Phutters
25-04-2011, 12:08 PM
You know the warning bell that goes off when the low fuel warning light comes on? That very, very loud one?
Is there any way of disabling it, short of taking a jemmy and a pair of wire cutters to the dashboard?
I wouldn't mind if the noise it made was a discreet little 'ahem', but it isn't. The noise it does make seems to assume that the driver is blind (and, indeed, partially deaf) and therefore unable to see the generously-sized and prominent warning light (in the shape of a petrol pump, helpfully) which appears in the centre of the instrument panel and well within the driver's peripheral vision.
I'm not deaf, and I'm not blind, and if I choose to ignore both the warning light and the fuel gauge creeping into the red, then it's nobody's fault but my own if I end up stranded in some Godforsaken wilderness like Corby or Telford with a tank full of fumes.
As soon as the gauge's needle nears the red segment, I can't help but find myself clenching my buttocks and gripping the wheel like a maiden aunt joining the M25 for the first time in paranoid anticipation of that effing great bell going off.
And although I think I'm ready for it, I never am, and I have actually fouled my strides several times as a consequence, so loud and unexpected is it.
And putting my fingers in my ears doesn't work.
Ask the trilby-wearing pensioner driving towards me round that blind bend in his Yaris Verso.
Is there any way of disabling it, short of taking a jemmy and a pair of wire cutters to the dashboard?
I wouldn't mind if the noise it made was a discreet little 'ahem', but it isn't. The noise it does make seems to assume that the driver is blind (and, indeed, partially deaf) and therefore unable to see the generously-sized and prominent warning light (in the shape of a petrol pump, helpfully) which appears in the centre of the instrument panel and well within the driver's peripheral vision.
I'm not deaf, and I'm not blind, and if I choose to ignore both the warning light and the fuel gauge creeping into the red, then it's nobody's fault but my own if I end up stranded in some Godforsaken wilderness like Corby or Telford with a tank full of fumes.
As soon as the gauge's needle nears the red segment, I can't help but find myself clenching my buttocks and gripping the wheel like a maiden aunt joining the M25 for the first time in paranoid anticipation of that effing great bell going off.
And although I think I'm ready for it, I never am, and I have actually fouled my strides several times as a consequence, so loud and unexpected is it.
And putting my fingers in my ears doesn't work.
Ask the trilby-wearing pensioner driving towards me round that blind bend in his Yaris Verso.