanderbilt, author of the book Traffic, why are drivers willing to tell you their kid is an honor student at Knucklehead Academy, but they don't want to tell you they're changing lanes?

Danek says some people are afraid that if they signal to change lanes, the car in the next lane will speed up to block their car.

He said it's also a matter of habit -- like buckling your seat belt. Some people aren't taught properly and don't get into the habit of doing it.

He noted that turn signals didn't even become standard in cars until the 1960s -- people who wanted to signal used to have to stick their left arm out the window.

A 2006 survey by Response Insurance, a national car insurer, found that 57 percent of American drivers don't signal when changing lanes. Men are less likely to signal than women, and drivers under 25 are less likely to signal than older drivers. Their reasons were a bit scary:

• 42 percent said they didn't have time,

• 23 percent said they were lazy,

• 17 percent said they don't because they forget to turn it off,

• 12 percent said they changed lanes too frequently to bother,

• 11 percent said it was not important,

• 8 percent said they don't because other drivers don't. And, most disturbing of all,

• 7 percent skipped the signal to "add excitement" to their trip.

Danek says he teaches his students to signal because it's safer to warn people what you're doing, and anything that makes driving safer is worthwhile.

But Danek also teaches them to be prepared if someone doesn't signal.

"Paying attention is the most important thing about driving," Danek said. "If the car in front of you doesn't have brake lights, does that give you the right to run into them? No!"

Danek said if a driver is paying attention and keeping at least one car's length between her car and the next car, failure of another driver to signal shouldn't be a problem.

"If you drive correctly, what the other person does makes no difference," Danek said. "You are responsible for keeping your car in one piece."

Source: Chicago SunTimes