Cars and Stuff

VW Recalls Jettas for Horn Glitch That Turns Off Car

Glitch could affect 71,000 cars By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff



Mar 28, 2011

(Newser) – Imagine this scenario: You're on the highway, someone cuts you off, you slam your horn in frustration—and suddenly your car turns off. That scenario is indeed possible if you own a 2011 Jetta; Volkswagen has recalled roughly 71,000 of the cars after finding a glitch that, in rare circumstances, could cause them to short circuit when the driver honks, CNN reports. VW says it's not aware of any accidents resulting from this, but it's recalling all Jettas built since March 2010 just to be safe.









 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
stuff

All that rubber - where does it go?

Where does all that rubber go from your tires?

Actually an interesting question - and for the global warming set, they help.

Assume your tires last 30,000 km and it will wear 7mm of tread off the tire.  You are running off .2 nanometers of rubber for each meter you drive.  It adds up to about 10,000 tonnes of rubber deposited every year by all the cars in the UK.  In the US that number would be about 5X that number.

Most of the rubber is in the form of dust which washes off the roads into the lanes and ditches, to be washed away in the rains.  Some is filtered out in the water plants while most ends up in the rivers!!

Now, when you are driving around Los Angeles to meet your friends to decide what you will do to save the earth ... enjoy.



Focus Magazine, January 2011, page 30












global warming

The French, the Jews, Cars, and Obama ??

What could possibly connect - the French, the Jews, automobiles, and the Obama administration?


Does make you wonder.




The Jews of France were required to register with their local police departments that they were in fact Jews, their addresses, names of all members of their families, and incurred restrictions on owning property and practising in certain professions.  Their stores and businesses were required to be marked as being owned by Jews.  By 1942, Jews were required to wear the yellow Star of David.   Some Jews lost btheir citizenship if they were more recent immigrants, along with the children who may have been born in France.  The French were actually quite helpful.  Before the Nazis invaded France, the French decided they would help their Jewish friends by rounding them up and sending them to one of a couple concentration camps near the border of Spain until such a time as the German government might wish to exterminate them.  It was easy - they had already provided all the details when they registered.  The Milice would help ensure Jewish compliance, and inevitably deportation to a very bad place.

The French Jewish population was about 350,000.  Of these, 65,000-76,000 were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau and Treblinka.  Approximately 1 in every 7 Jews.   More than 4000 were sent to Sobibor in Poland - an extermination camp.  Of all those sent to that most evil of places, 2 were alive at the end of the war.

It begins with simple requests to provide details, then defining who and what you are with identification, then it becomes much worse - the potential is there for much worse. 

Always for the greater good.  We will round you up to protect you.  We are rounding up your neighbors to protect them.  We are doing this for your good.  And each 'good' received has a payback at some point.  If we put a speed lock on vehicles to prevent them from going over 80, think how much safer we would all be.  At 80 mph, the gas to the engine would cut until the car moved back into the 70-75 mph range, and if the vehicle did this three times, the gas would shut off completely.  Think how many lives we would save - all those stuck gas pedals would not cause as much damage. 

The good.



National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief David Strickland told a congressional hearing on Thursday that the regulator is considering whether to make "black boxes" mandatory for all new vehicles.



The devices can capture data on speed, braking effort and other details which can be vital in reconstructing accidents.
Reuters, March 12, 2010.








cars

Obama: Tax you by the mile

Think California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada ... Tax us by the mile.

Now some will say - this will simply substitute for the gas tax, but au contraire mon ami - if it SIMPLY substituted for the gas tax, they wouldn't need this. Plus, when they implement this, they will also keep the gas tax (who can possibly say no to revenues).

The American consumer, taxed to death by Obama - but of course, they are not called taxes.

And why not wrap a Green fee in it, to help save the planet.

Lots of new fees you can implement, but none are taxes.

[Will Obama do it - NOT this year, but he has time. After all, HE WON, GET OVER IT.]




AP Interview: Transportation secretary says taxing how much we drive may replace gasoline tax
By JOAN LOWY
Associated Press Writer
7:17 AM EST, February 20, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he wants to consider taxing motorists based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they burn — an idea that has angered drivers in some states where it has been proposed.

Gasoline taxes that for nearly half a century have paid for the federal share of highway and bridge construction can no longer be counted on to raise enough money to keep the nation's transportation system moving, LaHood said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they traveled," the former Illinois Republican lawmaker said.

[To read the rest of the interview, click on the title link]








Obama

Give industry the incentive, not mandates and it will do what you need it to do.

I believe government should mediate between business and the people, it should monitor and oversee, it should require minimum standards for safety, but government should not involve itself in mandating changes, forcing industry to conform, demanding the public or business to do anything ... let business do what business does, with oversight - and it will come through.

We have the technology to achieve anything and everything we need to benefit mankind, we do not need the UN or Obamessiah followers demanding we give up oil or switch to ethanol.

Let industry do what it will do, with incentives - and you will get a car that runs only on water - WITHOUT ANY LAWS or FINES or threats. Industry will do what it does.

Laws do not free you, they enslave you.







Japanese


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runs

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Cars

Driving on the various road systems between West London and East Anglia (about 100 miles), I noticed at least 4 cars we do not have here - not the manufacturers, we have them: Ford and Mazda and Toyota - rather the car. I was thinking about this as we were driving - the defeatist attitude in the US to Toyota or Nissan and how GM has fallen behind and Ford even further behind, yet I saw many Ford's in Europe and models we do not have here.

Why?

Why not.

Do you want people to buy your cars? make models that look like the Ford's I saw. Put the 3-4 models on the US market and make their body style as attractive. Do that and you can get 2-3% of the share back from Toyota or Mazda.

Bring us their gas mileage - a people mover (mini van) that gets 33 mpg on the road is not bad (Alhambra). If ALL our minivans managed 33 mpg we would be well on our way to energy independence.

If we opened our market to the smaller compact cars on the roads in England, we could drop a small percentage of our oil dependence over night.

So many options yet we are slow to do it, and Congress talks of taxes and we will soon hear of gas rationing to reduce use and price. Why. Just do as I suggest and we can avoid this foolish and ruinous path.

1. Bring all the models, Ford and other car mfg make available in Europe, back to the US
2. Bring us their gas mileage. If they get 33 mpg we should be able to get the same.
3. Reduce mfg of large vehicles and move toward the more compact family vehicles.
4. Allow drilling off the coasts of the US and Gulf of Mexico and in ANWAR
5. Tax breaks for drilling in the Rocky Mountains for oil located in shale.
6. Incentives for oil companies to use new methods to get every last drop from all oil fields presently under use.
7. Make a minimum gas mileage on all family vehicles by 2016 of 35 mpg. All SUVs of 30 mpg.

Do the above and we will be energy independent. Do the above and we can tell the Middle East to find someone else who cares because we won't have to.