Eleanor @123 - I was used to hearing about 'varsity' which is the other half of 'uni', when I was younger. This was the shortened version my Mother and her friends used.
#175 Well, the most natural to me would be 'twenty Lego bricks' - an adjective!
So maybe the 'bricks' can be assumed to be silent, then Lego is an adjective - the company's happy, the assumed 'brick' can be plural or singular - everyone else is happy!
#158 - Interesting, 'mufti' is alive and well in the general population - at least in NZ (and probably Australia too). It is most commonly used in the context of a 'mufti day' which typically is a day when school uniforms (no laughing) don't have to be worn. The kids wear normal clothes and make a donation - usually for fundraising or sometimes charity. It is also used in the general context of someone you might normally expect to be in a uniform or special clothes - 'Sorry, I didn't recogise you in mufti, Vicar'.
#159 - should be ok as long it was a mini ha-ha.
#438 It is so hard to pick one word peeve out of so many.... 'myself' and 'infer' spring to mind.
Some of the US usage differences, 'momentarily' for example, still seem like a bump in the sentence to me, but are not really a true peeve.
That makes sense.
myschools.net provides Internet products to Australian schools. It is quite possible that Opunake school is using some of their products and Opunake traffic is using one of the myschools gateways.
To dial NZ, use International access code 011 then country code 64 then 6 7618723 (the school phone number) - so
011 64 6 761 8723
It is currently 14:44 here.
Seatbelt reminders.
The adoption of these is strongly encouraged by the European New Car Assessment Program (which also flows through to a number of other countries). Euro NCAP awards up to 3 points for seatbelt reminders, 1 each for the front and 1 for rear seating positions. This means that it is almost impossible for a car to achieve the desired 5 star rating without fitting one of these systems. The assessment protocol is described here.
My problem with this system is that the fitting of the reminder system does not affect how the car performs in an accident. A given car that has an accident with its occupants wearing restraints, will not perform any differently regardless of whether it has a reminder system. This means that the points awarded for the reminder are awkward additional add-ons that have no relationship to the rest of the points that reflect crash performance. Under this system it is possible that a 4 star car is actually safer than a 5 star car that is fitted with a reminder.
As a matter of interest, the protocol says that the reminder system should be able to be disabled so that users that do not want it are not tempted to interfere with the safety systems in an attempt to disable it.
GM Holden in Australia fits a reminder to their Commodore, but there is no way to disable it. They still claim the extra points though! I won't ever use Commodores as rental cars for this reason.
In the US there is a requirement for new cars to be assessed for crash performance with an unbelted driver. This means that the manufacturers have to take account of this possibility in the design of their cars and safety systems. In general the unbelted test requires the car to be able to deploy the airbags more aggressively (sooner, faster, bigger). The early versions of this were responsible for a number of sad deaths and injuries where the safety systems actually did damage to occupants (especially the young, old and small). More modern systems combine a number of sensors such as passenger weight and restraint use to decide how much force to deploy the airbags with.
Some European manufacturers have taken the lazy and cheap way out of this, by producing models for outside the US that assume the passengers will be wearing restraints. This means they do not need to cater for the unbelted user so they can use smaller and slower airbags etc. Mercedes Benz has done this with some models. In my car none of the safety systems will work unless the belts are fastened. This means that if you are not wearing a belt there is no protection from the car at all - even though all the research indicates that airbags will provide additional protection even if belts are not worn. One of the reasons I bought the car was safety so it is ironic that it actually turns out to be less safe than almost any car on the road unless the belts are worn! In the US, of course, the car is shipped with safety systems that protect an unbelted driver.
#300 - I have also wondered what will happen in the future. Seatbelts are such a primitive and intrusive technology. Airbags seem more desirable since they have no effect on the user until they are required, unlike the seatbelt which imposes costs every time.
Oh, no it didn't, I am sorry, it is further back than I thought (#855).
My post just disappeared? Did I do something wrong? It was there for a few days and then gone....
I have often wondered about the real benefits of seatbelts in typical low speed city driving. All the statistics seem to quote figures that include freeway and open road numbers.
Within city speed limits, Taxi drivers here are exempt from the seatbelt laws (industry lobby for security), and courier drivers are also exempt (industry lobby for saving time). We do not seem to be surrounded by a sea of dead and injured taxi and courier drivers.
Could it be that experienced drivers in modern vehicles, driving at relatively low speeds actually don't gain a lot of benefit?
Having myself been in an accident at 30km/h I have to say it is unpleasant and I found a surprising amount of force was involved, but not so much as to actually feel life threatening. I suppose energy going up as a square means that the same thing at 50 km/h might be a lot more exciting.
Great discussion and a very entertaining and erudite community.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2007 | 11 |
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