Safe Speed Forums

I thought a petrol-electric hybrid turned the petrol engine off when stationary (unless the battery needs charging)?

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Andrew.

They used George Monbiot's Clio apparently.

I would have thought that all people on this forum realise that the CFiT are just a load of Government Stooges, i.e the 'Usual Suspects'.

Did people know that the Chair'person' of the Transport Committee of the House of Commons does not drive, (Mrs Gwyneth Dunwood MP). That there is a sinister Mr Robert Clifford of PACT who seems to have a hot-line to her and Government Ministers who do his bidding, yet PACT is classed as a charity for God sake !

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Good manners maketh a good motorist

It's the usual "half a story" - The half they WANTED to tell!!!

Firstly, as has been said, the car they used makes all the difference. A small-engined boxy-shaped car will be MUCH worse as it gets closer to the throttle being wide open. It would have been good if they'd said what car it was, or better still, tried it on a number of different cars. Of course, it wouldn't look good when they found that a big Jag didn't use appreciably more fuel at 80 than at 70!

Secondly, the old "aircon swindle"! Let's assume that the air temperature was 20 degrees C. Let's assume also that the aircon had been OFF and that the car had climate control (because that illustrates the point best) and the climate control was set to maintain a cabin temperature of 18 degrees...

The instant the aircon is switched on, the pump will run at full capacity (OK, there are different designs of pump these days but I'm talking about the most common fixed displacement type). Now that WILL use a fair bit of power. As a percentage, of course, it rather depends on the power of the engine in the car!

What happens next is that the evaporator temperature drops and the air getting sucked through it and into the car cools down. If the difference in temperature between outside and inside is very great, the pump will probably never stop running. If not, the evaporator will get progressively cooler until the anti-icing switch cuts the compressor off. AT this point, it will use ZERO extra fuel until the evaporator has warmed up again to the point where the pump cuts back in. And this goes on. The bigger the difference between the inside and outside temperature, the more of its time the pump will spend running.

So I think what happened in this case is that the pump cut in initially and the bloke with the laptop took his reading. If they'd waited a couple of minutes, I wouldn't mind betting the reading would have been different (and smaller)!

So basically, when the aircon is first switched on, it uses a fair bit of power and then, depending on ambient temperature, it cuts out and once the evaporator is noce and cold, it won't use anything like as much power to keep things cool.

The Government are desperate to find any scrap of justification for their failed speed camera policy and will say ANYTHING to get more people on-side. They would tell us that driving within the speed limit makes one better in bed if they thought that anyone would believe it.

I'm stating the obvious here, but if you were to restrict all motorway traffic to 70mph through the use of draconian enforcement, the resulting traffic bunching, "camera surfing" and congestion would result in a HIGHER CO2 overhead than at present. Not to mention all the accidents it would cause. Then there's the manufacturing overhead from building all those cameras and the power overhead of running the cameras and the substantial IT infrastructure behind them.

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

So much to say here...

My Volvo V70 2.4 Geartronic (i.e. auto) gets high-30s economy on a high-speed motorway run and high-20s on my work commute, not helped by the traffic lights, speed bumps etc... Between about 50 and 70mph it shows the most amazing instant economy figures, 50-70mpg! So yes, higher speeds do make a difference; but around town is worst, and making our towns more congested and reducing speeds to 20 rather than 30 doesn't help one bit.

The air-con question is a classic 'old tech' thing - climate control is nowhere near as bad, they have clearly got a car with an on/off switch for the airconditioning rather than proper climate control.

I wonder what the level of accidents would be if they did enforce the speed limits automatically - surely everyone would stop paying attention and then not be ready when something went wrong?

Plus just this morning I was wondering, once you've extracted the huge proportion of accidents that take place at night, the huge proportion of accidents that involve young drivers, what's left?

Ian

Been tried in Australia.

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Andrew.

Firstly I don't believe we are affecting global warming but I do believe in preserving resources. I have uses energy saving bulbs for 20years and have fitted cavety wall insulation to my last three houses over 20 years.

These Johny-come-latelys to the green world are so hypicritical.
How much more fuel does your car use with the windows wound down?
Air con is good! and you drive calmer.

My last 4 day-to-day cars have been less than 1.3 litre and with top speeds of 105-120, they do the job. I make them last 6 years too.
My car delivers around 40mpg however it could deliver 60mpg given uncongested roads. The average speed into town is 17mph (5 miles)
I try three differing routes depending on empty/commuter/school/shopping traffic
Solve congestion if you want to preserve fossil fuels. My council believe in congesting the roads so we use public transport.

I have recently had my planning permission refused for my garage which was to have been a minimal 100mm concrete base with a sustainable wooden garage.I apparently must match the house so it will have to be a substantial foundation, bricks and concrete tile roof. or 2.2 tons of co2 to
around 10 tons. Planning policy state materials must match type colour and size.

There is no consistancy, numties the lot of them!

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

Not sure that's true to be honest. Climate control just switches the aircon on for you to save you switching it on with a button on the dash. It's true that some more modern aircon compressors are much more efficient than the older ones but that's nowt to do with climate control - my car has climate control but has a very old style aircon compressor.

Just to be "Devils Advocate"

Ordinary lightblubs waste energy by creating excessive heat, in the winter this heat takes some load of your central heating system. Therefore whilst using energy saving lightbulbs you will have to compensate by using more fuel for your heating.

OK its a small amount and in the summer it wont apply but it is often overlooked.

"Devils Advocate" mode Off

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Nick

The torque converter in my car doesn't lock properly until 85mph, therefore I should be allowed to do 90mph on the motorway in order to save the planet.

(Whilst the above is true, what I am actually getting at is that just because a certain speed is more efficient for one car, it isn't necessarily for another car, I can't believe they plan to legislate based on the ancient and incorrect 55mph myth)


As for climate control, the aircon isn't on for much at all if you have climate control. I know because the clutch is slipping noisily on my aircon compressor, so I can tell exactly when it's on or off. It doesn't stay on for long once the car is down to temperature. I also like that if you floor it, the aircon is turned off regardless of temperature. Whoever programmed that into the ECU is a genius!

Edit:

They probably asked a bunch of businessmen whose companies force them to fly EasyJet. They don't pay for the flights themselves so an increased cost means less chavs on the flight

Absolutely. I use two 300W halogen lamps in my lounge, as well as 240W of standard incandescent bulbs. Not only do they offset my heating bill, they also make me feel a damn sight better than those weak, flickering, poor spectral output fluorescents (yes they're getting better, but they're still not good enough IMO).

Sorry. I will replace them for toungstone filliment ASAP. I will fit a V12 in the yaris and go to scotland to buy them after fitting a roofrack & towing a caravan.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

Sorry for the derail, but if you ever do put a V12 into a Yaris, can I borrow it to race my boss' 911 Turbo and make him cry?

Completely OT - sorry

Have you tried one of those 'sunrise' alarms by any chance Smeggy? If so what's your opinion?

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

I've got some tri-phosphor, 6000K (daylight) high speed switching (10Khz) compact fluorescents which I strongly prefer to tungsten. The colour rendering is excellent (CRI 86-92), and the colour temperature is a huge improvement and at 10KHz switching there's absolutely positively no flicker.

The only thing I don't like is the 20-30secs warm up to full brightness. They start quick enough, but are initially dim.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

And now normal GLS lamps are going to be phased out on environmental grounds. (ref. Peter Hain). Compact halogens are going to be retained, apparently.

Has anyone done a dust-to-dust energy analysis of the compact fluorescents? The only thing the Government is interested in is cutting DIRECT energy usage as this is generated in this country and counts towards their targets. They don't care about the overseas factories making the low energy lamps.

The law of unintended consequences will operate. People will leave the compacts burning all the time in their landings and halls. "Well, they use very little energy - the Government told me."

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

There is nothing you can do about this as it is a function of the mercury vapour pressure in the lamp not reaching optimum levels until it warms up.

Ah yes, mercury. In every lamp and unpleasantly poisonous.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

I haven't. If they are what I think they are: are they not enough to properly light a lounge?


I would like to try one. Could you point me to one?

I purchased 20 of them from ebay last year.

Have a look at ebay item 230175975624 (although the CRI claim is disappointing at 76.) I can't find the exact item I purchased, although it might be there somewhere. I also can't check back because I'm not at home... Sorry.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety