When trying to explain the physics behind driving a car, you can go the charts-diagrams-and-calculations route or you can go the tinkering-until-something-breaks route.When it comes to answering the questions Can you drive a car on a wheel with all but three spokes cut out? Two spokes? One? Russian YouTuber Garage 54 chose the latter, pulling off an interesting and, uh, scientific experiment by completely destroying some old rims.His YouTube channel works basically like a Russian car-themed Mythbusters — we really dig the clip where he tries driving a Lada with four engines strapped end-to-end.But more than that one, we dig his most recent video. It starts with a bunch of junk, some mismatched wheels and a question: how many spokes can you cut out and still drive?After being fitted to the car, each of the three wheels receives some added lightness by way of removing the spokes, one by one. First, a six-spoke wheel is cut down to three; a 16-spoke is cut down to eight; and an eight-spoke cut down to four.None of the wheels seem to notice the lack of structure, and perform their job dutifully. Its when the wheels start to become more asymmetrical that problems start to occur, and Garage54 keeps cutting at the rims until there is only one spoke left on each.The conclusion? Its amazing what kind of forces the single spoke of an alloy car wheel can take when put under some pretty extreme stresses. Eventually, all the wheels are destroyed, but, surprisingly, they lasted a pretty long time. Obviously, absent the aforementioned charts and diagrams, we cant really go into the details of the forces acting upon any part of the wheels at a given point.But its safe to say the video is entertaining and that maybe you can afford to get away with a couple fewer spokes on your
Origin: Watch: video suggests you’re paying for car wheel spokes you don’t need
You’re
Reminder: Your passenger has to be breathing if you’re using the HOV lane
An old hearse in front of a crumbling warehouse.Getty People have been trying to beat the High-Occupancy Lane rules since the light-traffic stretches of pavement were introduced, conniving all sorts of wacky carpooling schemes to try and get in front of the gridlock on their commute.According to the LA Times, the latest trick tried Stateside involved counting a corpse in a casket in the back of a hearse as a passenger, even if their destination may be a little more final.Trooper Travis Smaka of the Nevada Highway Patrol apparently pulled over a black Chrysler minivan July 1 that appeared to only have one person sitting in the front, without a passenger, zipping down the HOV.Smaka asked for the drivers license and registration, and then for an explanation as to how exactly he qualified for carpool-lane use; the driver nodded and motioned to the back of the van.Oh, you have a deceased in the back? the trooper replied. He did. Then the trooper had to tell the mortuary driver that, well, corpses dont count.Yes, its a person, but theyre not in a seat and theyre not living and breathing, another trooper, Jason Buratczuk, told the Times. What if the dead were in the passenger seat? quizzed the reporter on the story. Buratczuk shot back: Then the HOV violation is the least of your concerns.HOV lane enforcement is being tightened up in Nevada, the newspaper reports, and now carries a fine of US$250; monitoring now occurs all day, not just during morning and evening rush hour.Today we stopped a local funereal home hearse in the HOV lane. The driver had the dearly departed in the back, he thought the deceased could be counted as two people. I guess we should clarify this, living, breathing people count for the HOV lane. The driver was given a warning pic.twitter.com/OQms0ktl8t NHP Southern Command (@NHPSouthernComm) July 1, 2019High-Occupancy Vehicle lanes are made to decrease fossil fuel usage and pollution by reducing the number of cars on the roads. If your passengers are instead on their way to becoming fossil fuels themselves? Were afraid you might just have to wait in traffic with the rest of the pre-deceased.Smaka ended up letting the hearse driver off with a warning. Smakas answer when the driver insisted he had a passenger on board? Hes not with us
Origin: Reminder: Your passenger has to be breathing if you’re using the HOV lane
Put on Your Judgy-Pants: A particular shade of green you’re waiting for?
A police truck pulls over a distracted driver in a Jeep in Burlington, Ontario in June 2019Halton Regional Police Most of us have done it. Mind wandering a little, a long light finally turns green, and we’re still sitting there, wondering what that plant is called or when the city moved that mailbox. Usually a terse blast of a horn behind you gets you moving.But these days, it’s more likely that stuck driver is checking their phone. That’s what happened with Constable Marc Taraso in Burlington, Ontario recently. He watched a driver sit at a green light for eleven seconds, apparently checking out a website. The officer was right beside the driver. Now, that’s some engrossing website.The location is a side street coming into a major arterial route. Those lights can take some time to change, and I’ll guess our driver lives in the area and sits at that light frequently. We get a little bored and comfortable close to home. On my way into court this morning; this driver was stopped at Walkers/Thomas Alton; the driver was too busy reading the phone to notice they were sitting at a green light; for 11 seconds; with me directly beside them. Charged with #DistractedDriving fail to proceed green light pic.twitter.com/9t3NM66u6Z Cst. Marc Taraso (@MT9345) June 25, 2019However, he’s now busted with distracted driving, as well as failure to proceed. The distracted charge alone will cost our pokey driver $615, three demerits and a three-day licence suspension. As always, there are three sides to every story. Put on your
Origin: Put on Your Judgy-Pants: A particular shade of green you’re waiting for?
Toronto traffic report: You’re going nowhere this summer!
Signs warning motorists of a construction zone stand near RioCans ePlace project, a commercial/residential development in Toronto, Ontario, Canada December 19, 2017.Chris Helgen / Reuters Toronto, we have some good news and some bad news. First the good: three days ago, Mayor John Tory tweeted the launch of “Toronto’s busiest construction season ever, with more than $1 billion in work planned for roads, bridges, expressways, sewers, and watermains. This is the largest investment into a City of Toronto construction season yet.” After a decade of significant dissolution in the city’s infrastructure, a major cash injection will not only boost the economy in the short term, providing well-paying jobs, it’ll help in the long term too, improving flow of movement. Now the bad news: three days ago, Mayor John Tory tweeted the launch of “Toronto’s busiest construction season ever with more than $1 billion in work planned for roads, bridges, expressways, sewers, and watermains. This is the largest investment into a City of Toronto construction season yet.” Translation? Get yourself some comfortable sneakers or ask your boss for permission to telecommute, because it’s going to be an unprecedentedly slow summer in the Smoke. If you thought traffic was bad here before— Some $590 million of that billion-plus is going towards pasting and duct-taping the Gardiner Expressway (“Expressway”? Sue them for false advertising) once again, plus towards more cycling infrastructure and Tory’s wobbly Vision Zero, the traffic plan that aims to prevent any more pedestrian or cyclist deaths by drivers. Not that walkers and riders have much to fear about speeding automobiles this summer. According to the Torontoist, “A whopping 600 roads (or more) are going to be under construction this summer, equalling up to 140 kilometres in road paving”. The natural reaction is to flip out, especially if you’re unfortunate enough to live or work beside one of these hundreds of projects and simply can’t avoid its inevitable time-consuming and frustrating consequences. But that’s the unfortunate reality of all city life. Construction is a by-product of success. A city is better compared to an organic, aging body that needs maintenance and care than a suite of lifeless engineering projects you complete and leave for posterity. Remember any of the scenes of the Eternal City in that mid-2000s HBO show, Rome? The creators very wisely depicted streets with chaotic construction abounding. Rather than the pristine paintings of a fully formed and idealized Rome that you’d see in, say, Cecil B Demille movies, wide sweeping vistas were constantly interrupted by wooden cranes and scaffolding. Noisy, living chaos. That’s how cities work until they don’t. Ponder that while you review the following. Again, from the Torontoist, here’s just a soupçon of the improvements coming to our roads, bridges and highways this summer: Kipling Avenue, Bloor Street West and Dundas Street West, Six Points Interchange Reconfiguration; Four bridges over the Don Valley Parkway, rehabilitation of Don Mills Road, Spanbridge Road, Wynford Drive and Lawrence Avenue bridges; Gardiner Expressway Strategic Rehabilitation from Jarvis Street to Cherry Street, first phase; Bloor Street West from Bathurst Street to Spadina Avenue, watermain replacement, streetscaping, bike lane construction and road resurfacing; Richmond Street from York Street to Bathurst Street, watermain replacement; Jarvis Street from Dundas Street to Queen Street, road resurfacing (resuming from 2018); Don and Central Waterfront, first phase, Coxwell Bypass Tunnel boring; Queen Street East and Eastern Avenue, TTC track replacement; Birchmount Road from Eglinton Avenue East to Lawrence Avenue East, road resurfacing; Midland Avenue from Danforth Avenue to Lawrence Avenue East, road reconstruction; Old Weston Road from St. Clair Avenue West to Rowntree Avenue, road resurfacing; Royal York from Dixon Road to Summitcrest Drive, road resurfacing; York Mills Road from Leslie Street to Don Mills Road, road resurfacing; Willowdale Avenue from Empress Avenue to Finch Avenue, road resurfacing and bike lane installation; and Bayview Avenue over the west Don River, bridge repairs Having trouble cheering up and thinking of the long-term good that’s coming of all that work? Well, it seems that every day lately the city learns about more subtle budget cuts from the province to countless other aspects of city life; maybe tomorrow the mayor will announce he’s canceling all this work instead, to save
Origin: Toronto traffic report: You’re going nowhere this summer!
All about car 