In Turkey (there may be others), traffic already in the circle must yield to traffic entering the circle. The rules aren’t universal.

Ralph’s is probably the bigger one from TBL.

Um...is this really a mystery? It’s called “dynamic range” and cameras only have about half the range that eyes do. Camera sensors/film require a certain amount of light to make an image. The less light, the longer it takes to make the image. This is particularly true in cases of high contrast, like driving at night.…

But cameras aren’t as good as eyes in low light. I think actual visibility was probably better than this video suggests, and an attentive driver going the speed limit may have had time to stop.

I went through a brief period where I stopped using contractions, just like Data from ST:TNG.

Was on a flight a couple years ago where this nearly happened. The pilot announced that the ground crew at the departure airport didn’t dump the tanks and it wasn’t noticed until we were in the air. So every time someone got up to use the restroom the flight attendants would be like “just as a reminder, if the tanks…

The Ninth Gate. The movie is a (mostly intentional) schlock-fest, but I’m a sucker for demonic detective stories, and Frank Langella’s Boris Balkan is one of my favorite movie villains. The book it’s based on, The Club Dumas, is actually a pretty entertaining read, but the “Club Dumas” plotline ends up being just…

I wonder if loosening scooter licensing requirements would be effective. In DC (and Virginia), you have to attend a regular MSF course and get your “M” endorsement to ride a scooter (legally), which I think is a barrier for a lot of city dwellers. Obviously, if you’re on a 150cc scooter, that’s pretty close to a…

My BMW F800ST averages 50mpg in commuting conditions in DC. Out cruising in the country, I generally get upwards of 70mpg. That’s an 800cc motor with 85hp, which isn’t fast for a motorcycle, but will still leave anything except a sports car in the dust.

Seems like the new engine hangs way further out over the front axle than the stock unit. Will be interesting to hear if that affects handling at all.

It’s not just millenials and Gen-Xers that are fleeing HD. More and more I’m seeing older dudes on BMW R1200s or KTM Super Dukes or other ADV bikes. They have the same old-guy comfort, but all the gizmos and farkles that HDs generally lack.

The clutch safety switch on my (now sold) ‘91 240SX went out in a very similar fashion...random troubled starts until finally, nothing. My solution was to cut the wires to the switch and just bypass it altogether. Not the ideal solution, but I was stuck in a random parking lot. I traded the car in not long after that,…

My mom ended up with one of these in 96 or so. Hers had some custom wheels that actually looked really good on the car, and it had, for the time, a fantastic sound system. I used to feel like a badass driving that thing around. Compared to the shitty Nissan Pulsar I had at the time, it was fast too...but in hindsight…

I owned a ‘92 Super HICAS up until 2008. LOVED that car, but I was poor for most of the years I owned it and had defer a bunch of maintenance until finally it would’ve cost more to fix it than it was worth. Also, it unfortunately was the type/age of car that really becomes a liability when trying to date in a city…

As a city dweller with only on-street parking, this “solution” still doesn’t get at the issue for me. The whole point of living in a city is to be able to walk to most of the places I spend most of my time. Charge my car at the grocery store? Um, when you live in the city the grocery store is 4 blocks away and you…

Are insurance premiums higher in states without helmet laws? That’s really the only reason I care about what other riders wear...the potential that it could lead insurance companies to charge higher rates for all riders and not just people that ride helmet-less in their gym clothes.

“She was resting her foot on the dash at the time and wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.”

Same. I think H-D is actually the victim of it’s own branding success, having become almost synonymous with their target demographic. Problem is that very few people outside of that demographic want to have anything to do with the trappings that are associated with it. When I think of H-D, I reflexively associate it…

MTA’s *daily* ridership is ~5 million people, which is roughly the same as the entire population of Colorado, and the system serves an area containing something like 10+ million people. If the area served by MTA was its own state, it’d be one of the top 10 most populous in the US. Seems pretty relevant simply on a per…

Final Destination 8: Death Goes Green