Transport – Aug 29

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Hooky Bump’in, and other parasitic relationships
WHT, MOBJECTIVIST
As kids, we all probably participated in at least a few dangerous activities. Recently I started thinking about all the silly, parasitic modes of transportation I practiced (however briefly). By parasitic, I mean travel that requires a non-symbiotic relationship to an engine-powered hunk of steel — think hitch-hiking where you attach yourself to a moving vehicle instead of hopping inside. A very obscure practice, known in certain wintry parts of the northern USA as “hooky bumping”, ranks high in the danger (AKA “Jackass”-quality) category. To hooky bump, you needed iced or packed snow roads and a car or truck moving slow enough that you could grab on to the rear bumper. In the old days, car bumpers had some meat and you could actually hook your hands underneath and ride along like a crouched water-skiier. Nobody ever considered it that dangerous because you only came across the perfect hooky-bump conditions a few times a season. Stealth remained the key, as the car drivers’ usually never figured out that they got hooky-bumped. The danger lied in the face-plant should you ever hit a piece of exposed asphalt.

Another parasitic travel technique, which actually took a lot of exertion, involved drafting city buses via a road bike. I used to do this commuting to school where buses stopped frequently enough that you could accelerate and quickly get within its slipstream (for a few blocks at least). The EROEI did not always pan out as imagined, especially if the bus driver notices you coming from behind and accelerates away.

…Putting a few of these techniques together and you can come up with other creative modes of parasitic transportation.

I often wonder how I made it past my teen years.
(27 August 2007)

The green VW
Editorial, Los Angeles
By fixing up the already clean VW Golf, a group of German engineers poked holes in Detroit’s story that it ain’t easy being green.
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America needs an Axel Friedrich.

Friedrich, a top German environmental regulator, got tired of hearing automakers promise to cut vehicle emissions as soon as the technology to build hydrogen-powered cars comes along in, oh, 20 or 30 years. So, as recounted recently in the Wall Street Journal, he hired a bunch of engineers to take a Volkswagen Golf and make it more environmentally friendly using existing technology, without compromising safety or horsepower. They managed to cut emissions by 25% — much to the chagrin of Volkswagen, which now faces uncomfortable questions about why it hasn’t bothered to make the same simple fixes.

If Friedrich’s engineers could do that with a Golf, which is already much greener and more fuel-efficient than most American cars, think what they could do with our domestic behemoths.
(27 August 2007)
Lately the Los Angeles Times has been printing some dynamite editorials – lively and informed about the environment. -BA

Save the environment, work from home
AAP, The Age
Nearly 90 per cent of workers believe tax incentives should be offered to businesses to have their staff work from home to reduce carbon emissions, a new survey shows.

The survey by a leading career and networking site LinkMe.com.au found that 68 per cent of full-time workers drive to their office with 30.3 per cent spending almost an hour getting to work.

The effect is the emission of thousands of tons of pollution each year, LinkMe CEO Campbell Sallabank says.

“These statistics show it’s time employers and governments worked together to come up with a solution.

“Employees finding work close to where they live or working from home, even as little as one day per week, would have a phenomenal impact on the environment as carbon emissions and traffic congestion would be greatly reduced.”
(28 August 2007)