That bloody THINK advert
Discussion
Whilst watching Borat on C4, my blood pressure suddenly shot through the roof during the copmmercial break. That lying THINK advert is on the telly again, I thought it had been banished for good. You know the advert, the one where the car locks its wheels and hits a child/dummy (carefully concealed behind a fluttering pigeon).
Anyway, there was a topic on PH a while back (I can't find it) that told the story of the car used, how they altered its brakes to work less efficiently and how they had to do all manner of bodging with the tyres and road surface to get the car to skid that far.
Can anyone find the topic? I've found a few on the subject, but the thread that I'm looking for had a post written by someone working on the film set. I seem to remember him going in to accurate detail on the adverts production. Can anyone point me towards that topic? Any help would be appreciative.
Cheers
Anyway, there was a topic on PH a while back (I can't find it) that told the story of the car used, how they altered its brakes to work less efficiently and how they had to do all manner of bodging with the tyres and road surface to get the car to skid that far.
Can anyone find the topic? I've found a few on the subject, but the thread that I'm looking for had a post written by someone working on the film set. I seem to remember him going in to accurate detail on the adverts production. Can anyone point me towards that topic? Any help would be appreciative.
Cheers
Every car made has different brakes etc etc.
The highway code, although very out of date for a modern car gives worst case example eg some old deer in her metro with drum brakes all round.
So the "extra" distance is a worst case. Dont forget, people often tell me that the force if you crash at 40mph compared to 20mph is double, when in fact the force is squared.... in dense urban areas use of 3rd gear is suggested as this will keep your speed down near 30mph and will also save you fuel.
The highway code, although very out of date for a modern car gives worst case example eg some old deer in her metro with drum brakes all round.
So the "extra" distance is a worst case. Dont forget, people often tell me that the force if you crash at 40mph compared to 20mph is double, when in fact the force is squared.... in dense urban areas use of 3rd gear is suggested as this will keep your speed down near 30mph and will also save you fuel.
Well, it's better than locking the rears first and having it try to swap ends... we don't *know* how far off locking the rears are, though I agree it's probably quite a long way.
I'd be surprised if doing 30 in 3rd saved fuel over 4th - I generally find it requires a tad more throttle in 3rd, and the engine's revving faster, so more cycles at more fuel per cycle. It does make it more responsive though which could be good for safety - or could be worse with a numpty jerky driver!
It would be much better if the message on the screen was "THINK! Don't run out into the road!"
I don't think I've ever seen the impact in that advert - I'm always watching that beautiful slow-motion shot of the VTOL pigeon. A quarter of the breast muscle mass is for pulling the wings up as opposed to down - the tendon runs from the breast over a kind of sheave in the shoulder - and you can clearly see this pidgy making full use of it to generate forward thrust on the upstroke as well as the downstroke.
Ducks have jet-assisted takeoff from water - they slam their tail down so that the water trapped between their tail and their arse shoots out in a jet which gives them a bit of extra thrust.
I'd be surprised if doing 30 in 3rd saved fuel over 4th - I generally find it requires a tad more throttle in 3rd, and the engine's revving faster, so more cycles at more fuel per cycle. It does make it more responsive though which could be good for safety - or could be worse with a numpty jerky driver!
It would be much better if the message on the screen was "THINK! Don't run out into the road!"
I don't think I've ever seen the impact in that advert - I'm always watching that beautiful slow-motion shot of the VTOL pigeon. A quarter of the breast muscle mass is for pulling the wings up as opposed to down - the tendon runs from the breast over a kind of sheave in the shoulder - and you can clearly see this pidgy making full use of it to generate forward thrust on the upstroke as well as the downstroke.
Ducks have jet-assisted takeoff from water - they slam their tail down so that the water trapped between their tail and their arse shoots out in a jet which gives them a bit of extra thrust.
I hate that ad too. See:
www.safespeed.org.uk/thatad.html
The production is pretty fake - but that doesn't bother me. I don't suppose anyone would wish that they had run over a kid to make it! It's very much in the nature of modern TV that these things are made up to look right and to meet a brief. That's fair.
I don't care about the brake lock issue nor about the fact that the back brakes don't lock. Some vehicles have a pressure limiting valve so that rear brakes behave in this way - it helps stability.
But the message is utter bunk. That irks.
www.safespeed.org.uk/thatad.html
The production is pretty fake - but that doesn't bother me. I don't suppose anyone would wish that they had run over a kid to make it! It's very much in the nature of modern TV that these things are made up to look right and to meet a brief. That's fair.
I don't care about the brake lock issue nor about the fact that the back brakes don't lock. Some vehicles have a pressure limiting valve so that rear brakes behave in this way - it helps stability.
But the message is utter bunk. That irks.
bluesandtwos said:
Dont forget, people often tell me that the force if you crash at 40mph compared to 20mph is double, when in fact the force is squared
Sorry BluesAndTwos, in on this late but the 'impulse' transmitted through force of impact is indeed double at 40mph compared to 20mph, it's the kinetic energy of the vehicle that's squared i.e. four times as great, but as most of the KE isn't transferred to a pedestrian in an impact this is one of those pseudo-scientific bits of gobbledigook that the road safety industry
use to try and make their speed arguments work better. Yes safespeed the whole phoney speed kills message irks as it's based on b0110x, and as SS has pointed out it's resulting in more people dying on the roads not less, about 100 more in 2003 than 2002 IIRC. Shame on them.
cuneus said:
Original here:
www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=105833
I think you will find the original is here actually
www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?p=3&f=23&t=81498&h=0
nonegreen said:
Original here:
<a href="http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=105833">www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=105833</a>
I think you will find the original is here actually
www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?p=3&f=23&t=81498&h=0
Ah, cheers... both interesting reads
Pigeon said:
I'd be surprised if doing 30 in 3rd saved fuel over 4th - I generally find it requires a tad more throttle in 3rd, and the engine's revving faster, so more cycles at more fuel per cycle.
In a lower gear the engine is drawing in less fuel/air per cycle as the torque requirements are lower. However, the engine is running faster which means greater frictional losses and the lower volumetric efficiency also reduces thermal efficiency. All adds up to higher fuel consumption.
one thing that got me about the advert (saw it twice within 10 minutes on ITV2 last night), is how fast the car is travelling when it hits the child?
It's about half way between "would have stopped here" and actually stopping which they claim is 21 feet. So, the car is about 10 feet from standstill. So that's perhaps 5 MPH.
Quite dramatic for a 5MPH impact don't you think.
It's about half way between "would have stopped here" and actually stopping which they claim is 21 feet. So, the car is about 10 feet from standstill. So that's perhaps 5 MPH.
Quite dramatic for a 5MPH impact don't you think.
Turbobloke - I am not talking about the force on the person at impact, I am talking about the energy stored in the car. It was late and I could not be arsed to go into formulas.
Mr2Mike
My force ran a study on fuel consumption, there was a drop in consumption when we used 3rd gear and now during instruction new recruits are told to use 3rd gear on busy roads to a) increase engine breaking/throttle response and b) save money.
Mr2Mike
My force ran a study on fuel consumption, there was a drop in consumption when we used 3rd gear and now during instruction new recruits are told to use 3rd gear on busy roads to a) increase engine breaking/throttle response and b) save money.
bluesandtwos said:
Turbobloke - I am not talking about the force on the person at impact, I am talking about the energy stored in the car. It was late and I could not be arsed to go into formulas.
Sure. Wasn't having a dig honest, just pointing out that the safety lobby (huh) misuse the science. If all that KE was transferred on impact it would matter. It isn't and it doesn't. That ad just winds me up big time and doing anything to slam it makes me feel better.
As safespeed and ABD have pointed out, if all the impacts between a car and a child happened at 30mph, where they say 50% die IIRC, there would be thousands of child fatalities every year, and the actual number - while tragic - is nothing like this. Drivers actually observing ahead, anticipating and braking or swerving avoid untold number of child pedestrian accidents altogether, and where there's an impact it's often at a very slow speed thanks to the driver.
GATSOs and SCAMPs are turning drivers into zombie speedo watchers and camera hunters, this is bad for road safety. Many years ago, before GATSOs and today's total stupidity on road safety came about, I was holding my youngest son's hand while on holiday. Probably hard enough to leave a red mark, so today I would be prosecuted for assault but that's another story
Anyway something got his four-year-old atention big time, still don't know what, and he suddenly broke free of my grip and ran into the road. Fortunately the driver of an oncoming car was looking at the road ahead not his speedo and he swerved immediately. As a result I watched in slow motion as my son ran into the driver's door and bounced off. Apart from a small graze as well as a bruise he was no worse off than if he'd run into a stationary car. If that had happened in these days of GATSOs my son would be more likely to be under the wheels not less.
Stuff bl**dy GATSOs, stuff that crap advert, stuff the emotive but brain dead campaigners who want de-skilled drivers who will stick to a limit and kill children at 30mph instead of missing them altogether (as they won't be observing outta the car properly).
OK, finished, blood pressure down again.
>> Edited by turbobloke on Monday 23 August 12:36
The voice-over should have started several seconds earlier by saying: if the driver had been paying attention the car would have stopped ... HERE. Followed by the camera panning ten yards forward from the stationary car to the kid standing in the middle of the road.
At 30 mph you can stop in a gap of 1.5 seconds i.e. it takes you 1.5 seconds to drive the length of the skid marks. The difference in stopping distance between 30 and 35 mph is trivial compared to the distance you travel while window shopping, shouting at the kids in the back seat, or just not concentrating.
At 30 mph you can stop in a gap of 1.5 seconds i.e. it takes you 1.5 seconds to drive the length of the skid marks. The difference in stopping distance between 30 and 35 mph is trivial compared to the distance you travel while window shopping, shouting at the kids in the back seat, or just not concentrating.
bluesandtwos said:
in dense urban areas use of 3rd gear is suggested as this will keep your speed down near 30mph and will also save you fuel.
So 110 mph then
I do tend to use 3rd in 30 limits but it's all about keeping your eyes fixed on the speedo and not letting your speed creep up to 35mph. Of course @ 35mph you increace the stopping distance in terms of reaction time and expenditure of energy. 21 ft is less than 3 car lengths and, whilst a moder car will stop in less than Highway code figures, I'm pretty sure all of us will be suprised by the increace in stopping distance due to small increaces in speed.
Personally I'm in favour of the 20mph limits that have sprung up around schools and dense residential areas. Just because kids (and other numpties) shouldn't be running out in front of us doesn't mean they wont...
Iain
iaint said:
Just because kids (and other numpties) shouldn't be running out in front of us doesn't mean they wont...Iain
20mph limits outside schools and in dense housing areas appear attractive but if a kid runs out inside your thinking distance at 20mph then your car will hit them at 20mph. That's possibly fatal. Why not go for 10mph, or ban cars from roads altogether? Oh yeah they do that already it's called pedestrianisation.
Like all speed limits 20mph isn't the answer to anything. Let's turn this round, speed campaigners talk about how much safer it would be if drivers had a large sharp spike two inches from their forehead while driving as it would make them vulnerable and more careful. By the same token scrap speed limits - I'll bet dozy pedestrians would wake up if the average car was blatting past at warp speed, and THEY had to be a bit more bl**dy careful.
Road user education, not just driver education, is the only real way to improve safety on the roads, coupled to more BiB who will 'educate' walkers, cyclists, horseriders etc not just car drivers.
Edited to add: driving by numbers does not make you a safe driver any more than painting by numbers makes you Leonardo Da Vinci.
>> Edited by turbobloke on Monday 23 August 13:01
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