bad driver redux.... (and more!)

Well thats right, another rant about more bad drivers, and even stupid drivers.

First up today, oh boy, the best of the breed. let me paint the picture for you, your going along you see a sign "Road Work Ahead" and you think "ok" (remember this is on a tri lane freeway) then another sign fast approaching reads "Left Two Lanes Closed Ahead" so you do the smart thing and move into the right lane, as you get closer to where this construction is, it starts to heavily back up. As your waiting 50 cars blow by you on the left, and as your sitting there you notice people behind you going into the left lane, and you remember the sign "left two lanes closed ahead" and are thinking to yourself "wtf?". these people that go into the lanes closed off for construction (before the barrels are set up), then cutting in very rudely up front (by ways of a blinker and just moving over), are the exact people that I don't just dislike them, I hate them, they are the stupidest people in the world. how big do we need to make the sign that says those two lanes are closed ahead so they can READ THEM!!! and the people that go from the open lane into the ones that are closed ahead, WHAT ARE THEY THINKING!?!?! I think they are probably dumber than the people that just sit in the left lane and just ride it out until the very end. This just makes me mad to no end how stupid people can be while driving. Made me want to kick some people's butt's with how dumb they were. I honestly think that the best idea here is to build a 2ft wall where the construction starts, without the silly slowly merging down. just a flat brick wall to stop people, and build a 50 foot long wall so if people are really that dumb they will get trapped into the box, then they will be pointed and laughed at by the workers and the passerby's. Maybe some spikes in the road would also help. probably would ramp up the amount of safety those workers have as well.

Now not too far off from this construction area I saw another bad driver (yeah everything I'm going to say is what I saw from work tonight, how terrible is that?). This one had no idea what a constant speed was, I was doing a good 69 mph (it was raining out and as part of my job I was following someone). and this person passed me, then maybe 5 minutes later, I passed them by. then not even 2 minutes later, they passed me by. Then I passed them. Now some people might think "Oh well they were probably trying to take pictures or video of the vehicle you were driving". This is possible, but not probable, since the people in this vehicle (which happened to be a late 90s Jetta TDI). Were not at all young, I think they could of passed for grandparent's. But maybe this is also why their speed was not too consistent. Alas, it annoyed me, especially since they never seemed to wonder 50 ft away from me(ok it didn't help they had the brightest blinkers... (long pause for Clarkson-esque-ness) ...In the world.

Now this last one, happened to be my lead driver. They weren't the best driver really, neither am I but better than this. part of the route I had to take today involved some roundabouts. now for some Americans roundabouts, can be confusing, but they are popping up everywhere (last time I took this route to the dot we hit 6 of them and I can think of two that we didn't take for sure). Now for those of us that understand roundabouts, its basically a circle with two lanes, and each way has two lanes as well the outer most will be if you say want to make a right turn onto the next street. the inside lane is for when you want to make a left hand turn onto that street, or a U-turn, or your really lost, and you just go around it for hours. Anyways, each way that goes onto these roundabouts has a Yield sign, so in this respect you must think of it like your on the onramp going on to a freeway, you have to yield to those on it already. Once you have space you can go. and you will seemlessly flow from one road to the next.

This person? treated each Yield sign, as a stop sign, even when no traffic was present at all. and one timed even stopped IN the roundabout, because there was a car coming at one point (but I think it made a turn into a driveway). Not to smart of an idea if you ask me. This just minorly annoys me really. Maybe its because i use my common sense, and quickly understood how a roundabout works, or maybe I watch too much Top Gear, and learned how roundabouts work on there. Either way, quite easy to understand really, and more efficient than stop signs or lights in most cases.

Thankfully that was it, but that was just in one day. how terrible is that? that I spotted 3 signs of stupid or bad drivers in a single day. (pretty sure I spotted some previously mentioned ones as well today). Still, ceases to amaze me how stupid people can be when driving. My grandpa always said that when people put their car into Drive they put their brains into Neutral, and sadly I'm seeing the truest form of this a lot with this job.


Of course this is a 3d modeling blog, with some OT-ness added in for more human nature-ness. (along with a lot of ness'ing around lol)

What have I been upto on my 3d models lately? well the Rauss Iota, is looking more complete, and ready to compete. Sure its got a lot to still do but its getting there at least.




The Omni? got the rear end tucked in a little more, the chrome trim for the tail lights, a new rear window, and I fixed the shader on the wheels so they are dark in the ambient and light in the sun. But anyone that knows any Omni.... wait am I alone on this? darn it.... anyways. the rear lights aren't quite right, the way I have them and the way they really are, well they are different.



I also rather quickly whipped up a replica of Davidsfarm's old Diesel Voyager, not perfectly accurate by any means, but close enough for me.



This thing? well look at the picture, its a Porsche 928, no I didn't model it, got it from a 3d modeling site, probably more so for fun then anything, and a good teaser kind of vehicle as well.



Now those last two pictures. you might of noticed something slightly different about them, in terms of size. they seemed. widescreen-ish. well thats because I finally got the money to get me a new Monitor, enter the Hanns-G HH201HPB 20" LCD widescreen monitor.
So that means no more of this...

and more like this...


purely awesomeness to me.

A bit of a rant

Well as I am a Test Driver and do a lot of on the road driving (like last week I clocked somewhere around 40 hours of driving last week alone). I see a lot of bad (clueless, possibly drunk) drivers on the road. Some do 90 mph, some do 45mph.... on the freeway.... so here's my rant and I'll start with whats bugging me right now. (obviously bad drivers)

What is really ticking me off is the amount of drivers that will sit in the very left lane on the freeway then, suddenly they realize their exit is coming up in a 1/4 mile. so they cut bait and get to the right hand lane as quickly as possible, and change lanes in their SUV (seems like everyone of them drives either that or a Crossover, or a Grand Prix) sometimes I think without looking and they jettison across the 3 lanes of traffic almost as fast as they are moving forward.

Then there's the person that seems to always come out of no where and just sit.... in your blind spot, while on the freeway, typically it seems to happen when your approaching a truck. which these same people also seem to do to those trucks, and they seem to like sitting in their blind spots, which is about the stupidest idea ever, because thats right where the trucker CAN'T SEE YOU.

My next is not really a bad driver as much as wrongly using a car, the car in specific? the Toyota Prius. I see more of them on the freeway then I do on the city streets. Some may know, but clearly those hippies (or who ever drives those things) don't realize that at freeway speeds a hybrid is just like a normal car, the electric motor in the Prius is only good for about 30 mph, so really the Prius was built for driving in the city, yet no one seems to realize that, unless theres another selling point for the thing (I don't really consider it a car as much as a tool) I think the car has no real appeal, not really a good looking car, quite ugly in my eyes. its not fun to drive, unless you consider trying to hyper mile fun. I've never driven one by the way, but I'd imagine they drive like a boat, turn in and it will turn, eventually. I think they are also a complete waste of money, especially in the long term because the batteries only last about 8 years, so by the time the hybrid system has paid for itself, you have to spend the 8,000$ (or whatever it is) for the new batterys. and if it is 8,000$ I'd go buy myself a Ford Festiva or a Geo Metro, as my commuter car, as I won't have to replace its 8,000$ battery in 8 years, you might have to replace a 50$ battery every 5 years, and other littler things that will easily pay itself off. And if you couldn't already realize I'm not a fan of the hybrid system, really its a joke, its lieing, a hybrid won't save the world, you might as well drive that 10 mpg Suburban again, because it really thats about the same damage to the enviroment. and some people are saying "well no they aren't the Prius gets 40 mpg". bad news for you people, those batteries are what kills the environment, because of the way they are manufactured and the nickel is mined, it is actually worse for the environment.

Anyways I think thats all I have to rant about right now, I'll post something about my 3d models probably tomorrow, kind of swamped at work right now.

Shhh

This won't be posted on RD, because I'm lazy, and some of it has already been posted on RD.

Anyways. work on the Omni/GLH-T/GLH-S continues the badges have been put onto the GLH-T (really want better badges for the GLH-S before continuing with badging it). The exterior 2d gauges have been done finally, by Silver, and I got a working fuel gauge which means now you can fill these cars up and go, and apparently with the Omni a full tank will get you a long ways at 70mph in 5th.





And a new Concept Car Competition has come out, for a Reasonably priced car. so I entered, the car will be the Rauss Iota, exacting specs are to be determined but as of now it will have a 1.6l turbo (low pressure) with 150hp, and 161 ft-lbs torque.