Category Archives: General

Red Means Go

Earlier in the week I was on my way home from work, driving through the tale end of peak hour traffic when I very nearly smashed into the back of the car in front of me.

The traffic was moving at about 80Km/h in this section of road and it was predicably smooth, as opposed to fast then slow. As I came over the crest of a hill and for reasons unknown, the traffic 10 cars in front of me decided to suddenly break. The heavy breaking rippled through the lane of traffic as per normal, however the two or three cars directly in front of me were caught out by the crest of the hill. To compound matters, the car directly in front of me had some issues which their break lights – specifically, breaking caused his break lights to turn off instead of on!

Night fall was upon us and everyone already had their driving lights on. With the free flowing traffic through this section of road, there wasn’t a reason for the driver in front of me to break – so I didn’t notice the reversal of his break lights earlier. Unfortunately for me, that meant I first realised something was wrong after he stomped on the break pedal to respond to the heavy breaking 10 cars in front.

As you can imagine, I was very happy that there was adequate breaking distance for my heavy little tank of a car to slow down or I’d be catching a lift to work for a while.

Motorists Are Not Mind Readers

The M1 is a major piece of road infrastructure linking the Gold Coast, Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast together in South East Queensland. During peak hour it carries a staggering amount of traffic and a surprisingly high amount even in off peak windows due to the arterial nature of the motorway.

When road works need to be carried out on the motorway, if possible they are performed in off peak periods – often quite late into the night as to avoid massive congestion and delays during peak hour. However even late into the night (after 10PM) – the motorway is still servicing a lot of traffic.

To avoid any unnecessary congestion on the roads, not just the M1 – road crews put out signage to inform motorists that there are works or construction happening ahead. In an ideal world, motorists are informed of the work ahead with enough time that they can safely slow down (if required) or merge lanes with minimal impact.

It’ll come as no surprise that when there is inadequate signage on the roads, motorists are unsure what the appropriate action is to take. Case in point, returning home from Brisbane to the Gold Coast on a Friday night after 10PM at night and there was non-construction road works taking place. There was a sign stating that there was road works ahead but it didn’t inform the motorists to merge and it wasn’t until progressing further around a corner that there was a large flashing sign saying merge left. Unfortunately, by that point the traffic had little chance to merge smoothly as the road was quite busy. To the detriment of the motorists, the flashing sign failed to inform them that they were in fact closing two lanes and not just the right most lane. After the traffic had to come to a near halt to merge once, less than 1Km further down the road it ground to a halt again as it merged left.

In the past, I’ve been relatively critical of councils and road works:

I like the fact that road works are taking place, as it normally means that something is going to improve on the roads that I’m travelling on. What I don’t understand is why the people or companies handling traffic control don’t do a better job of informing motorists of what sort of road works are taking place and what the appropriate response should be from the motorists. As an example, local councils will often put out signs stating that there is mowing taking place or that line markings on the roads are being redone.

Is it too much to ask that traffic control inform the drivers on a 4 lane major motorway, that they need to merge two lanes to the left and not just one?

Incompatible Compatibility

I recently wrote about the lack of backwards compatibility when I needed to replace the cutting blades on my lawn mower.

To make sure I hadn’t missed anything at Bunnings, I dropped in there briefly on Saturday with one of the old mower blades to see if I overlooked the correct set in my last trip. I can confirm that there was only one set of blades matching my description, which I purchased last time.

Ironically, I found another set of Rover blades that weren’t the correct version/model that fit perfectly – go figure.

Backwards Compatibility Failure

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve noticed that our lawn mower has been cutting the grass a little less efficiently. It’s easy to spot when your mower blades are getting worn down, you’ll notice that your cutting width is narrower than normal and you’ll often leave a trail of grass behind you – similar to what happens when your grass catcher is full.

Before heading down to pick up a new set of mower blades from Bunnings, I checked if there was any particular type I should be buying for my Victor lawn mower. To my surprise, it was stamped into the steel on the blades themselves that they were type X – which I thought would make this process very straight forward.

Arrived at Bunnings and I had no idea that the various lawn mower manufacturers could have so many different variations of their lawn mower blades. Just within the Victor lawn mower range, I think there must have been between five and ten different types. I sort though the different packs and pick up two packets of the appropriate type and assume that it’ll be smooth sailing from here on in.

After going through the painful process of removing the first of the old lawn mower blades, I compare the new to the old and feel confident that it’ll go back together nicely. At this point, the fine folk at looking after backwards compatibility of the Victor lawn mower blades clearly had a fuzzy brain day – as the bolt didn’t fit through the disc that the mower blades are attached to. At first glance, it looked nearly identical – the same half moon shaped bold, similar thread, similar length and thickness – however the new bolt was about 1mm too thick!

As you can imagine, the bolts for lawn mower blades get quite worn as well. The packaging rightfully suggests that you replace all of the old parts with fresh parts, however for the moment I’m going to be forced to reuse the old nut and bolt.

Reckless

During our weekend away in Chinchilla, we had a late night encounter with a beavan in a ute. For whatever reason, he or she decided that the intersection in front of the home we were staying was the perfect location to lay a considerable amount of rubber.

The person driving the ute let his excitement get the better of him in my opinion. The first two circles on the intersection were great, neat and in control but the third one got lose and the back of the ute came very close to the power pole. Not letting that phrase the driver, maybe he didn’t realise just how close he was, it continued for another couple until he hit the brakes in a hurry and pulled up less than 2 metres from a parked car on the side of the road.

Anyone that knows me will attest to the fact that I love virtually anything with an engine, especially if it goes fast. You have to wonder though, Chinchilla is a small town – it’d have taken the driver 60 seconds from that intersection to get to somewhere that that had ample breathing room.

Instead they chose that intersection, nearly hitting a power pole and a parked car – numpty.