The ricer or Racer test.

Ricers are those kids who know little about style and subscribe to the "if it makes more noise it must be faster" philospophy. Although Typically aimed at Japansese cars the word has evolved to apply to any kind of tastlessly modified car.

The racer is the ultimate car enthusiast who drives with skill on our roads and only goes fast and pushes the limits on a race track. There are of course many categories in between but this survey will help to identify which classificiation you fall into.

http://www.torquecars.com/tools/racer-ricer-test.php

Here is what I got - do let me know what your results are using the feedback section.

The Track day Racer
Congratulations you are officially a Track Day Racer. You shun all things glossy and shiny. You know a lot about tuning and performance cars. You would rather have a standard looking car with a highly tuned engine than drive anything that shouts "look at me!" You accept breakdowns and component failures as the price of trailblazing the cutting edge of car ownership.
Your average weekend will be spend underneath the car tweaking the suspension and tuning up the engine. Alternatively you will always attempt to be the first away at the lights, but only if you are up against something that looks it might be a challenge!

You have the reflexes and driving skills of a pro driver.

Because of your responses to the survey we can make the following, more detailed comments.

You are welcome to join TorqueCars as you enjoy many aspects of cars and driving. You can join here www.torquecars.com/forums/ We feel that you would have a lot to contribute to our tuning forums and will certainly learn a lot. You do not enjoy general chat forums so our car specific topics are where you will spend most of your time.

We are sure you will appreciate our mpg calculator so you can now quote your exact fuel consumption and see how much you can save in fuel prices! You will also appreciate the fuel saving tuning and driving tips we have in our main articles section. You are the type of person who expects to get what they pay for. Quality over quanity is your mantra so have a read in our styling section and see which mods would be the most worthwhile. www.torquecars.com/styling/. Our articles will help you to avoid making mistakes and purchasing the wrong modifications.

This personality profile report for you demonstrates that your main focus is on speed and performance. There is a lot more to driving than going fast in a straight line. When you learn to take the corners you will achieve a higher place of driving Zen. Perhaps you should look into drifting or track day driving rather than the drag strip.

I'm not a brilliant passenger.

I got a lift this morning to work (I know I had determined to walk more but hey it was really cold! Almost 4.5 degrees!) Here are the thoughts that ran through my head.

"Flipping heck the pedal on the right is progressive not just on or off!
Wow that was close, did the driver realise they were so close to that car.
Hmm, oncoming car. Slow down, sloooooooow. There still coming and we're heading straight for them. Phew I wondered what the pavements were for it was a good job they exist.
Whats that noise, oh yes it is the sound of alloy wheels scraping along the kerb. Is the driver deaf? Oh good were moving out a bit.
Ouch, do you have to aim for every single pot hole in the road.
Sit at junction and wait for a gap.
No don't pull out there's a car coming, oh well if you put your foot down it won't be too bad. Ummm accelerate - they are getting closer. Does this thing have an engine.
Ah traffic lights, slow up then its changing to red. No that's the accelerator. Phew that was close"

Then I get out and say, "thank you for the lift. It was much appreciated!" whilst shaking on the inside and vowing to walk next time. (Providing its not too cold or raining, I do have my price!)

Was I really too spineless to speak up? It is just me or do other people find themselves in this situation where out of politeness they have to bite their tongues?

Road deaths - speed or congestion?

When people start moaning about speed enforcement and start to make a case for it they often site road safety as an argument.

These people allege that speed itself is a cause of road traffic accidents. I have no detailed statistics to quote from, but this is a new project of mine so I will report back with my findings soon.

My theory is that congestion and pinch point in traffic are the major causes of traffic accidents.

1) Cars waiting to turn off a main road often cause a tailback. This is a prime opportunity for a driver (at normal road speeds) to come round a blind bend and fail to notice the situation ahead and plough into the car in front.

2) Journey times are longer due to congestion and long journeys are associated with tiredness and reduce driver reactions.

3) Overtaking. This could be put down to speed but generally a driver will miss time an overtake maneuver and hit an on coming car. If our roads flowed well and there were suitable passing places there would be no need for the risky overtake maneuver.

4) Crowded streets lined with parked cars make it hard, or near impossible to spot pedestrians wandering out into the road. Again with less cars on the road we would not have this problem to contend with.

5) Anger and road rage are major causes of bad lapses of judgement resulting in accidents. Stress and tension are greater when the congestion is greater on our roads.

So rather than slowing cars down with speeding fines, which some say is a smokescreen for raising revenue, I would suggest that our road infrastructure is at fault for a major proportion of our road deaths and injuries. If my theory is borne out by the facts I will publish these for all to see.

Hesitant drivers.

These really wind me up and are a complete nightmare. They are a danger to themselves and all that they encounter. The typical profile goes something like this:-

1. They will not pull out onto a main road if they can see another car coming. (The road has to be completely empty for them!)
2. They will start to pull out and then stop halfway causing an obstruction or overhanging part of the main road.
3. They will see you coming on the main road, wait, and then pull out in front of you. Rather than picking up speed they will dribble along at a really slow pace with a long line of cars behind them.
4. At night they will slow to a crawl if there is an oncoming car. Then when the road is clear and you have an opportunity to overtake they pull out into the center of the road!
5. On roundabouts they will start to pull away then stop dead and will frequently have other drivers going into the back of them. (I know the other drivers are at fault but some blame must be shared by the hesistant driver who stopped for no apparent reason!)
6. Joining the motorway the hesitant driver will park at the end of the slip lane because he hasn't taken an opportunity to pull out and wait for a long gap in the traffic.

I accept that we all make mistakes and will not admit to being perfect. On a daily commute you often encounter the same cars and when they consistantly do the same things you really start to wonder.

I wish that all drivers were retested every 5-10 years and this will help to keep driving standards focussed in peoples minds. We all pick up bad habits but I'm sure we would all be a little more studious if we knew that we were going to have to face a retest every few years. This test will also get a lot of old (incapable) drivers off the road. It is a hard thing to give up your licence, but when you face a danger to yourself and all those around you it is time to concede that it is time to hang up your driving gloves and hat and take the Bus instead.

Don't blame the car!

A Torquecars member recently said to me, "have you noticed what happens when a man stalls a car?"

I hadn't, but he explained that, "all men will glare at the dashboard as if to see why the car decided it will cut the engine."

Most women drivers will just restart the car without the glare but there is something in the male ego which means they cannot accept responsibility for their errors (not that men make errors!)

This got me thinking back to the days when I was chained to a desk in an insurance office and the theory holds true - it is always the car which is blamed for everything. Here are some excerpts from accident claim forms and they all have one common theme.

The car skidded on ice.
I braked and the car skidded into the other guy.
The car swerved off the road.
The car veered off the road.
The car went out of control.
I couldn't see the other car as it was obscured by my Windscreen pillar.
The cars windows were steamed up.
The car stalled.
The car pulled out.
The car hit the (wall,pedestrian, tree etc...)

I could go on all day with these but it goes to show how reluctant we are to admit blame or responsibility. The common theme in all the above scenarios was the driver was not controlling the car withing the limits of the road.

The word accident should be removed as well as this implies an unavoidable or unpredictable event. This is simply not accurate as nearly all crashes (this is what I'm going to call accidents!) could be avoided if people paid more attention to what was going on around them.

Sharing a car.

We all have that gut wrenching experience of sharing our beloved pride and joy with someone at some point in our lives. Here is a little insight into the problems this can cause.

The experience varies from letting a mechanic briefly drive the car for a test run, to regularly parting with the car whilst your other half, son, daughter, friend, room mate etc takes the car on a regular basis.

Nothing causes friction like the pressures caused by a communal car share arrangement. Expect arguments over the amount of fuel used, to the division of bills for wear and tear items like tyres and breaks. Then larger focused discussions occur when the car has new scratches and scrapes which in fairness could have been caused when the car was parked up.

The regular annoyances will stack up though. Drivers tend to adjust the seat, mirror (usually all 3) and even set the radio to a different station or just keep swapping the CD. Then after you have delicately set up the balance of warm/cold air jets and angled them precisely your evil NEMESIS car sharer seems to take delight in turning them to the opposite settings. After a week this will really start to grate then the tension will build and build.

Another thing that happens is that the car gets dirty and needs cleaning and hoovering. With 2 people sharing a car this job seems to become less frequently done and the last one to clean it will continually whinge at the other when they bring it home slightly dirty!

So next time you enter into a relationship, or worse still offer to teach someone to drive think carefully about the implications of sharing a car. You need to have a strong personality and set the ground rules firmly at the beginning. A camera will help you establish the defaults switch settings and resolve disputes about damage but this can be rather time consuming.

Sorry - I've got to go now! My wife wants to use her computer now so I must dust off the keyboard and realign the mouse mat. (NOT!)

Obsessive tendancies In a car.

We all have little rituals and to a degree we all have bit of compulsive behavior disorder. It is good to be regimented orderly and tidy, but we need to be careful that it does not start to take over our lives. This is a fairly tongue in cheek article that contains little in the way of real phsychology and is not intended to be anything more than an amusing diversion.
Here are some of the things to look out for.

When Parking.

We have to park in middle of a space even if this means we go forwards and backwards a number of times.All wheels must be parallel to the kerb so we would never leave the car with our front wheels at an angle. The distance from the kerb must be equal on the front or back. When parking up we also ensure that the Steering wheel must always be straight. We cannot let the wipers rest unless they are in the parked position at the bottom of the screen. We would even restart the ignition to ensure that the wipers are correctly resting. We touch each pedal a set number of times with our feet as we turn off the engine, blip the accelerator or depress the clutch pedal.

Before we set off.

All of the vents must be set in a symmetrical pattern, if the outer ones are pointing up so must the inner ones. If the left one is pointing left we just dont feel right until the right one is pointing left to mirror it. We make sure that the mats in the car are all straight and that the headrests are all at the same height.

When driving along.

You tap or wiggle your left foot, or clench your jaw each time you pass a lamp post, mailbox or other marker.We try (especially in the wet) to make sure our tyres go over the same bit of road as the car in front.

General.

We get annoyed when the tyre valves do not line up.

None of these in themselves are a problem but if we start to become obsessive over them or are guilty of a significant number of these we need to be careful that this does not develop into a major problem. We could test ourself out by forcibly breaking the rule/behaviour pattern that we are having trouble with.