beep beep

[prog]

I finally used Zipcar, for donut-related program activities. Thanks colorwheel.

It was easy and fun, and I enjoyed driving a new-ish car. (It was the Scion on Somerville & Beacon, if that means anything to any of you.) mrmorse was there for moral support but none was needed, I did not crash very much at all etc.

According to my Zipcar online statement, I have three more days to make my first month's $50 prepay worthwhile, since it doesn't roll over. Grunt. I foresee a lot of spurious shopping. (Though I do have to get groceries. And maybe I'll go get a replacement Shuffle if I promise myself to actually hang onto this one. Meh.) I don't know if I'll do the $50 thing again or not... one reason it didn't work out so well was that I retained use of the Toyota longer than I thought I would.

The Toyota, by the way, has been in the shop for about a week 'n' a half now. I talked to the guy a week ago and he wanted to verify that I was sure that I didn't want it to look pretty. I said I was sure. (I can't imagine it coming out of this looking even uglier than it was. It can be all parti-colored with bondo and still look better than that horrible, rusting dent. It will certainly sound better, and that's the main concern.) I oughtta call again soon.

Driving 'er up to Bangor, or perhaps just to Waterville, once she's all set. And taking the bus back!

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The Scion's dashboard was strange to me. All the widgets (if you will) were dead-center; the space immediately before the driver -- that is, behind the steering wheel -- was just blank plastic. So I several times was alarmed, thinking I forgot to turn the headlights on because I couldn't see the dash.

The speedometer was an especially old-school-lookin doohickey propped up above all the other widgets and given a visually distinct color scheme. It made me wonder if there's a going theory (amongst those experts what care about such things) that analog, needle-based speedometers have a different and perhaps more effective psychological effect on drivers than simple digital readouts. It seems to me that in the late 1980s I saw a lot of cars with digital speedometers, and I haven't seen very many since.

Funny that the radio was already tuned to the local NPR station, the only station I ever listen to when driving. Zipcar-lovin centrist commies

Comments

[mangosteen]

It made me wonder if there's a going theory (amongst those experts what care about such things) that analog, needle-based speedometers have a different and perhaps more effective psychological effect on drivers than simple digital readouts.

Actually, it's a UI design thing. Digital speedometers only tell you about the present. "Oh, I'm going 37 mph." To get some idea of a trend, you have to maintain active attention on the speedometer, this is not useful when one is driving. Analogue, needle-based speedometers, tell you about the past, present, and future in the same amount of attention as a digital speedometer tells you about the present. "Oh, thingy moving clockwise through 35mph. I must be going around 37mph and accelerating."

[xymotik.livejournal.com]

Car mag writers really hate/hated digital speedos. Surveys 15-20 years ago showed that about half of drivers liked digital ones, but car cos. got such a negative reaction from the press that they dropped it (see All Corvettes are Red and like every car mag review of a car with a digital speedometer ever). They're also somewhat more common outside of the US--Toyota's Yaris/Vitz/Platz cars (the US version is the Echo) all came with digital speedometers. That's why the analog one for the Echo was in such a small housing, making it even harder to read.

Center-mounted speedos smell like butt. The so-called rationale in some cases is that you have to look farther away so your eyes don't have to adjust as much when shifting from speedometer to road, but in most cases it's a matter of cheapness disguised as style (like in Toyota's Scion's xA, xB, and Echo) for cars built for both left and right-hand markets. Or it's "retro," based on horrid ergonomics of the past (see the MINI and the BMW Z8--but it still saves them money, & at least the MINI's is huge), or it's just shitty "stylish" design for cars only built for the North American market, like the Saturn ION or the Nisasan Quest.

[prog.livejournal.com]

This was an xA. In my hyperactivity about finally using my Zipcar account I didn't even note the model until I was at my destination, sipping coffee and gazing out at the car in the parking lot. I've associated the Scion name with those weirdly fashionable rolling-box designs, but apparently that's the xB's job.

Why would it be cheaper to mount the speedometer (and every other gauge) in the middler versus on the driver's side?

[xymotik.livejournal.com]

If they're building it for Japan/the UK/Ireland/Malta/India/South Africa/Australia/NZ/some other countries in the sphere of influence of the UK or Japan and also selling it everywhere else, it means they can route those controls up the center and not have to have a completely different control pod on either the right or the left. Of course, much of the rest of the dash is still different, and it only saves a few dollars per car, but multiply a few bucks times a million cars over the life of the model's production, and yer talkin' some real money, yessir.

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

I've driven that car a few times. I imagine if I drove it a lot more, I'd get used to looking in the center for my information, but as it is, we hates it, yess we doess, preciouss.

[doctor-atomic.livejournal.com]

There have been numerous studies that indicate that drivers prefer to look at analog dials, and find it quicker and easier to get information from analog. Digital read-outs actually slow people down. I don't have a citation for this, but my grandfather was a pioneer of studies like this in the 70's, so I have it from someone who actually did this sort of study.