Random Car Thoughts

1. They finished the Jackson School Road Project a couple of years ago so now we have a nice new asphalt road. You might think that this new road would be nice and smooth, and it is, sort of, but it's not perfect. At first I was thinking that the paving company had just done a sloppy job, but now I'm wondering if maybe they didn't make it a little wavy to give people some idea of how fast they are going. After all, it is a residential street with kids and cross walks and driveways.

2. You might have noticed that car makers have started adding power opening to the rear lift doors on the back of SUVs. My first thought was it was needless extravagance, but then I started noticing how dirty the back of our SUV was, and putting my hand on that door to close it meant getting my hand dirty.

 
Back in the day when I was wearing blue jeans and doing real work a little bit of dust like that wouldn't bother me. If it was bad enough I would just wipe my hands off on my jeans. But evidently in my old age I have gotten particular. 

Our SUV has cutout in the bottom edge of the rear lift door that you can use to close the lift gate, but it's a little awkward. You have to give it enough of a push to give the door enough momentum for the door to close and latch, but you only have a couple of feet to do that before the angle of the dangle makes it too awkward to push. 

So maybe the power lift gates were added just so people don't have to get their hands dirty closing that rear lift gate. Yes, you could wash your car, but some places the back of your car gets dirty in hurry. You'd have to carry a bucket of water with you so you could wash off the dirt every time you wanted to close the gate, and that would be annoying.