We are certain there will be millions of them. Yes, there are many questions to be answered.īut first comes the helping hand. Thankfully, the number of American dead in Iraq is well short of 10,000.īut in New Orleans it might exceed that grim number. We are not alone in our anger at the fact that the levee system was short changed even to the point that money needed for maintenance and upgrading was siphoned off to the war in Iraq. It looks like the kind of concrete divide sometimes placed in the middle of highways during road construction. We are not alone in our astonishment at the TV pictures of the stricken 17th Street levee. We are not alone in our astonishment that some of the most critical levees were built to withstand only a category three hurricane when a four or five was seen as someday being inevitable. The reasons for the second battle of New Orleans being lost, with thousands of the city’s inhabitants likely left dead, are many and varied.īut one very particular reason concerns the levee system around New Orleans. The harrowing scenes of people screaming to be rescued, in full view of television cameras and days after the hurricane, was a harrowing sight that none of us should forget. This task is not confined to search and rescue, draining away flood waters and rebuilding.īut beyond our physical response to the disaster in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast we have some thinking to do, and not a little soul searching. There will be time enough to weigh the degree of responsibility that must be borne by local and state government in the disaster stricken area.įor now, however, our thoughts and energies as individuals, and collectively as a nation, should be focused on the enormous task that faces us in the months and years ahead. It made both vehicles more lively to drive, and it deactivated the stop/start feature, but it exacted about a 2 mpg penalty as a trade-off.There will be time enough to apportion blame for the slow and initially inadequate response of the federal government to the Katrina catastrophe. That proved to be the case again in our more recent tests. In past testing, we found no fuel economy benefit using Eco mode for city driving. So while the reduced throttle response could encourage a more gentle driving style conducive to saving fuel, the need to still achieve the speed limit within the time-bound test meant our testers had to push the vehicle a bit harder to essentially overcome the hesitation added by Eco mode. It has been extended for another 2 hours. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your patience. We are facing some technical issues and working on to fix it as soon as possible. Ultimately, this raised an interesting insight: Eco mode tempered the car and SUV’s performance, but we still had to move with the flow of traffic. Players, maintenance has been extended for another 2 hours. Our protocols include complete stops and acceleration to certain speeds, ensuring consistency for comparing results and mimicking the need to move with the flow of traffic. We have a simulated city circuit at the Consumer Reports Auto Test Center that replicates the speeds and periodic stops drivers would typically experience in an urban setting. This requires a staff mechanic to cut the fuel line and splice in the meter, which measures gas consumption precisely by the CC, or cubic centimeter. We install an inline fuel meter for our fuel economy tests, rather than take a rough measure by topping off the gas tank. (Our tests are performed in the default mode, typically “Normal,” when there are driving modes to choose from.)Įco typically reduces throttle response, for milder acceleration, while shifting earlier, keeping the engine rpm lower to conserve fuel. You often see Comfort, for mild-mannered driving, and Snow, to address winter weather challenges. The most common modes are Eco to optimize fuel economy, Normal, and Sport to increase response, primarily by holding shifts to keep the engine revving higher, where the power is more accessible. Selectable modes let drivers fine-tune the power delivery characteristics by letting the car’s computer make adjustments to throttle mapping that controls the engine performance, shift mapping for the transmission, and all-wheel-drive response, if the vehicle is so equipped.
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