Sep 27 2009
Problems with cars
So, first impressions after having had a few driving lessons, and i can safely say there are significant problems with the design of cars…
- Poor design feature number 1: “Power steering”. It clearly lacks the amount of “power” i was expecting. The rotation of the steering wheel should match exactly the turning of the wheels… namely if i turn the wheel 90 degrees to the right, i would now expect the wheels to be pointing as far as they will go right. Now what the hell is “powerful” about having to turn the wheel 1080 degrees to have them pointing all the way to the right? If i’ve turned the steering wheel three bloody full rotations then i would expect the wheels underneath me to have turned three full rotations and some sort of crash to have occurred. I dread to think what non power steering is like… do you have to sit there with a hand crank for 5 mins before the thing turns at all?
- Poor design feature number 2: Gear changing. An automatic seems a bit like owning a mac (namely that it magically does everything for you without your approval, and if you want to do something with your car apple don’t want you doing….. well good luck with that). And a manual is just like installing slackware linux, ancient, outdated, and overcomplicated, but works when done correctly. I don’t particularly want the car deciding what gear it wants to be in, yet using the clutch seems like a royal pain in the ass, there should be something in between… where you control the gears yourself, but changing gear just happens at the flick of a switch… flick switch up gear goes up, flick switch down gear goes down.
- Poor design feature number 3: Accelerating. Now i don’t know whether this is just a “feature” of what i’m learning in, or whether it affects all cars, but why doesn’t the amount you push down on the gas pedal match how much the car accelerates in a smooth 1:1 ratio? It seems like you can push it down some way and have completely nothing happen at all, then after that it suddenly becomes super sensitive and every little millimetre now makes huge jumps in revs. Just seems badly designed to me.
The only other thing i can say is… how the hell can anyone that drives a car stand to play racing games on computers? They’re completely nothing like driving a car *at all*.
Also, mmm, delicious paella:
Tiger prawn, muscles, chicken, sherry, veg stock, peas, tomato, peppers, onion, garlic, saffron, paprika, parsley, lemon, paella rice. *_*
September 29th, 2009 at 12:17pm
Power steering uses hydraulics instead of moving parts (rack & pinion gears = non power steering) to steer the car, it has nothing to do with the sensitivity of the steering on the car :3
In terms of “simple gear changing” I think what you’re referring to at the end there is Tiptronic or Sequential gear shifting, which is used on the more expensive models (like Porches (TT) or F1 cars (Seq)).
As regards acceleration every car is different, some accelerate nice and smoothly while some have a massive “wall” halfway up the acceleration curve, and this catches out many newbie drivers. You just have to get used to the particular car you’re driving in.
Disclaimer: I have only ever driven illegaly :p used to share a white 1992 Vauxhall Nova with a friend when I was a little yob once upon a time :3
What are you doing your lessons in? :p
September 29th, 2009 at 12:47pm
Learning in some sort of Golf.
Clearly I should be driving an F1 car instead.