Comments on: CNN Fireball Chase Scene: Car Guy Analysis?

By: Frank Townend

Frank Townend — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:12:11 +0000

Yes, again the auto refresher. Could you imagine a tool that auto refreshed during use. You would be all over it.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:33:14 +0000

In Firefox 3, under Options > Advanced > General >
“Warn me when web sites try to redirect or reload the page.”
Check that box, no more auto-refresh of Toolmonger, and unlike most changes that cause problems elsewhere, there aren’t that many side effects of this one.

By: DocN

DocN — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:33:09 +0000

Addendum: I don’t know what kind of car it was, but it wasn’t a front-wheel drive. Once the front tire disappeared, the car come to a stop since all the power would go to the damaged side due to loss of traction and the “open” differential.

By: Topgun

Topgun — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 08:15:33 +0000

Wow. Looks like he was riding on the rim for awhile, which will produce plenty of sparks at that speed. You can see the car lurch and drop at one point, probably the rim finally letting go/wearing to a point where he’s then on the brake rotor.

Yes David, I thot the same thing…Back up that cruiser! Too much paperwork involved in a mistake like that !

Textbook felony stop once the car actually came to rest…I had no audio but imagine the PD was using their bullhorn to instruct the occupants on how to remain alive by cooperating.

And damn…great driving! Dumb, but great driving!

By: jim

jim — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 01:41:54 +0000

Oh man, I was all excited like I just sank a 2 foot putt. I tried to download the blocker above, and then saw it only works on older versions of Firefox. Bummer.

Hey Toolmonger guys - any chance of eliminating the auto-refresh? Thanks!

By: Mark Bickford

Mark Bickford — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 21:29:37 +0000

I prefer the stand alone refreshblocker FireFox extension:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/992
Although, there is a Greasemonkey script out there somewhere…

By: Zathrus

Zathrus — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 19:02:15 +0000

Yes, the auto refresh is annoying. But consider it yet another reason to use Firefox, which doesn’t lose any of the text when the site refreshes.

Oh, and yes, Firefox also has the tool to keep the thing from refreshing at all; it’s called GreaseMonkey. If it annoyed me sufficiently I’d write a GM script to edit the refresh out.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 16:36:40 +0000

@ Coach James:
Timing and brevity are importan

By: river1

river1 — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 16:10:07 +0000

you’d think that there was a ‘TOOL’ that could fix that auto refresh. maybe they could review that ‘TOOL’.

LOL LOL

later jim

By: Coach James

Coach James — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 14:18:06 +0000

I don’t know what you guys are talking about, I love auto refresh. My favorite part is when I’m three words from finishing a reply and lose it all due to the page refreshing. I actually post less often just for that reason.

By: Brau

Brau — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 13:36:33 +0000

I agree with Phil and Doc. The front end is clearly so low on the ground that the oil pan must have been ground open leading to flames and seizure.

By: DocN

DocN — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 07:03:04 +0000

Yep, lost the tire, possibly due to a spike-strip. The rim wore away, eventually hit the rotor and suspension arm, and that first gout of flame we saw while they were still moving was the oil pan scraping through and letting go.

After that, the engine seized within moments, and they coasted to a stop. The fire at the end was almost certainly from the hot steel and hot engine parts setting the remaining boiling oil alight.

By: Jim

Jim — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 06:41:05 +0000

Yeah, that auto refresh is a real pain!

By: Stuart Hersh

Stuart Hersh — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 01:45:48 +0000

Never got to the fiery conclusion, due to that pesky refresh.

By: blitzcat

blitzcat — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:26:40 +0000

rear tires burned through, stopped

By: JB

JB — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:21:34 +0000

When the rim went I suspect the inertia switch cut the fuel. Thats why he stopped. That or the engine seized when the oil drained out of the oil pan.

By: David

David — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 21:59:38 +0000

Call me crazy, but if I had just finished a flaming car chase, I don’t think I would have parked my squad car _right behind_ the culprit’s gas tank.

By: Phil

Phil — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:07:30 +0000

If the runner managed to run on the rim for this long, he most likely was dragging the oil pan and/or the transmission pan/housing eventually as well. It finally rubbed through, making the white smoky flameout and coming to a stop. Enough burning oil and plastic remained lit under the hood to eventually burn through fuel lines, then we have the big fire erupting at the end of the video. A ratings bonanza!

By: jc

jc — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 17:01:56 +0000

It’s a Dodge Neon, year not stated. The CNN video had no audio for me, but KABC (http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/index) is running it as their number one video as of Saturday morning.