Muni LRV 1543A's Ventilation is Full of Bug Parts: Update

So I called Muni this morning to report the problem with the ventilation in that car. As usual the 311 staff was polite (one of the few bright spots in Muni). I have a tracking number ... and I'll see what happens.

This is awful. My nose and face and eyes and most everything from my shoulders up is still itching, and there's no antihistamine in the office first aid cabinets.

How to Jerk and Be a Jerk at the Same Time

You know that part in Drivers Ed where they teach you to ease off the brake as you come to a stop? And if you don't, even though the deceleration of the car remains constant, your passengers feel like they're about to go through the window? Sudden changes in acceleration are called jerk. It's an actual physics term. You feel a jerk because the car was decelerating until it stopped, but once it was stopped, the brakes couldn't make it go any slower. (D'oh.) So the deceleration went from some more or less constant value, to zero, almost instantly. The result: jerk. If you have braced yourself against the deceleration of braking, and then the braking stops abruptly, you are tossed in the opposite direction.

Or, to put it in simpler terms:

Jerk throws things around. It makes them spill. It makes them fall over. When you carry a hot cup of coffee with no lid on it, you move smoothly; otherwise you shower everything in the vicinity with steaming liquid. Coffee is precious. Move smoothly. But as precious as coffee is, I think people are even more precious.

So, now to the point, if you have a bus full of standing passengers, is there a good reason, dear Muni driver, why you can't brake like they are precious cargo? It may be crazy talk but let's pretend, or even presume that drivers realize they are being paid to deliver passengers to their destinations unbruised and right side up.

Most drivers, I think, do. But some, I swear, they are fucking with us. A few mornings ago on the 29, the driver claimed a couple of spry teenagers and a little old lady with her "jerk." She was either lunging forward, lurching while driving (gas on, gas off, gas on, etc.), or braking suddenly as if each stop sign was a complete surprise. All three passengers went down into the arms of other standing passengers, all at different times. I've had rides on N Judah trains with bad brakes (and spaced out drivers) that were smoother.

If you or I drove like that while taking a driving test, we'd flunk before getting out of the parking lot. In that scenario we have one passenger and both of us are belted in behind airbags.

Maybe every morning drivers could take a couple moments to imagine that they're driving a busload of people they give a shit about. They don't have to actually care, of course, but why not pretend.

And this leads up to How to Waste Your Hybrid's Diesel, but that's another post.

Muni LRV 1543A's Ventilation is Full of Bug Parts

Every so often when I get on the N Judah and take my usual seat on one of the benches near the center, my nose and face starts to itch. I'm seriously allergic to, as an allergist put it way back in my childhood, "insect exoskeletons." That crap in the bottom of an old time storm window, the dried up bugs that have turned into dust, it's like breathing fiberglass to me. Same with anything where dead bugs have turned into powder. It only takes a couple of whiffs and then an incredibly intense itching starts.

So this is how I know that car 1543A, the one I rode home today, has a ventilation system that's just full of that shit. 4 hours later, and my nose is still raw and itchy.

Greetings

Greetings from the Muni Grouch.

I've made a few comments on Greg Dewar's N Judah Chronicles recently, and frankly they're almost always complaints. Rather than continue to contaminate his thoughtful blog with my annoyances, I thought I'd start posting them somewhere else.

Like here.