Is it me or is it the customers of the Oxford Road Wellcome supermarket? I was there last night and there was a car there with its engine left on and a couple of passengers inside.
It has been said by drivers in HK leaving their engines on for the air conditioner. Which is a load of crap. If everyone turns of their engines when parked it wouldn’t be so hot to begin with.
This is winter, and I don’t suppose the 18 degree Celsius evening temperature is too hot, or so “freezingly” cold making the heater a necessity! It is also an unpopulated area away from traffic, so pollution other than that car has created itself is not a problem. There is no mosquitoes either.
I’d say we slam down on these aholes before we do anything else to curb the region’s pollution.
It could have been a getaway car, for a crime about to happen. Whenever there is an idle car on the street w/ its engine running, I quickly walk away. It is sometimes difficult to tell whether the engine of a Lexus (the top models at least) is running, lucky nobody uses a Lexus as a getaway vehicle.
As for polution, I am disappointed that hybrid cars aren’t widely available for sale in Hong Kong, nor can we buy passenger vehicles that run on natural gas.
Natural gas cars are not too practical until there is a way to reduce the size of the gas tank in the car. I like hybrid cars. It is however too bad that the current available hybrids are so ugly and CVTs make hybrid cars so boring to drive.
I’d vote for extensive coverage of bike paths too. Given the traffic condition, it is faster to ride than to drive in the city most of the time. I wouldn’t mind riding to visit you if there were bike paths. The local traffic is simply too dangerous with too many reckless drivers.
Giving up about a third of the luggage space for the natural gas tank is a price I think a lot of people are willing to pay. Taxi owners and drivers don’t have such a big problem w/ it, so maybe it’s not so bad. The alternative is a fuel w/ higher energy density, which isn’t too attractive for safety reasons.
Unfortunately, so far fuel economy/efficiency and fun seem to be mutually exclusive. For fun, there is however always go-karts.
Truck space is certainly an issue. Had there been a gas tank in the trunk, it would have no longer been able to accommodate two folding bikes to say the least. Such a device for public transport vehicles is not a major problem, but my biggest dislike about current in-trunk natural gas tanks is that an ugly tank in any passenger car is simply not an elegant solution.
I wonder what kind of a tank is installed in those hydrogen powered cars and how safe or dangerous hydrogen is compared to gasoline and natural gas. BMW already has hydrogen powered 7 series test vehicles for over 10 years. It has been reported that the exhaust from the hydrogen power vehicle is even cleaner than the air in-taken during its running.
Combine it with the hawking & spitting, the shouting, the screaming, the endless stream of obscenities shouted about the other persons mother, the coughing directly at who ever they are standing next to, the family money lost betting on horses & the family money spent on cheap mainland prostitutes & I’d say it’s just another local culture thing, don’t worry about it……….think on the bright side there’s also the buses, mini buses, lorries & trawlers that belch a nice thick black oily smog into the air too.