Autoblog

Okay, this is just getting ridiculous. Remember the story we brought you a couple days ago about the Mercedes employee in Spain who trashed Lewis Hamilton on Wikipedia? Yeah, pretty ridiculous, we know. But the British media, if you can believe it, is actually taking it seriously.

The Daily Telegraph referred to the incident as a "cheap shot" fuelled by "Spanish paranoia", while the Daily Mirror claimed that "Spain's Fernando Alonso has inflamed home fans".

Daimler said they're investigating the matter, the IP address of the *ahem* perpetrator having been traced back to its office in Spain. Wikipedia removed the edits and temporarily locked the entry. That any newspaper worth its ink is even acknowledging what amounts to no more than one person's fanaticism is just ridiculous. Stay tuned to see what the Spanish papers have to say...

[Source: F1i.com]

We're betting only a few densely trafficked urban areas of the U.S. employ the use of motorized bollards, which are posts that lower and rise to allow permitted vehicles down a particular path. Apparently they're all the rage in the U.K. where many city centers focus on pedestrians more than the automobile, and certain streets are reserved only for busses, mail vehicles and the like. These vehicles have sensors in them that trip the bollards to lower and raise again once they've passed.

Some drivers, however, believe they can tailgate an approved vehicle and squeeze past the bollards before they rise again. As this video shows, they can't. The bollards rise immediately after a vehicle passes over them, and they rise quick. In the video, a Toyota Starlet, Kia Sportage and Iveco TurboDaily take on the bollards and lose with little grace, effectively being stabbed through their undercarriages by giant metal posts. In the Kia's case, a father trips his airbag, pisses off his wife and no doubt traumatizes his young child forever in a bold move that results in the rear tires losing contact with terra firma.

Though I've seen the video and written this post, you can all expect to see me and my rental car balancing on two wheels the next time I visit the old country, so I shouldn't talk any more smack.

Thanks for the uplifting tip, James!

[Source: Biertijd]

More widely used in Europe than in America, retractable concrete-reinforced pillars, placed underneath the road, do a much better job than wooden toll arms or even tire-snagging spikes at stopping traffic from getting into restricted areas.

As this video demonstrates however, some of the (evidently) less intelligent drivers on the road have tried to outsmart these simple pilings and have failed miserably, to the detriment of their vehicles.

Bit of advice: if you see one of these columns retract to let a car through, don't try to squeeze through. It won't work. But watching others try is a load of fun! (The music is just the icing on the cake.)

[Source: Motorpasion via Winding Road]