Grumble Thread

[Jonathan]

Migraines, that's all I'm saying. Just glad the bloody thing has gone now.

[eighthobstruction]

Migraines, that's all I'm saying. Just glad the bloody thing has gone now.

[oddoneout]

I'll come back to discussions of federalism and etymology later!

One really big gripe I have is the lack of written instructions in many situations. I suppose many of us may have noticed the "instructions" in self assembly furniture - often from one rather large company with an original base outside the UK.

Another situation is the EV chargers for cars now being put up in various places, and in Scotland some are administered by an organisation called Chargeplace Scotland. There are different chargers, and hardly any have sensible instructions. Does one put the charge cable into the car first? Does one press a button on the charging unit first? Does one swipe one's access/payment card first? Does one have to initiate anything in the car first? ... and so on.

Having pictures is just not good enough. One variant seems to have captive charging cable which can't be released until the card is touched on the reader, but it is then possible to get into a situation in which if the cable "plug" is then put into the car, that the EV charger won't start. It is easily possible to spend (waste) 20 minutes trying to get this sorted. On top of that, some of the chargers do have faults from time to time, so one may waste a lot of time and only then discover that the charger is out of action. Sometimes hitting the emergency off button works - but that's another story.

I cannot imagine why any organisation would not provide sensible instructions in English on the equipment for people in a generally English speaking country.
This is the height of stupidity. Perhaps it's a deliberate attempt to deter people from buying or using electric vehicles.

Perhaps the machines aren't English and that's how they come?
The lack of maintenance and uniformity is a considerable stumbling block in the push for more people to use electric cars. Concerns about the range of an individual car become academic if there's no juice at all! Searching for sites seems hit and miss - there are several in my home town allegedly, but trying to locate them is an interesting exercise. I don't have a need to use them but out of interest I'm still trying to find the one the local council says it has installed in a carpark that I walk through most times I go to and from town. I think it's actually in the car park of the car hire place opposite but that's not a lot of use to anyone trying to find it, not least as it's in a oneway system so missing it becomes complicated. The ones put in at the back of a BP garage a few months ago don't seem to feature on any of the general search facilities, but they did get extra publicity locally for being the subject of a planning issue, which helps to offset that perhaps...

[Dave2002]

Perhaps the machines aren't English and that's how they come?

What's to stop the organisation which owns/maintains/installs them printing off sheets and sticking them to the machines? Not an excuse.

Re Scotland which claims to have a good and developing EV charging network - yes - that's a great idea. We went to Wick and found a row of chargers none of them occupied. I guess they'd been there a little while - at least a week or two. Were they working. No!

I think someone might have forgotten to have them commissioned! Oh - did I mention that Wick is quite a long way north, and not somewhere one would want to be stranded. OK - the particular car would probably have made it all the way back to Inverness, but even so we stopped off at a couple of other locations on the way back down, and it was not easy to find chargers which were not in one of the following states: (a) slow charger - so would take half a day to charge the car, (b) occupied, (c) actually working, (d) able to recognise and accept our access card, or (e) - various other unusable or awkward states.

However, that is a different grumble from the one about not having sensible written instructions on equipment in any language, which personally I find an appalling neglect. Pictures may be worth a thousand words in some situations, but a few words are often better than a few lousy and near meaningless pictures.

[muzzer]

Perhaps the machines aren't English and that's how they come?
The lack of maintenance and uniformity is a considerable stumbling block in the push for more people to use electric cars. Concerns about the range of an individual car become academic if there's no juice at all! Searching for sites seems hit and miss - there are several in my home town allegedly, but trying to locate them is an interesting exercise. I don't have a need to use them but out of interest I'm still trying to find the one the local council says it has installed in a carpark that I walk through most times I go to and from town. I think it's actually in the car park of the car hire place opposite but that's not a lot of use to anyone trying to find it, not least as it's in a oneway system so missing it becomes complicated. The ones put in at the back of a BP garage a few months ago don't seem to feature on any of the general search facilities, but they did get extra publicity locally for being the subject of a planning issue, which helps to offset that perhaps...

This won’t work in urban london unless there’s mass rollout of charging points, as in on every street corner with rotation of parking spaces and massive financial incentive. There’s too much petty street crime and too many cars generally. That’s quite apart from how the charging itself works. And it will be well down Bodger and Rashi’s to do list anyway.

[Dave2002]

This won’t work in urban london unless there’s mass rollout of charging points, as in on every street corner with rotation of parking spaces and massive financial incentive. There’s too much petty street crime and too many cars generally. That’s quite apart from how the charging itself works. And it will be well down Bodger and Rashi’s to do list anyway.

Why would one need a car in urban London? It's not city centres which have the need, as they may have some adequate form of public transport. Not everyone has a car, but those that do often live in suburbs and travel further afield. There is nothing to stop people charging EVs at home with suitable chargers fitted, though costs to the end user have to be considered. The "fuel" costs of an EV are low if the domestic electricity prices are low enough, which on some tariffs they are. However the costs to end users do rise considerably with some electricity tariffs, and also those charged at some public charging points. Most people can work out that if EVs are quite a bit more expensive to buy than petrol, diesel or hybrid vehicles, then EVs are not necessarily a lot cheaper to run than those vehicles over their lifetime. I think 2025 has been marked out as the year in which some sort of parity in pricing between EVs and other vehicles will happen.

However, this is irrelevant to my grumble about "graphic" instructions - which are too often frequently next to useless. Good written instructions are often a lot better, though sometimes one wants to have both words and diagrams.

[muzzer]

Agree about instructions generally. My point basically about london is the layout doesn’t facilitate EVs. Thankfully LTNs will over time reduce traffic levels generally, but the growing pains are considerable. Far too many people take too many short journeys. Another lunacy is catchment areas for schools. There is a primary school near me with allegedly a tiny catchment area, such that you would think everyone could walk there. Oh no, and now we have a “school street” restriction on the road it’s in during pick up and drop off times, designed of course to make it safer for kids, which has “forced” parents onto my street during those times where they park while taking their kids to school. Utter lunacy. Apparently people move house after getting their kids accepted by the school, so still want/need to drive to drop them off. There’s no space for this traffic, kids should be walking to school if at all possible, and the parents need dealing with.

Happy Sunday ;)

[Dave2002]

Agree about instructions generally.

My point basically about london is the layout doesn’t facilitate EVs.

Rewrite "My point basically about London is the layout doesn’t facilitate EVs." -> "My point basically about London is the layout doesn’t facilitate cars."

LTNs?

Cars and other vehicles in and around London (and other cities) are generally bad news.

[muzzer]

Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. Drastic traffic calming to stop cut thru traffic on side streets. Much needed here. Just not as effective as it might be in deterring unnecessary short journeys or dogged rat runners (for whom there is a special place reserved Elsewhere).

[Dave2002]

Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. Drastic traffic calming to stop cut thru traffic on side streets. Much needed here. Just not as effective as it might be in deterring unnecessary short journeys or dogged rat runners (for whom there is a special place reserved Elsewhere).

I can't really comment too much on the behaviour of other people. I've already stated an opinion that people who live in cities like London don't really need cars - though of course under the current coronavirus restrictions some will be desperate to avoid public transport. One thing I have noticed is that there any number of people who behave like idiots and don't care about many things. I was less aware of this until part way through last year.

I have a fast EV, which operates in two modes. Chill and "normal". Chill mode can be fast, while the normal/standard mode can be terrifying. After buying the car and testing it out a bit, I gave up most fancy stuff and just drive it. If someone wants to drive at 40 or 50 miles an hour on a road with a 60mph limit in a car that could do up to 140mph easily, that's OK as far as I'm concerned, and that's quite often what I do. Mostly I drive in Chill mode, and try to drive strictly below or at the speed limits. However I have now realised that there are some petrol cars - presumably gas guzzling - which can outperform my car - at least in the Chill mode. Some drivers in those cars are absolutely determined to pass every other vehicle on the road, and they obviously see my car as a challenge. I get fed up of seeing them glued to my rear bumper trying to follow me round difficult bends. If I had a James Bond attachment I'd probably use it! Go figure!

I'm now at the point where mostly I don't care, and just think that if they want to drive like that they are burning up fuel and resources far faster than I am. Typically I get over 3 miles per kwH, which I suspect compares favourably with the superfast petrol cars.

Also I think many of the people in Scotland think they have a local dispensation to drive at over 70mph on main roads, where in fact the speed limit is nearly always 60mph. Foreigners on holiday, and people from England are of course excused!

[Serial_Apologist]

How come it was repeatedly announced on last night's news programmes that the giant container ship grounded in the Suez Canal had been re-floated?

[oddoneout]

How come it was repeatedly announced on last night's news programmes that the giant container ship grounded in the Suez Canal had been re-floated?

Because the log jam of container ships full of Chinese tat can now get through to eager consumers in this country?

[LHC]

Because the log jam of container ships full of Chinese tat can now get through to eager consumers in this country?

Except it hasn’t been refloated, and is likely to be stuck there for several weeks yet.

[teamsaint]

Except it hasn’t been refloated, and is likely to be stuck there for several weeks yet.

And there are potential delays to huge quantities of important or vital goods.

[vinteuil]

And there are potential delays to huge quantities of important or vital goods.

... yep - not just 'Chinese tat' :

"On an average day, container cargo worth $9.7 billion passes through the Suez Canal, equivalent to $404 million an hour, according to rough estimates from Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a shipping data provider. Of the headline daily number, $5.1 billion of cargo moves from Asia to Europe and $4.6 billion heads in the other direction."

.