DailyDirt: Drifting Around In A Car For Fun
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
April Fool's day is fun for some people -- and annoying for others. John Oliver thinks pranks are terrible, and he's gotten some people to make a no-pranks pledge. But for folks who like to waste time and smirk at the discomfort at others, here are a couple videos to watch featuring cars and some crazy driving.- Driving instructors probably have more than their share of scary moments in a car, so why not prank them on their first day on the job? Professional driver Leona Chin pretended to be an incompetent driver for a bit, then pulled into a closed parking lot and took the car for a real spin. [url]
- Here's another prank -- get some guys to go on a blind date, but don't tell them that their date is a professional driver before she starts driving like a maniac. BTW, this prank is supposed to sell more Ford Mustangs, too. [url]
- Drifting seems like the cool thing for drivers to do nowadays, so there's also an autonomous car that can drift. The robot car cheats a little bit because it needs wet pavement, but do you really want an autonomous car that can drift on any road at any time? Imagine the reactions if cars had an autonomous insane mode for drifting.... [url]
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Filed Under: april fool, autonomous cars, drifting, leona chin, mustang, pranks
Companies: ford
Reader Comments
The First Word
“- Quote from your average person who hates April Fools online.
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Autonomous Drifting
Yes, actually. Mind you, I really wouldn't want it to do so while toting me around.
That said, if the car were to loose traction for whatever reason, I would expect said autonomous vehicle to recognize what was happening and handle the situation as well as possible. If drifting was beyond it's capabilities, then it should only be in control of a vehicles that go no more than 5mph, limited to private property, and only operates under strict human supervision. :P
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Re: Autonomous Drifting
Now, I say this as a robotics engineer (which I trained to be, because I started the "pirate" stuff) but I almost always disable any electronic aids as best I can, be it ABS, ESC, traction control, or whatever other gizmo. It's bad, but I can't stand them (might be my racing driver past though, I used to rally and did some track racing until a few accidents combined led to a rethink - smashing your knee to pieces will do that)
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- Quote from your average person who hates April Fools online.
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Re:
Is that you?
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Too Bad It is Staged
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Random thoughts
To go with the NPR story about autonomous vehicles exhibiting road rage, the New Yorker has a great cartoon of two cabbies, one praising to the other the virtues of "self-honking cars" which really let you concentrate on driving.
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