4 September 2012

Parking White Commodore in Civic Style

4 September 2012 | creative_canberran

Join the conversation

In case any doubt remained about white commodores, this classic from outside the Greens HQ.

Parked illegally on the corner, nose against the vehicle legally parked in from in loading zone.

Windshield illegally tinted, side windows tinted totally black do you can’t see in (also illegal).

Ticket in the windshield, though with those windows should really be clamped and off the road!

[Got an image of Canberra you want to share with the world? Email it in to images@the-riotact.com ]

Join the conversation

All Comments

All Comments
Website Comments
Facebook Comments

LatestOldest

rhino1:02 pm 10 Sep 12

Antagonist said :

rhino said :

And if wider wheels decreases contact patch size, why do drag cars, who are concenred soley with longitudinal grip, use ridiculously wide tyres half the width of my pulsar? Because it makes the contact patch much wider and barely makes a difference in the other direction.

Incorrect. They do go for wider tyres, but the additional traction comes from reducing the tyre pressure to about 6-8 psi to create a LONGER contact patch. This is where the extra longitudinal traction comes from. They also use 90/10 shocks to shift more weight onto the rear wheels, which in turn provides more downward pressure per area. Just look at the footage of a rail car at take off. The first thing you will notice is the tyres become narrower and taller – providing a longer contact patch.

This still does not mean wider tyres give more grip in the wet. Wider tyres are more prone to aquaplaning by virtue of having to move the water further to get it out from under the tyre. About time we agree to disagree, and let this thread die.

The drag car example was not incorrect. They do use wider tyres. Yes they also have low tyre pressures, but even when they get narrower, they are a lot wider than anything that would fit on any remotely stock car. They make them as wide and as long as possible to maximise contact patch.

I agree that what you described is a real issue, but just that it is insignificant in comparison to the other factors. Hence why there are all of those examples above where wider wheels perform better. And in the context of this guy’s commodore, it is not going to make him unable to steer on the road. His choice of tyre will have 10 times more impact than that. Especially since his wheels aren’t even wide by any measure. They aren’t even flush with the guards. I just took a particular disagreement with it especially because nobody would comment if they had the stock wheels and rubbish tyres, but if he had high performance wet weather tyres and aftermarket wheels, people jump on it and try to pretend he is being dangerous by doing so. I would be more offended if he had 21″ wheels on it, just because I would find it offensive to my eyes haha.

Antagonist3:37 pm 07 Sep 12

rhino said :

And if wider wheels decreases contact patch size, why do drag cars, who are concenred soley with longitudinal grip, use ridiculously wide tyres half the width of my pulsar? Because it makes the contact patch much wider and barely makes a difference in the other direction.

Incorrect. They do go for wider tyres, but the additional traction comes from reducing the tyre pressure to about 6-8 psi to create a LONGER contact patch. This is where the extra longitudinal traction comes from. They also use 90/10 shocks to shift more weight onto the rear wheels, which in turn provides more downward pressure per area. Just look at the footage of a rail car at take off. The first thing you will notice is the tyres become narrower and taller – providing a longer contact patch.

This still does not mean wider tyres give more grip in the wet. Wider tyres are more prone to aquaplaning by virtue of having to move the water further to get it out from under the tyre. About time we agree to disagree, and let this thread die.

rhino1:14 am 07 Sep 12

Antagonist said :

rhino said :

Wow a racing car crashed one time 20 years ago? Let’s urgently ban all wheels wider than a shopping trolley, that will fix the problem obviously. If the narrower the better, then why not use bicycle wheels? Surely formula 1 engineers would be smart enough to use bicycle wheels for when it starts raining and then switch back to wide ones in the dry. Or perhaps you are incorrect about the severity of this effect.

Now your argument is becoming unreasonable and irrational. The extremes of your examples belittle your argument. Nobody is going to fit bicycle tyres to an F1 car. It comes back to diminishing returns. Too wide – return is diminished. Too narrow – return is again diminished. There is a ‘sweet spot’, but your initial assertion that wider means more grip does not hold true.

When you widen the tyre, the contact patch does not necessarily increase. It gains width, but the length shortens. This may give lateral grip (side-to-side) but gives reduces longitudinal grip (front-to-back). In short, you lose traction under brakes which is where you are most likely going to need it on the roads. Even if you do end up with a (marginally) bigger contact patch, you have less downward pressure on a wider tyre Compare an elephants footprint to the footprint of a ladies high-heel. And since you still have to move the water further to get it out from under the wider tyre that has less dowforce for area, your car is more prone to aquaplaning.

And Bathurst 1992 was not one car crashing one time. It was almost half of the field. They declared the race at around lap 145 or so.

And how wide were the tyres on the skylines in 1992? Less wide than the ones that come on a stock commodore nowadays, and smaller diameter also. So what are you saying is the ideal size? And upgrading from stock wheels to slightly larger ones with better tyres and suspension, like car enthusiasts do, dramatically reduces their grip in the wet? Yet somehow they don’t realise this? Racing cars use much wider tyres but those engineers wouldn’t know what they are talking about either, right? And this guy in his commodore with wheels so narrow that they look almost 2 inches off being flush with the guards a the back has been very unsafe by not sticking with the original wheels with some diamondback chinese tyres keeping well within all regulaions and avoiding all judging eyes from people like the ones in this thread? I disagree.

And if wider wheels decreases contact patch size, why do drag cars, who are concenred soley with longitudinal grip, use ridiculously wide tyres half the width of my pulsar? Because it makes the contact patch much wider and barely makes a difference in the other direction.

Antagonist8:48 pm 06 Sep 12

rhino said :

Wow a racing car crashed one time 20 years ago? Let’s urgently ban all wheels wider than a shopping trolley, that will fix the problem obviously. If the narrower the better, then why not use bicycle wheels? Surely formula 1 engineers would be smart enough to use bicycle wheels for when it starts raining and then switch back to wide ones in the dry. Or perhaps you are incorrect about the severity of this effect.

Now your argument is becoming unreasonable and irrational. The extremes of your examples belittle your argument. Nobody is going to fit bicycle tyres to an F1 car. It comes back to diminishing returns. Too wide – return is diminished. Too narrow – return is again diminished. There is a ‘sweet spot’, but your initial assertion that wider means more grip does not hold true.

When you widen the tyre, the contact patch does not necessarily increase. It gains width, but the length shortens. This may give lateral grip (side-to-side) but gives reduces longitudinal grip (front-to-back). In short, you lose traction under brakes which is where you are most likely going to need it on the roads. Even if you do end up with a (marginally) bigger contact patch, you have less downward pressure on a wider tyre Compare an elephants footprint to the footprint of a ladies high-heel. And since you still have to move the water further to get it out from under the wider tyre that has less dowforce for area, your car is more prone to aquaplaning.

And Bathurst 1992 was not one car crashing one time. It was almost half of the field. They declared the race at around lap 145 or so.

rhino4:05 pm 06 Sep 12

Antagonist said :

rhino said :

So having upgraded the suspension and put on better tyres with larger wider wheels, you will have better grip even in the wet and many many times more grip in the dry. Racing cars do not come into the pits when it rains to put narrow wheels on to enhance their wet weather grip, they just get different tyres, because the width is not that significant, the tyres are.

What a load of bollocks. Any engineer will tell you that the reason wide tyres/wheels are illegal on road cars is because of the need to move the water further to get it out from under the tyre. Rego will tell you the same. It is also the same reason insurance companies don’t like wide tyres. It is because water must be moved further to get it out from under a wide tyre, making the car more prone to aquaplaning. No other reason. If wide tyres give so much grip (even in the wet), then insurance companies and the RTA would not have such an issue with them, would they? It is simple physics.

As for race cars pitting, the primary reason is because their racing slicks have no tread to push water out from under the tyres. The wet weather tyres are grooved to assist with water removal, which gives them better grip. The wide tyres did not provide the additional grip you speak of when Skaife crashed his Skyline in the wet at Bathurst in 1992. He still crashed due to aquaplaning because he could not get the water out from under his wide tyres.

No, that is a load of bollocks. Can my old nissan pulsar with 15cm wide tyres go around a sharp corner at 80kph in the wet? No, not even 50. Can a lambroghini with 40cm wide tyres? Yes, with ease. As I said, it is a factor, but an insignificant one in the scheme of things.

Wow a racing car crashed one time 20 years ago? Let’s urgently ban all wheels wider than a shopping trolley, that will fix the problem obviously. If the narrower the better, then why not use bicycle wheels? Surely formula 1 engineers would be smart enough to use bicycle wheels for when it starts raining and then switch back to wide ones in the dry. Or perhaps you are incorrect about the severity of this effect.

p12:03 pm 06 Sep 12

All this arguing about tyre sizes misses out on the real reason that the law is restrictive on changing wheel/tyre size and shape. The whole of modern vehicles are designed as a package – brakes, suspension components, wheels, vehicle mass, are all supposed to work in conjunction with each other. Vehicles are then extensively tested to make sure they meet any number of standards. Cars are not test with every possible combination of wheels and tyres.

Antagonist1:52 pm 06 Sep 12

rhino said :

So having upgraded the suspension and put on better tyres with larger wider wheels, you will have better grip even in the wet and many many times more grip in the dry. Racing cars do not come into the pits when it rains to put narrow wheels on to enhance their wet weather grip, they just get different tyres, because the width is not that significant, the tyres are.

What a load of bollocks. Any engineer will tell you that the reason wide tyres/wheels are illegal on road cars is because of the need to move the water further to get it out from under the tyre. Rego will tell you the same. It is also the same reason insurance companies don’t like wide tyres. It is because water must be moved further to get it out from under a wide tyre, making the car more prone to aquaplaning. No other reason. If wide tyres give so much grip (even in the wet), then insurance companies and the RTA would not have such an issue with them, would they? It is simple physics.

As for race cars pitting, the primary reason is because their racing slicks have no tread to push water out from under the tyres. The wet weather tyres are grooved to assist with water removal, which gives them better grip. The wide tyres did not provide the additional grip you speak of when Skaife crashed his Skyline in the wet at Bathurst in 1992. He still crashed due to aquaplaning because he could not get the water out from under his wide tyres.

p110:20 am 06 Sep 12

cynical_rendering said :

Let us not be so presumptuous: The tasteless aftermarket body kit may give the impression that the car sits lower than what it actually does….

Is it just me, or does the tasteless aftermarket body kit also reduce the forward facing area of the headlights? That can’t be legal surely?

Deref9:41 am 06 Sep 12

Chances of collecting on ticket = 0.

devils_advocate9:06 am 06 Sep 12

rhino said :

My old pulsar was frankly dangerous in the wet with stock narrow wheels and sloppy stock suspension, whereas a skyline with wheels literally 3 times wider will have many times more grip due to the suspension and better tyres in the wet.

Also, if it’s a *real* skyline, you have the advantage of all 4 wheels providing traction in a front-angle slip situation, rather than just 2.

They should ban cars that are exclusively front-wheel drive, they’re just unsafe.

rhino11:27 pm 05 Sep 12

POK said :

While I agree the nitpicking is quite pedantic, it serves a purpose. Heavily tinted windows are flags or annoyances. They say (1) That the driver doesn’t care to follow the rules the rest of us follow, (2) The driver doesn’t care if his/her vanity is more important than safety, and (3) that the driver might have something to hide.
Sure if we all minded our own businesses life would be swell, but the world is full of “shit happens”, and its natural for people to not want it to happen to them or within their community. This guy would just be another young person with their fav car out on the street, until they validated anything negative others would think about them by choosing to park right up someone’s rear.
As my father once said to me on a long night drive: “I know your eyes are in the wrong place, because its pitch black and your high beams aren’t on”. I know this guy isn’t lane changing properly, because he hasn’t compensated for his lack of vision with bigger mirrors. Which btw is what those of us driving vehicles with obstructed views do. The view doesn’t protect us- we’re in the larger vehicle. Hopefully the criticism will lead to a better driver. (Don’t worry, my dad also made sure I turned off my beams well before they would blind or annoy others)

For your points: 1) See my point above about following pointless rules blindly. ie. have you ever downloaded a song without paying, recorded songs off the radio or movies off tv, crossed a road when the pedestrian crossing light was not green but nobody was around etc. These things are against the rules but not a big deal. 2)Vanity is an unfair word. I’m certain you and everyone else chooses a car significantly because of how it looks also. If you don’t deem it unsafe, then how your car looks is rightly a big deal. You may just disagree on the safety aspect. He doesn’t appear to have had an accident in it and could see out much easier than you can see in, so he can most likely see fine. This level of tint is legal in other places. 3) Who cares if they have something to hide? Maybe they are ugly, but that’s their business.

I’m glad that you turn off your high beams for people though. It’s annoying when people don’t do that. That is the type of thing that really makes a difference on the roads, just general consideration of others. Along with attention, experience and skill. Awareness of the cars around you is massively important.

As I said, if this guy parked that guy in front in, then he is an inconsiderate person who should get fined, but otherwise nothing to see here.

View more conversations

Featured Businesses

Lawyers

Kamy Saeedi Law

When you need a criminal or commercial lawyer, you don’t want to take any chances. You want someone in your corner that you can trust like your life depends on it - because it does.

Find out more

Lawyers

BDN Lawyers

BDN has provided legal services to to Canberra, Queanbeyan and the region for over 160 years.

Find out more

Electricians

True Connection Electrical

Since 2014, True Connection Electrical have been servicing residential and small commercial clients with reliable, trustworthy and top-quality electrical work.

Find out more