Where "Safety Inflation" leads

On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 20:08:52 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 10/15/2019 8:02 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 3:38:13 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 14:59:44 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie
wrote:

On Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 2:14:59 PM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 10/15/2019 2:47 PM, sms wrote:
On 10/15/2019 9:58 AM, AMuzi wrote:

snip

I don't doubt your report but since there are more pickups
sold than sedans, it wouldn't surprise me that truck
driver behavior spans the full range from inexplicable to
abhorrent, just like every other vehicle with 2 or more
wheels.

https://autoalliance.org/wp-content/...parison_v2.png


The truck part includes SUVs.


actual numbers, typical of any recent year, with either a
Ford or a Chevrolet pickup at #1 and the other one at #2:

https://www.businessinsider.com/best...p-233539-67-18

O.T.: What boggles my mind about all these SUVs and macho-mobiles is that they go over speed humps -- humps, not bumps -- at 2mph. Massive suspension, and they can't handle a hump. I about slammed into the back of an Outback this morning that basically stopped at at a succession of speed humps. The road was too narrow to go around, so I blew him off on the downhill. https://tinyurl.com/y3zwnblp Spin that around -- its 16%. I took the lane to the left. https://tinyurl.com/y5ky92p7 I gave the stop sign a liberal interpretation as a suggestion rather than a command -- which will be legal Jan 1. https://bikeportland.org/2019/06/25/...-yields-301829 I'm a forward thinking individual. I didn't want to get stuck behind the guy over the succession of humps down the road. https://tinyurl.com/yyegh7gu

-- Jay Beattie.

"Heavy duty" suspension means that without a load in the back the
truck rides much as if it had no suspension at all. Thus speed humps
are far more disturbing to the occupants in the pickup than to the
sleek, expensice, sedan... or even a bicycle where the more
intelligent sort of folks use the legs to provide a bit of
"suspension" when hitting speed humps.

True, but I have an Outback and don't creep over speed humps. BTW, I think modern pickup trucks have pretty sophisticated, adjustable suspension -- but I'll leave that to the gear-heads to confirm or deny.

-- Jay Beattie.


Me too. WTF? I've also noticed that behavior.
I'm sort of a gearhead, but I don't know beans about
pickups, their handling (or lack thereof), suspension mods etc.

Couldn't comment as my pickup is going on 20 years old. But it might
be, after all some pickups got radios and some even got a heater.
After driving his Model A pickup for something like 30 years my
GrandDad finally sold the old truck. He bought a GMC to replace it
and hot dam that thing had crank up windows and a heater and even had
a windshield wiper that he didn't have to crank by hand.
--
cheers,

John B.

On Wed, 16 Oct 2019 01:11:55 -0000 (UTC), news18
wrote:

On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 14:14:28 +0700, John B. wrote:

On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 04:44:56 -0000 (UTC), news18
wrote:

On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 10:05:47 +0700, John B. wrote:

On Mon, 14 Oct 2019 12:08:36 -0700, sms
wrote:

On 10/1 As Andrew stated, even something smallish in the face is a
safety hazard, especially when it's unexpected.

You can ride right through a few leaves hanging down when you're aware
that they're there, without reacting. But something unexpected in the
face, even small, could trigger a reaction that puts the rider in
danger, i.e. causing them to swerve into traffic.


If what you say is even remotely true why aren't you recommending face
shields, after all they are quite common on motorcycle helmets and
would totally eliminate yet another danger to the bicycle rider.

But then your increasing the heat danger from the lack of cooling
breeze.
Although, my chain saw helmet has a mesh screen rather than the usual
clear polycarbonate.

A "chain saw helmet"? I understand the face shield, but the helmet?
Maybe cut down a tree and it falls on your head?

It that "safety imflation" in the forestry industry as they'd be totally
useless if a tree or large branch dropped onto your head.

Sort of like the rule that you gotta wear one of them plastic safety
hats when you are up on the floor of a drilling rig.... when about
the only thing that is up in the air over your head is the "traveling
block" and it weighs 2,000 pounds :-(

More like a little something if "cones" or small branches dropped off
whilst you were cutting it down. It does happen. I've been with a group
of bush walkers who loved the challenge of pushing over dead trees; the
trick was to get it swaying and aplifiy the rythm, during which time dead
branches would drop everywhere.

I've always thought that safety rule number one should be, "Don't be
a damned fool!"
--
cheers,

John B.

On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 21:43:38 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/15/2019 9:08 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 10/15/2019 8:02 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 3:38:13 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 14:59:44 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie
wrote:

On Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 2:14:59 PM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 10/15/2019 2:47 PM, sms wrote:
On 10/15/2019 9:58 AM, AMuzi wrote:

* snip

I don't doubt your report but since there are more pickups
sold than sedans, it wouldn't surprise me that truck
driver behavior spans the full range from inexplicable to
abhorrent, just like every other vehicle with 2 or more
wheels.

https://autoalliance.org/wp-content/...parison_v2.png



The truck part includes SUVs.


actual numbers, typical of any recent year, with either a
Ford or a Chevrolet pickup at #1 and the other one at #2:

https://www.businessinsider.com/best...p-233539-67-18


O.T.:* What boggles my mind about all these SUVs and macho-mobiles
is that they go over speed humps -- humps, not bumps -- at 2mph.
Massive suspension, and they can't handle a hump. I about slammed
into the back of an Outback this morning that basically stopped at
at a succession of speed humps.* The road was too narrow to go
around, so I blew him off on the downhill.
https://tinyurl.com/y3zwnblp* Spin that around -- its 16%. I took
the lane to the left. https://tinyurl.com/y5ky92p7* I gave the stop
sign a liberal interpretation as a suggestion rather than a command
-- which will be legal Jan 1.
https://bikeportland.org/2019/06/25/...-yields-301829
I'm a forward thinking individual.* I didn't want to get stuck
behind the guy over the succession of humps down the road.
https://tinyurl.com/yyegh7gu

-- Jay Beattie.

"Heavy duty" suspension means that without a load in the back the
truck rides much as if it had no suspension at all. Thus speed humps
are far more disturbing to the occupants in the pickup than to the
sleek, expensice, sedan... or even a bicycle where the more
intelligent sort of folks use the legs to provide a bit of
"suspension" when hitting speed humps.

True, but I have an Outback and don't creep over speed humps. BTW, I
think modern pickup trucks have pretty sophisticated, adjustable
suspension -- but I'll leave that to the gear-heads to confirm or deny.

-- Jay Beattie.


Me too. WTF? I've also noticed that behavior.
I'm sort of a gearhead, but I don't know beans about pickups, their
handling (or lack thereof), suspension mods etc.

Same here. But it seems they could and should be equipped with highly
progressive springs - that is, soft when lightly loaded, stiffer when
deflected by a load. The manufacturers make high profit on pickups. The
could afford the design research and implementation.

Heck, look at the sophistication built into some mountain bike suspensions.

But when your pickup is selling #1 in the country how you gonna make
it better? Or for that matter WHY you gonna make it better :-)
--
cheers,

John B.

On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 22:11:12 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/15/2019 9:11 PM, news18 wrote:
On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 14:14:28 +0700, John B. wrote:


A "chain saw helmet"? I understand the face shield, but the helmet?
Maybe cut down a tree and it falls on your head?

It that "safety imflation" in the forestry industry as they'd be totally
useless if a tree or large branch dropped onto your head.

More like a little something if "cones" or small branches dropped off
whilst you were cutting it down.

Regarding "safety inflation": We have a good example of that with our
local forest preserve. It's about 260 Acres (over 100 hectares) and
poorly funded. Most routine maintenance has always been done by
dedicated volunteers. Most of that maintenance has been using chainsaws
to clear branches and trees that fall across the ten miles of
single-track trails.

Until a couple years ago, that is. That's when new Forest Board members
and a new Solicitor decided that was terribly dangerous. Now any use of
a chainsaw requires prior permission, which will be granted only if the
operator has taken a $100 course and been certified in chainsaw
operation, and is equipped with leather chaps, gloves, face mask,
helmet, steel toed shoes and I forget what else. Even though there's
zero record of any chainsaw injuries since 1938.

Predictably, it's now routine to have trees down for weeks across lots
and lots of trails.

Back when I was working in the bush we hired local natives for labour
and would "train" several of the brighter sparks to be "chain saw
boys". Now these are really primitive people, just a hair above stone
age, but after we demonstrated how easily a chain saw would cut
through a tree limb about the diameter of a human leg we never had a
single accident using a chain saw.

In thinking back I can't remember any very severe accidents among the
labourers. But perhaps when you live in an environment where there are
no doctors, no hospitals, no miracle medicines and not even any cloth
to make bandages with if one isn't inclined to be more careful not to
get injured?
--
cheers,

John B.

On Wednesday, October 16, 2019 at 4:03:39 AM UTC+1, John B. wrote:

But when your pickup is selling #1 in the country how you gonna make
it better? Or for that matter WHY you gonna make it better :-)

Nope, Slow Johnny, you're missing the point again. The topselling pickup in the country is at the top because the maker already made it better in some way, either mechanical or in convenience or at least in the associated image buyers believe will transfer to them.

Unsigned for the usual reason

On Wednesday, October 16, 2019 at 2:08:49 AM UTC+1, AMuzi wrote:
On 10/15/2019 8:02 PM, jbeattie wrote:

True, but I have an Outback and don't creep over speed humps. BTW, I think modern pickup trucks have pretty sophisticated, adjustable suspension -- but I'll leave that to the gear-heads to confirm or deny.

-- Jay Beattie.


Me too. WTF? I've also noticed that behavior.
I'm sort of a gearhead, but I don't know beans about
pickups, their handling (or lack thereof), suspension mods etc.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971


Your faith in American manufacturers being able to design a better rear suspension than something that has been going strong since 1896 or so, is touching when one considers that even independent front suspension was designed for the Cadillac division of GM by the Englishman Maurice Olley who left Rolls-Royce when they nixed his design. Or perhaps it says more about R-R.

Crossing really rough terrain, which the top level of these trucks under consideration (say the F150 Raptor and whatever its GM equivalent is) can handle with ease if not necessarily with finesse (they overcome design shortcomings by brute power), requires either a very great deal of development money and high unit costs for independent suspension (and I suspect, lost sales), or a solid rear axle with diff locking facilities, a well-known quantity with impressive manufacturing economies. That solid rear axle, stiffly suspended and damped, is what causes the problem on mart carpark speed bumps; if they made it capable of ignoring tiny irregularities, it's large terrain feature capabilities would be compromised. Since they sell millions of the common lookalike trucks which do not have true off-road capabilities (some just have two-wheel drive), and probably no more than tens of thousands (Slow Johnny will Googgle it for you) of the trucks that truly can go off-road anywhere and come out again, the cost accountant's answer is to use solid rear axles on all the models in the range. For an established truck range (once more, say the F150) that can truly survive off-road, even an independent front was a big risk in cost and possibly in image. Even the very sophisticated, capable and comfortable Range Rover for decades used solid axles, just better located and more expensively damped than the Ford versions or the largest Toyota Land Cruisers. The designer can very easily give a solid axle a much larger range of articulation, which can handle a larger range of surface irregularities, than *almost* any independent suspension can handle and still be fast enough with comfort on the blacktop. Also, the outboard half of the *weight* of an independent suspension is unsprung weight and, since the component parts of automobile A-frames are far too light in construction for serious off-road work and must be made stronger (take a look at the Baja sand racers's suspension sometime), unsuspended weight can shoot up disastrously, another factor that limits reaction to small irregularities; that may not matter so much in the States with its many generally good roads, but on a world truck like the Toyota, it matters plenty in rough ride over rough roads, and in poor handling when pressed. (Handling is the ability to recover the vehicle when it runs out of roadholding capability.) So in the F150, where the massive brand image inclines the bosses to cautious "innovation", independent front suspension is now accepted, but the solid rear axle remains (and screws exports -- which I doubt would be huge, because an F150 is simply too wide to use in most other countries where people have the money for it). In my opinion that is a sound marketing decision.

Notice that I'm not fundamentally against solid axles, even at the front. But a designer must know how to locate them positively. My solution for the six large, fast hunting cars that I sold to Middle-Eastern buyers was a six-point (count only the chassis-side mountings, not the on-axle mount) Watt linkage that located solid driven axles front and rear in all dimensions. I tested one at 160mph on the highway and it was a ride as smooth as the XJ12 Jaguar saloon in which I arrived for the test; on sand and rocks it laid down amazing amounts of power from all four wheels. But the Watt linkage is only an option on production cars for two-point lateral location (for space reasons) and when cost is no object (because the longitudinal Watt links require strong mounts well outside the wheelbase), and, as far as I know, today applied in production cars only to dead axles. Here's an example under a Ford Ranger where the dead beam of a De Dion semi-independent suspension is located laterally by a Watt linkage:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Dio...derCropped.jpg

On a vehicle as big and as inefficiently packaged as the Ford F150 Raptor, a six-point Watt would not only be possible but a superior solution to every one of the aftermarket upgrade kits I saw offered. Most of these aftermarket kits are just stronger, more expensive versions of the same old, same old everyway is whichway axle location Americans have been saddled with for the entire history of the automobile, making me wonder if their purveyors know how to calculate the arc and latitudinal inclination of the axle they're trying to locate.

For more see Designing and Building Special Cars by Andre Jute, 1985, B T Batsford, London; Robert Bentley, Boston; etc.

Hot rodders rule!

Andre Jute
The test of a novel automobile suspension is how fast its inventor will drive it

On 10/15/2019 10:49 PM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 20:08:52 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 10/15/2019 8:02 PM, jbeattie wrote:


True, but I have an Outback and don't creep over speed humps. BTW, I think modern pickup trucks have pretty sophisticated, adjustable suspension -- but I'll leave that to the gear-heads to confirm or deny.

-- Jay Beattie.


Me too. WTF? I've also noticed that behavior.
I'm sort of a gearhead, but I don't know beans about
pickups, their handling (or lack thereof), suspension mods etc.

Couldn't comment as my pickup is going on 20 years old. But it might
be, after all some pickups got radios and some even got a heater.
After driving his Model A pickup for something like 30 years my
GrandDad finally sold the old truck.

An odd coincidence: One of my best friends owns and regularly drives a
Model A pickup truck. It's a pretty uncommon vehicle. I wonder if his
originally belonged to your GrandDad?

He bought a GMC to replace it
and hot dam that thing had crank up windows and a heater and even had
a windshield wiper that he didn't have to crank by hand.

Years ago on the last day of classes, I let my Robotics students stay
until almost midnight to finish building and testing their semester
workcell project. I'd ridden my bike to work, and out of gratitude one
of them offered to drive me home in his pickup.

It was one of the most luxurious vehicles I've ever been in. The sound
system was impressive, the interior mood lighting was sophisticated, the
ride was quiet. It was a far, far different from a farmer's truck.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Wed, 16 Oct 2019 12:04:27 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/15/2019 10:49 PM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 20:08:52 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

On 10/15/2019 8:02 PM, jbeattie wrote:


True, but I have an Outback and don't creep over speed humps. BTW, I think modern pickup trucks have pretty sophisticated, adjustable suspension -- but I'll leave that to the gear-heads to confirm or deny.

-- Jay Beattie.


Me too. WTF? I've also noticed that behavior.
I'm sort of a gearhead, but I don't know beans about
pickups, their handling (or lack thereof), suspension mods etc.

Couldn't comment as my pickup is going on 20 years old. But it might
be, after all some pickups got radios and some even got a heater.
After driving his Model A pickup for something like 30 years my
GrandDad finally sold the old truck.

An odd coincidence: One of my best friends owns and regularly drives a
Model A pickup truck. It's a pretty uncommon vehicle. I wonder if his
originally belonged to your GrandDad?

Couldn't have been. The one my grand father owned had a cloth top,
like a convertible, and originally must have had removable cloth side
curtains on the doors, but of course they were long gone. The
windshield wiper was hand operated and no heater... It did have an
electric starter though :-)

When I was little "we" had a Model A Roadster... with a "rumble seat"
and my brother and I used to ride in the rumble seat. Can you imagine
anyone driving into the local Super Market parking lot, today, with
two kids in an open, unprotected, seat on the back of the car? No seat
belts, no shoulder harness? The "safety, safety brigade" would have
lynched my parents :-)

He bought a GMC to replace it
and hot dam that thing had crank up windows and a heater and even had
a windshield wiper that he didn't have to crank by hand.

Years ago on the last day of classes, I let my Robotics students stay
until almost midnight to finish building and testing their semester
workcell project. I'd ridden my bike to work, and out of gratitude one
of them offered to drive me home in his pickup.

It was one of the most luxurious vehicles I've ever been in. The sound
system was impressive, the interior mood lighting was sophisticated, the
ride was quiet. It was a far, far different from a farmer's truck.

The "pickups" I laugh about are the "four seat" versions with a tiny
little "bed" that might hold two bushel baskets and a pet dog,
although. of course, no one would even think of letting their pet dog
ride in the back of a pickup. "Ohooo, he'd get wet if it rained" :-)
--
cheers,

John B.

On Wed, 16 Oct 2019 05:17:41 +0700, John B. wrote:


Well, some of it is wrong. The idea that narrow roads and houses with an
upper story overhanging the road was done to defeat Indian attacks is
ludicrous. Read up on London in the 17th and 18th centuries and the same
conditions existed and it is extremely doubtful if Londoners even knew
what an Indian was :-)

West Indian maybe.
They exported some of them as convicts.

On Wed, 16 Oct 2019 23:59:29 -0000 (UTC), news18
wrote:

On Wed, 16 Oct 2019 05:17:41 +0700, John B. wrote:


Well, some of it is wrong. The idea that narrow roads and houses with an
upper story overhanging the road was done to defeat Indian attacks is
ludicrous. Read up on London in the 17th and 18th centuries and the same
conditions existed and it is extremely doubtful if Londoners even knew
what an Indian was :-)

West Indian maybe.
They exported some of them as convicts.

From the British West Indies?
Certainly the Leeward Islands were grabbed in the late 1600's but did
the English refer to them as "Indians"?

I read that in the 1800's a large number of "Indians" from India were
transplanted to the West Indies as indentured workers but were the
original inhabitants referred to as "Indians". Certainly Columbus
referred to the original inhabitants as "Indians" as he thought that
he had reached India.
--
cheers,

John B.