This morning (06:50am 28-nov-2007), a commuter went unconscious while driving her sport utility vehicle on the Golden Gate Bridge. With the sole-occupant driver unconscious behind the wheel, the car swerved out of its lane, and towards the oncoming traffic on the other side of the bridge. Another commuter reacted quickly, used his pickup truck to force the still moving sport utility vehicle away from oncoming traffic and over to the side of the road.
[Link to full story on sfgate.com]
Quick thinking and very nice driving.
The folks in BBC TopGear do it again. Bugatti claims the Veyron is “the fastest production car in the world”. The basic stats of the car:
- fastest car in production in the world
- 1,001 horsepower
- 8.0L w16 engine (they stuck two v8 engines together!)
- 4 turbochargers
- top speed 253mph / 407kph
- and 10 radiators, to stop it all overheating!
- more specs on wikipedia
So, of course, the folks from TopGear ask the real question: Does it actually go up to that theoretical top speed? To find the answer, watch this! (7min40sec video clip). Amazing well put together snippet, good camera work, music. Even if you dont care too much about cars, you should watch this. And, well, if you’re interested in cars, its even better! Just dont try this at home!
UPDATE:TopGear and YouTube are playing “whack-a-mole”, taking down different copies of this video clip, but its being reposted by fans as fast as they take them down. Search for “Top Gear Bugatti Veyron”. Its 7min40sec long and starts with a black Veyron on a rainy road with the voiceover saying “Vlad the Impaler is back”! Dont look at any shorter video, as it will ruin the ending!
Spotted this on the way to lunch today…
Obviously local environment, and local culture, influence what people look for in car design and car usage. After living in California for 9+ years now, and then arriving in Paris for a couple of weeks, I found the car culture differences between Californian cars and Parisian cars quite amazing. More then I realized from previous trips.
- Tiny streets, tiny parking spaces. By tiny, I mean that villages in West of Ireland have bigger roads. Simply fitting your car down these narrow one-way streets, with parked cars lining each side of the road is a challenge in a small car. VW Golf counts as big. Very common here are Smart Cars, small, fast, practical city cars, and the fact that there are some made in France is probably helping too.
- Expensive petrol/gasoline - hence an interest in hybrids. So what new, thats all the rage in California too, right? Well, then I spotted this. Turns out that electric cars have reserved spaces throughout Paris, and the parking meter includes a recharging plug for the car!
