Are road numbers still relevant?

[Owain]

How will that help NMUs?

I suspect in the magic self driving future NMUs are banned from "Digital Highways" as they make things tricky.

The techbros stay up late at night doing things I can't describe here imagining a world like that whilst normal people think it's the stupidest thing ever.

If people don't like driving to that extent they shouldn't be in control of even an autonomous car, build more railways and provide more buses or even taxis. All NH are doing there is trying to prop up the likes of Musk.

What was it the boss of GM said to whichever tech mogul it was who criticised the motor industry for not developing in the same way as the computing industry had done?

Something about computers crashing twice a day for no reason....

[Ruperts Trooper]

I suspect in the magic self driving future NMUs are banned from "Digital Highways" as they make things tricky.

The techbros stay up late at night doing things I can't describe here imagining a world like that whilst normal people think it's the stupidest thing ever.

If people don't like driving to that extent they shouldn't be in control of even an autonomous car, build more railways and provide more buses or even taxis. All NH are doing there is trying to prop up the likes of Musk.

What was it the boss of GM said to whichever tech mogul it was who criticised the motor industry for not developing in the same way as the computing industry had done?

Something about computers crashing twice a day for no reason....

At a computer exposition, Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: “If General Motors had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.”

In response to Bill’s comments, GM issued a press release stating: “If General Motors had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason, you would simply accept this.

Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive – but would run on only five percent of the roads.

The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single “General Protection Fault” warning light.

The airbag system would ask “Are you sure?” before deploying.

Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

You’d have to press the “Start” button to turn the engine off.

[Owain]

The techbros stay up late at night doing things I can't describe here imagining a world like that whilst normal people think it's the stupidest thing ever.

If people don't like driving to that extent they shouldn't be in control of even an autonomous car, build more railways and provide more buses or even taxis. All NH are doing there is trying to prop up the likes of Musk.

What was it the boss of GM said to whichever tech mogul it was who criticised the motor industry for not developing in the same way as the computing industry had done?

Something about computers crashing twice a day for no reason....

At a computer exposition, Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: “If General Motors had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.”

In response to Bill’s comments, GM issued a press release stating: “If General Motors had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason, you would simply accept this.

Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive – but would run on only five percent of the roads.

The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single “General Protection Fault” warning light.

The airbag system would ask “Are you sure?” before deploying.

Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

You’d have to press the “Start” button to turn the engine off.

That's the one!

I thought it was Gates, but had no wish to slur him...

[Kinitawowi]

That sounds like exactly the sort of thing that would be made up and sent around the Internet by chain e-mail in 1997 with no involvement from either Bill Gates or GM.

[Vierwielen]

I should have said that one of the suggestions was to let the current numbering wither and die in public consciousness, while creating a new internal system for maintenance etc.

I seem to recall that in the 1970's the metric system would takeover completely but when babies are born people still want the weight in pounds and ounces ...

WHile proud parents might quote their baby's weight i pounds and ounces, the hospital rcords are in metric units. The NHS records are in metric units, though page 66 of the Baby's record book contains a metric/imperial conversion chart.

Mixing of units can have disasterous consequences - I believe that in the 1990's both the NHS and social services updated a similar booklet for a particular baby. The NHS recorded the baby's weight in metric units, but social services were "old school" and used imperial units. The baby in question had a health problem which should have been picked up due to the baby not gaining weight but the mix of units obscured the fact. The baby died and at the coroner's inquest, social services received a basting for having used imperial units.

[Alderpoint]

You’d have to press the “Start” button to turn the engine off.

Well that is at least one of those statements which has become true - at least my son's BMW F22, you press the start button to start the car, and when you want to stop it, your press the same button.

[Chris Bertram]

You’d have to press the “Start” button to turn the engine off.

Well that is at least one of those statements which has become true - at least my son's BMW F22, you press the start button to start the car, and when you want to stop it, your press the same button.

Same has been true of the Renaults I've had since 2001.

[Owain]

You’d have to press the “Start” button to turn the engine off.

Well that is at least one of those statements which has become true - at least my son's BMW F22, you press the start button to start the car, and when you want to stop it, your press the same button.

Same has been true of the Renaults I've had since 2001.

The radio/CD in my older 75 requires you to press 'ON' both to switch the thing on and to turn it off.

The newer car has a different unit, which simply has a symbol on the button resembling the common ON/OFF symbol found in MS Windows.

[jnty]

That sounds like exactly the sort of thing that would be made up and sent around the Internet by chain e-mail in 1997 with no involvement from either Bill Gates or GM.

Unfortunately you're right. But it's still a good gag.

[trigpoint]

The N1 always followed a weird route anyway - small wonder it took until 1998 for it to be replaced by the A16.

It did a bit, but a lot more interesting than a boring motorway.

I always used the D901 which went (still does) directly from Abbeville to Beavais avoiding the section that went through Amiens.

[Vierwielen]

You’d have to press the “Start” button to turn the engine off.

Well that is at least one of those statements which has become true - at least my son's BMW F22, you press the start button to start the car, and when you want to stop it, your press the same button.

Adding multiple functions to a button make the product cheaper but not so intuitive to use. One of my pet bugbears in this respect is the number of times that I have inadvertently opened my car windows by keeping the "lock" key pressed too long on my key fob.