Stephen Rees’s blog

DO THE TEST

Posted in Road safety by Stephen Rees on March 13th, 2008

A test to determine how observant you are

The annoying lack of a control mechanism to stop it playing automatically has meant I have removed the embedded code. But please do click on the link above

6 Responses to 'DO THE TEST'

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  1. nancy (aka money coach) said, on March 13th, 2008 at 6:36 pm

    brilliant!

  2. quikShift said, on March 13th, 2008 at 11:58 pm

    Headr about this - hadn’t seen it til now.
    Quite good.

    In completely unrelated news….

    “So, let’s look at a number of factors. I am going to use $200 per barrel as a potential point, in part because as mentioned, that has now become the new upper target, and because it makes for some easy math in terms of doubling from the $100 level of late. I am also not considering the impact on the economy, which could/would be substantial.

    Obviously, the first and probably largest impact is on transportation costs. In order, rising fuel costs impact air carriers the hardest, followed by trucking and then rail. I am not quite sure, but would think ocean would be similar to rail.

    Transportation analysts at Bear Stearns believe rising trucking fuel surcharges are the key factor in the increased recent diversion they are seeing of trucking freight going to rail despite the favorable environment overall for companies in the TL market (See Quarterly Bear Stearns Shippers Survey Suggests Trucking Capacity Glut may be Reaching Bottom.)

    I have recently spoken with both a high tech company and a consumer soft goods company that both moved most product by air, but which are looking at how they can make ocean shipping work in the face of rapidly rising air cargo costs.

    On the trucking side, Tiffany Wlazlowski, press secretary for The American Trucking Associations, told me this week “that for the first time, carriers in some cases are telling us that fuel costs are exceeding labor [driver] costs.” She says that for truckload carriers, fuel costs can now be 25% or more of total operating costs.

    Also consider that by my estimate, based on available data, oil costs represent about two-thirds of the price of a gallon of diesel fuel.

    So, this means that if oil goes to $150 (a 50% increase), truckload shipping costs, however they get there (base rates or fuel surcharges), would rise about 8.5%. If it goes all the way to $100 (a 100% increase), TL costs would rise about 17% - an incredible number. Think of the impact on the bottom line of most shippers. For those interested, here’s how I got there for scenario 1: .25 (fuel as percent of TL carrier cost) x 50 (percent increase if oil goes to $150) x .67 (percent of oil in current diesel cost).

    I am almost out of space, so we can’t take a much deeper dive than this here. But we will soon – Dr. David Simchi-Levi of MIT and software company ILOG, one of the most respected supply chain industry thought leaders, is working on some analytics models for SCDigest readers on what this might mean for supply chain network design and trade-offs among transportation, inventory and distribution costs. ”

    Source: http://www.scdigest.com/assets/FirstThoughts/08-03-13.php?cid=1547

    > What does all this mean?
    It should be obvious.
    It means that $150 oil would be a great excuse for moronic Liberal Ministers to build a highway to the moon.

  3. Andy in Germany said, on March 14th, 2008 at 3:12 am

    Very cool… I just saw the bear leave, but oddly not the moonwalking bit… I’ve grown used to motorists looking through cyclists. I wear a yellow jacket and use a double headlight set which was intended to illuminate my way home through rural somerset (No lights) but I use now in daylight so cars see me. Battery is like a brick, but you can’t have everything. Thing is, it still isn’t always enough.

    On that subject, I’m not sure two-way cycle ways on one-way streets are a good idea: we had one in Taunton (UK) and Motorists assume that because cars can only go one way, nothing will come against the flow and pull out, open doors etc, without checking.

  4. Stephen Rees said, on March 15th, 2008 at 7:49 am

    Copenhagen is pressing forward with a target of 50% trips by bicycle. They know that there will be more collisions, but the rate falls as the number of cyclists increases. Gradually motorists will get the message that in urban environments they are being tolerated reluctantly and they they do not have the “right” to drive anywhere they like as fast as they like. And nobody is born with a BMW attached to them.

  5. Stephen Rees said, on March 15th, 2008 at 10:24 am

    @Quick shift

    And it looks like Bear Stearns is in trouble

  6. Milton Mayer said, on March 15th, 2008 at 10:44 am

    Please make it stop running automatically!

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