Questions tagged [road-vehicles]
Use this tag for question about cars, trucks and other road transport.
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Does saying "sorry" after an accident count as legal admission of fault?
It is common knowledge that after a car accident (presumably other types too), one shouldn't say they are sorry to the other person. While probably intended as an expression of empathy, the claim is ...
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Does the production of a Tesla battery produce as much CO2 as driving 200,000 km?
Recently I read on Greenpeace's website, that the production of a 100 kWh battery, as in the Tesla Model S, produces as much CO2 as driving a regular car for 200,000 km.
Source: Tesla car ...
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Does a car with a hybrid engine and Lithium batteries pollute more than a car with conventional technology?
You hear a lot of claims that, once you include manufacturing and battery replacement, hybrids pollute more than an efficient, more conventional engine. Are there any end-to-end studies measuring any ...
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Are cars in Arizona melting in the 2018 summer heat?
Facebook just posted to my timeline this picture claiming that cars in Arizona are melting in the heat.
Is it true?
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Does the source code of the software for a high-end car contain on average around 100 million lines of code?
This infographic shows the different number of lines that some software applications (or a general type of them) have on average.
The number of lines shown for an average modern high-end car strikes ...
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Is it necessary to change motor oil every 5,000km/3,000 miles?
I've always heard that you should change your oil every 3,000 miles (5,000 km). That little sticker you get on your windshield after an oil change agrees. Growing up, my parents told me the same thing....
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Is using the A/C in a car less fuel efficient than having the windows down?
This is an age old debate that i have with a coterie of friends; without backing up with much scientific fact. It's all recently been based on arguments of experience.
Is it possible that utilizing ...
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Was the Ford Model T black because of the speed black paint dries?
In this BBC news article labour historian and lecturer Steve Babson says:
The reason the Ford Model-T was black, was because it was the only
paint that would dry fast enough to keep pace with the ...
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Are roundabouts actually statistically safer than traditional traffic patterns?
We have had a number of roundabouts installed near us in South Western PA in the past decade, and a quick internet search shows other states doing so as well. This seems to be an almost universally ...
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Did a Tesla car collide with a Russian robot?
This story made the rounds in the news: a Tesla car "killed" an autonomous robot in Las Vegas in January 2019.
There is some controversy about whether the incident was a real accident or a ...
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Is cycling worse for the environment than driving to work if you need to take a shower?
I had an argument with a work colleague. He claims that me cycling to and from work is less environmentally friendly than driving because
I will eat more as a result of expending more energy.
I have ...
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Are speedometers designed to read high?
Via word-of-mouth, I have twice heard claims that speedometers are deliberately designed to read high, so manufacturers would not be subject to litigation for speeding.
When I first heard this claim, ...
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Has an engineer called Trevor Jackson invented a revolutionary battery allowing for a car range of 1500 miles? [closed]
Since a few days several websites report about an alleged revolutionary electric vehicle fuel cell that enables 1500 miles range:
Daily Mail Online
StarCarSifu
unserplanet.net
Citing the Mail Online:...
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Is it true that there is not enough electricity to power all vehicles in the United States if they were electric?
According to Scotty Kilmer, in his video, "The Truth About My Worsening Condition":
There is not enough electricity [currently] to charge the batteries of cars like Tesla that have lithium ...
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Is a woman more likely than a man to be seriously injured in a car crash of similar severity?
This article makes a number of interesting points about the potential dangers faced by women in a world "designed for men", but I want to ask specifically about this claim:
But when a woman ...
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Is driving the speed limit on a highway safer?
I'd have thought this would have been asked already but I didn't see it. Is driving the speed limit safer on a highway? By "highway" I mean high-traffic areas, such as 4-lane divided thoroughfares.
...
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Does China control 85% of the supply of rare metals used in lithium batteries?
A selected letter in The Guardian talking about electric vehicles claims:
The rare metals in lithium batteries are produced only in inconvenient places. More than 85% of the world’s supply comes ...
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Were there only two cars in Ohio in 1895, and they managed to crash into each other?
Currently on Today I Learned, Reddit.
TIL [Today I Learned] In the entire state of Ohio in 1895, there were only two cars on the road, and the drivers of these two cars crashed into each other.
...
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Did car and oil companies actively try to suppress electric cars' development?
According to some (e.g. the documentary film Who Killed the Electric Car?), car and oil companies have actively tried to suppress electric cars' development.
Electric cars seem to have technological ...
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Are old car models more reliable than new ones?
I heard that components from older cars (like the ones before '92-93) are more resistant than the ones from new cars. New ones are made from cheap elements, so if you push them to the limit they will ...
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Does the 'two-second rule' provide a valid minimum gap for safe driving?
Most of us will have been taught the two-second rule when learning to drive.
The two-second rule is a rule of thumb by which a driver may maintain a safe following distance at any speed. The rule ...
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Do women get cheaper car insurance?
My coworker told me women pay less car insurance than men. So I did some research and found some sites proving that.
For example:
According to How Age And Gender Affect Car Insurance Rates, women tend ...
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Did 9/11 lead to many deaths due to car accidents "dwarfing" the attacks themselves?
Well-renowned security expert Bruce Schneier claims that
In the months after 9/11, so many people chose to drive instead of fly that the resulting deaths dwarfed the deaths from the terrorist ...
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Did older car odometers rewind when driving backwards?
I've always heard that way-back-when, the simplest way to rewind a car's odometer was to drive backwards (at least in some models). Is this true? Did those manufacturers miss such an obvious gaming ...
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Is running the engine for five minutes before driving beneficial for the car?
There is a belief among a lot of people that you should start your car and leave it on for 5 minutes before moving it in the morning. Is this practice good for the car in any significant way, or it is ...
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Does gender affect driving skill?
Are there any differences in either sex which are provably beneficial and/or detrimental to their driving abilities?
Also, is it possible that stereotypical gender roles make any difference in ...
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Will putting a car remote under your chin increase its range?
Image source: Miniseed blog
I've heard this before and anecdotally have thought I've experienced it working, but I thought I'd ask here. Many years ago, someone told me that putting a car remote (...
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Do car alarms provide a significant reduction in automobile theft?
Noise
That movie got me thinking, because it makes a number of claims about car alarms that jive with my personal feelings about them. They're noisy, obnoxious, tend to go off at night, and are ...
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Is gearing down more energy efficient than braking?
When spotting a red light or similar, I often release the gas pedal, gear down and let the engine decelerate instead of pressing the brake pedal. I was taught that this was more energy efficient for ...
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Do cars pass with less space for bicyclists who wear helmets?
This question is an off-shoot of from the discussion about helmet safety. There is an assertion that when a car passes a bicycle, it allows less space to those who wear a helmet than those without. ...
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Are passengers inside cars protected from lightning because of the tires?
It's a common statement that passengers of a car are protected from lightening while inside because the car has rubber tires (which are insulators). An alternative theory often put forward is that ...
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Are recent claims from India of a car fueled by water and calcium carbide legitimate?
Recently, I came across a video and a news report where it has been reported that a man from India has invented a car which uses water as a key fuel component. The car runs on acetylene gas produced ...
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Have more people been killed by automobiles than by all wars combined?
I read this claim somewhere recently, and a google search shows that it's occasionally made around the web, but was perhaps more common in the 1970's (many of the stories I find online are people ...
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Why do we not have vehicles that meet or exceed the MPG ratings of vehicles that were available in the 1990s
I'm seeing some conspiracy theories making the rounds which claim that car-manufacturers are intentionally making cars that aren't as fuel efficient as they used to be. They often point to the Geo ...
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Is using cruise-control dangerous in the rain?
A meme from Facebook with 62,000+ shares:
Excellent Driving Tip:
A 36 year old female had an accident several weeks ago. It was raining, though not excessively when her car suddenly began to ...
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Can boiling water break car windows?
A friend of mine in Australia has heard from several of her friends that it's unsafe to pour boiling water on car windows in order to defrost them.
Online examples of people claiming it's unsafe ...
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Is premium fuel "better"?
Is there any evidence that premium and/or high-octane fuel (petrol/gas for cars):
improves performance; and/or
improves engine longevity; and/or
improves mileage so that money is saved on fuel, even ...
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Are big cars and SUVs safer than small cars or do they just *feel* safer?
I've long observed that many drivers in the UK choose SUVs (which are often disparagingly called Chelsea Tractors) do so at least partially because they believe such cars to be safer. I doubt this ...
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Does decreasing an urban speed limit from 50 km/h to 30 km/h increase air pollution?
Starting on 2021-08-30, the driving speed limit within the Paris municipality was reduced from 50 km/h to 30 km/h. There is a debate on the impact that this will have on air pollution.
The Paris ...
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Do cars primarily built on a Monday or Friday have lower quality?
In his 1971 book Wheels, Arthur Hailey claims that cars that were primarily assembled on a Monday or Friday would suffer from quality problems due to worker performance/absenteeism issues associated ...
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Does marijuana impair driving?
Is the use of cannabis/marijuana/THC associated with risks when driving a motor vehicle, similar to impairment from the use of alcohol?
The conclusions of public studies seem inconsistent. For example,...
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Did Jean-Claude Van Damme do a suspended split between two trucks?
This Volvo Trucks ad shows actor and martial artist, Jean-Claude Van Damme, performing a suspended split between two moving trucks, driving in reverse.
I tend to think that what we see in the video ...
user16186
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Do automobile manufacturers make parts wear out and break easily, just so they can make more money?
It is sometimes heard that automobile manufacturers design low-quality parts that wear out or break easily, so that they can make money on the repair or replacement of these parts.
I believe this to ...
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Does the US ban high-gas-mileage cars?
A recent YouTube video features a claim that the VW Passat TDI 1.6 and similar cars have been banned by the US government, specifically because their gas mileage is too high. The purported reasoning ...
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Are more people accidentally killed by doctors than accidentally killed by guns and traffic combined?
The actual claim is something like this
The top five causes of death in the United States, in order, are
tobacco, alcohol, medical malpractice, traffic and firearms. According
to JAMA, doctors ...
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Does waxing your car have a long-term beneficial effect on the paint-work?
Everyone, especially people who love washing and waxing their cars, has been telling me about the long-term benefits of regular waxing. They tell me that the layer of wax acts as a protective shell ...
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Do lower speed limits reduce gasoline usage?
There are three parts to this question:
Does speed have an effect on miles-per-gallon? Is there a more accurate causal effect than speed that would also cause a connection at varying speeds? (perhaps ...
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Is it illegal in any U.S. jurisdiction to be in neutral at a red light?
In this related question, I asserted that it was illegal to be in neutral gear while stopped at a red light. The first comment to that question challenged me to quote chapter and verse.
Astonishingly,...
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Do carpool lanes help reduce traffic congestion more than adding an extra lane would?
Many cities have added carpool lanes to their roads, in hopes of encouraging people to carpool and reduce traffic. The idea is that, not only does the road now have an extra lane, there will also be ...
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Did a man complain that his Pontiac wouldn't start whenever the ice cream he picked up was vanilla?
This story about a car that wouldn't start after its owner purchased vanilla ice cream has been used as an example of how customer service matters. (TL;DR The vanilla ice cream was faster to buy, so a ...
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