Comments on: Automotive science playing a blinder http://www.fromthecaptainschair.co.uk/2011/10/23/automotive-science-playing-a-blinder/ Inane ramblings from the keyboard of a petrolhead Mon, 04 Apr 2016 22:29:10 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Brian Turner http://www.fromthecaptainschair.co.uk/2011/10/23/automotive-science-playing-a-blinder/#comment-91 Brian Turner Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:36:47 +0000 http://www.fromthecaptainschair.co.uk/?p=555#comment-91 Hi, My name is Brian and I'd like to speak with you about your blog, please email me at your earliest convenience. Hi, My name is Brian and I’d like to speak with you about your blog, please email me at your earliest convenience.

]]> By: Tom Gowans http://www.fromthecaptainschair.co.uk/2011/10/23/automotive-science-playing-a-blinder/#comment-45 Tom Gowans Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:25:31 +0000 http://www.fromthecaptainschair.co.uk/?p=555#comment-45 I remember sitting in the car with my dad as we crawled through thick fog back to Leicestershire after visiting the motor show at Earl's Court in the early seventies. He never drove on the motorway in such poor conditions, maintaining as he did that there were too many idiots out there. Night vision would have been excellent then and I am sure it is now, but only in the hands of the responsible. Every safety innovation has, I am afraid, resulted in a false sense of security for those convinced they possess skills only experience can provide, and even then not always; technology compensating for deficiency and all too often, stupidity. Still, we cannot dumb everything down to account for morons and back then, in the middle of a freezing night as my dad made his slow and very careful progress towards home conscious of the evil and lethal sheen of black ice settiling across the road and glueing his wipers to the car's screeen, dipped headlights throwing up a wall of white and barely illuminating the kerb a yard to the side of his bonnet, I suspect he would have been grateful for ABS, a heated windscreen, night vision, stability control and yes, even an automatic gear box, not so much a safety device as a labour saving one and which, at my age and given the traffic conditions in Angola, I rather like. I remember sitting in the car with my dad as we crawled through thick fog back to Leicestershire after visiting the motor show at Earl’s Court in the early seventies. He never drove on the motorway in such poor conditions, maintaining as he did that there were too many idiots out there. Night vision would have been excellent then and I am sure it is now, but only in the hands of the responsible. Every safety innovation has, I am afraid, resulted in a false sense of security for those convinced they possess skills only experience can provide, and even then not always; technology compensating for deficiency and all too often, stupidity.

Still, we cannot dumb everything down to account for morons and back then, in the middle of a freezing night as my dad made his slow and very careful progress towards home conscious of the evil and lethal sheen of black ice settiling across the road and glueing his wipers to the car’s screeen, dipped headlights throwing up a wall of white and barely illuminating the kerb a yard to the side of his bonnet, I suspect he would have been grateful for ABS, a heated windscreen, night vision, stability control and yes, even an automatic gear box, not so much a safety device as a labour saving one and which, at my age and given the traffic conditions in Angola, I rather like.

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