PatMc

Not long after I got the Qashqai I was just finished some shopping, bumped into a (non driver) friend from our village also carrying some shopping so offered him a lift home. The car was parked in a fairly tight spot so as I was reversing out I was using the "birds eye" camera as well as the others. My friend went dead quiet & his jaw dropped when he saw what was on the screen. Once we were on the road he was bursting to ask how the birds eye view was done. The conversation went - Didn't you notice the flap on the rear of the car roof ? No, what does that do ? It automaticaly opens, a small drone pops up & hovers over the roof feeding the view back into the car. Then it goes back in when I'm finished reversing. That's fantastic it's almost like magic! Wait till I tell the lads at the club (CIU) on Friday night, they won't believe it. At that point I had to come clean but he did see the funny side & bought me a pint that Friday. PS He did tell his mates about the screen view & how wonderful he thought it was but neither of us mentioed the "drone".

Actually it's been imposed on us by the majority of users through demand driven economics - same as the model aeroplane market. It's a worldwide change only partialy held in check either directlly by government or by national (but government appointed) regulator.

It's only "stand alone" when the battery is charged. For a lot of people, especially the ones most likely to need it for other than purely social convenience, mains charging is the only way.

Not if you're a non-driver living alone, as many of the most vulnerable people are.

I don't think the 999 failure was caused by a power outage. It was caused by a BT server file error then poor documentation & lack of instructions causing delays in staff dealing with the situation. Basicaly staff were unprepared to be able to deal with the fault situation.

If it avoids another car hitting you head on because your un-dipped headlights blinded them you share the benifit.

A mobile phone also relies on the mains.

OCTOPUSES

And that's my model in the photo. Built from an original kit & refurbed to convert from single chanel with ruber band ESC to propo) 👍 It's been a hanger queen for a few years now so time for another refurb & to add a small motor to the nose.

Ahh, something like an in car entertainment system then ?

What's that?

Had a courtesy latest version Cashcow a month or so back for a few days, it had a choice of 2 brake switches. I didn't try it to compare but according to the manual the extra switch was "softer" than the normal one but there was a warning not to use it as a parking brake. I wasn't really interested in it so didn't pursue the reson or circumstances when it might be useful. Although I was sceptical at first I'm perfectly happy that the brake arrangment in my car is an improvement over the traditional type.

I accidentaly discovered that the electronic parking brake on the Qashquai is the most powerful parking brake I've ever come across. About 4 years ago parked up for about an hour, my wife and I returned to the car & the brake just would not release either trying to move forward or reverse. No matter how hard I reved I couldn't get the car to budge in either direction. We tried a re-boot by vacating the car, re-locking it, walking out of keyless remote range etc before returning & trying again but to no avail. Finaly I got out the (not very well indexed) drivers manual & started looking for some instructions on how to force release the brake. After a few minutes Mrs Pat decided she needed to visit a shop for something she'd forgot. A couple of minutes after she'd gone I started the engine put it in gear & was amazed when the brakes released & the car moved. When Mrs returned we drove straight home but I had an inkling that her remote, kept in her handbag, had caused the problem. I tried without success to re-creating the problem with both remotes in the car but when I tried the Mrs remote only in range the car started OK but displayed a low volts warning for said remote. I assume that this low volt signal combined with a good signal from my remote must have caused a software glitch that locked the brake on.

I've had a Nissan Qashqai for 7 years, whilst I'm not a fan of stop - start it's never actually been a major problem. The parking incident you describe would be almost impossible to occur with the Qashqai as there are so many conditions to be met (or not met) before S-S is triggered. I've never yet had it occur whilst parking or making any tight or slow manoeuver or any time that it would have been inconvenient. Only minor problem has been that there is a slight latency in the throttle response when it re-starts, this has occasionaly caused me to stall the engine as I've let the clutch out a fraction too soon before the revs to have picked up.

You're wrong. According to police STATS19 data the UK death rate has been lower than the 1926 figure, when the stats were first recorded, since around 1990 despite the vastly increased number of motor vehicles.