Car Nation on BBC2 Last Night

Post by **CitroJim** » 11 Jul 2005, 13:12

Anyone see this? It was on after Top Gear.
Basically, it was an insight into peoples feelings over the envoronmental impact of the car by recording peoples views whilst they were driving along in their own vehicles. It spannd everything from obstensively sensible people in small cars right through the spectrum to Chavs and Hummer owners. Of particular note as the bloke who owns a massive Hummer and maoning his boot was not big enough, a VW Towrag owner wo revelled in the fact that everyone gives way to him, a bloke who loves big yank tanks and a Chav in a Fiat who comes across as an extremely selfish young man.
Personally I found it a fascinating insight into the inner feelings of our fellow road users. The main conclusion was how the car is such a status symbol now and how a bigger and bigger SUV is the only way to go, apparantly because life is so tenuous and complex these days, man must have the biggest and most agressive to show he's still a man. Quite worrying really for the future.
Not sure what it says about us Citroen Xantia and Pug 205 GTi owners though...

rossd · Post by **rossd** » 11 Jul 2005, 13:56

Yes I watched it, the most irritating owner I thought was the bloke in the black VW Toureg. Even the campaigner who went around sticking fake parking tickets on the urban 4x4's I thought was ok. Its just for some reason the man and his wife in the VW that grated me.... Oh and the bloke with the Hummer, going on about global warming killing animals to his children and then driving them to and from the zoo in a 8mpg Hummer..... [:(!]

bxbodger · Post by **bxbodger** » 11 Jul 2005, 20:46

The thing with these shows is they are never going to have anyone 'normal' on them- those people were self-selecting and most likely went out of their way to answer an ad to get themselves on TV.They are the same sort of people who humiliate themselves on wifeswap, big brother, etc....you only get the odd and the obsessed because normal people just wouldn't make entertaining TV.
There was a similar series a few years back, made before fuel injection was standard, and they had very similar people on going on about how important it was to them to have an 'i' badge.

Post by **martyhopkirk** » 11 Jul 2005, 21:47

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by citrojim

a VW Towrag owner wo revelled in the fact that everyone gives way to him,<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Not quite everyone - thats one of the reasons I like a dented car. I dont much mind if it gets a few more dents [}:)]

yangreen · Post by **yangreen** » 12 Jul 2005, 00:18

I did like the big Caddy but it hardly seems a good choice for living in London!
Mr Towrag did have one good point though. People pick on 4x4 owners because it is obvious. Mr Jag (or even two jags!) doesn't get any hassle at all. Mercs with 476bhp blend in with normal saloons. Why do you need that much power??!!
Sorry, it did get me angry but I was forced to watch it. Kind of making up for forcing my lovely lady to watch the ridiculous tyre-stripping fest of Top Gear (I still love it though!)

Kowalski · Post by **Kowalski** » 12 Jul 2005, 01:39

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by martyhopkirk
Not quite everyone - thats one of the reasons I like a dented car. I dont much mind if it gets a few more dents [}:)]
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
I don't give up my right of way to 4x4s either.
If Mr Toerag Owner wants to buy me a new car, that's fine by me. Lets say for arguments sake that I have right of way and he if causes me to have an accident, his insurance pays for my car to be written off.

fastandfurryous · Post by **fastandfurryous** » 12 Jul 2005, 02:09

What wound me up about the whole programme was people making the link between electric cars and environmentalism. Actually, electric cars cause MORE pollution than internal combustion engine'd cars, due to the horrible combined efficiency of the national grid, and then charging and discharging batteries.
I've done the calc's on here before, and I'm not doing them again!
Plus, where does the electricity come from? Oooh, that'll be coal, oil, gas and nuclear as the prime base-load providers in the UK. environmentalism my arse.
At least the bloke in the Hummer was well aware that he was a hypocrite. The woman giving out "Carbon" parking tickets made me laugh. She ticketed a Freelander TD4, which does about 35-40mpg, and there was clearly 4 other cars parked nearby that were "normal" cars, that woudn't have got anywhere near that economy. Silly moo.

yangreen · Post by **yangreen** » 12 Jul 2005, 02:51

I think he only enjoyed driving it because it cost him nothing to run! Blagging electricity from friends and the local pub. I bet that pub won't be so eager to lend a socket in future!

FrenchLeave · Post by **FrenchLeave** » 12 Jul 2005, 02:56

Quote by Kowalski: "I don't give up my right of way to 4x4s either."
This is the story of Simon Gray
He died disputing his right of way
He was right, dead right, as he'd said all along
And just as dead as if he'd been wrong.

Stempy · Post by **Stempy** » 12 Jul 2005, 02:58

The thing about leccy cars is that they just displace the polution thing. If everyone in the city had electric vehicles the air would be much nicer to breath locally, but when they all arrive home at night and plug them in, the drain on the power stations would have them belching out more greenhouse gasses during the night than they do during the day.

FrenchLeave · Post by **FrenchLeave** » 12 Jul 2005, 04:19

And you still have the lead and acid contaminants to dispose of when the batteries reach the end of their lives.

Forth · Post by **Forth** » 12 Jul 2005, 06:09

Their obsession with hydrogen is even scarier. Well, almost anyway.
Why don't they make fitting methane meters compulsory on "lycras"?

jeremy · Post by **jeremy** » 12 Jul 2005, 06:43

I don't think lead and sulphuric acid are real problems as both are eminently re-cyclable.
Now if we were to go for nuclear power we'd have no carbon pollution at all!
Jeremy

rossd · Post by **rossd** » 12 Jul 2005, 14:35

But then you get into the Nucleur argument. People seem to think because a power station is "Nucleur" we will all be blown sky high if the place somehow explodes. They think its unsafe. Its the cleanest way of generating power emissions wise surely, as said above. The old fuel is then recycled into new stuff etc etc etc.....

Kowalski · Post by **Kowalski** » 12 Jul 2005, 15:11

Nuclear is clean emissions wise and can generate significant amounts of electricity but there is always the radiation problem, radioactive waste and leaks aren't exactly popular with the public. Wind farms need comical amounts of windmills to generate insignificant amounts of power, they aren't pretty and they are noisy too. Tidal, wave and hydroelectric all involve concreting the pretty bits of the country.
Solar is impractical too but getting better, solar panels have got to the point now where they will generate 20% more energy over their life than they took to produce. The problem with solar is that the weather isn't 100% reliable and you have to cover every flat surface you find with them, if everybody covered the roof of their house with them we'd be making progress in the right direction.
I think the best solution is bio-fuels, so get your TD running on veg oil and you too can be doing your bit for the environment.