OT: Fewer insects or more aerodynamic cars?

[RJH]

Front number plate? On my trips to Suffolk it used to be covered in dead insects. For the past 10 years, barely anything.

Anecdotally, overall, seems far fewer to me - except greenfly. Drove through a cloud of them the other week in the Peak District - thought it was a light shower at first, windscreen/front grille covered in a film of green.

And they always seem to be chewing on something in the garden. Although for the first time in a long time a few ladybirds about, so maybe their time has come.

[harry]

This is what's happening to them.

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

You cannot have a truly vertical car windscreen. If you hit an insect at speed, the car would stop, hence the trend to more angled windscreens.

AB

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

Front bumber, windscreen, it makes no difference to the laws of physics.

Each insect could have stopped the car, in fact it is a certainty that more than 50% did actually stop the vehicle.

AB

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

front bumper is covered in them .......

[polygonum_on_google]

In Buckinghamshire there are so many you wouldn't notice four dozen. :-)

[Steve Walker]

From experience not in the car - there do seem to be quite a lot fewer insects. Just being in the garden or the house, we see a lot fewer than in the past - although a moth keeps irritatingly flying in front of my screen just now!

From experience in the car - aerodynamics has a big effect. About 19 years ago we drove around Ireland in a Rover 400. The driver's side wiper was much longer than the passenger side one and to keep it in contact with the screen at speed, it was one with an aerofoil to press it down (I think as standard). My wife, as a passenger kept asking me to clean the windscreen, as it rapidly covered in dead insects, whereas my side had almost none.

SteveW

[T i m]

Yeahbut I wonder if the aerodynamics of the rest of the vehicle still play a part (or are we talking using the same vehicle here)? I'm thinking of the 'bow / pressure wave' you see building up in front of things in a wind tunnel?

When dog walking at dusk we still seem to find a fair few flying things. ;-(

Foxes and hares?

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

<snip>

Only for an infinitesimally tiny instance in time. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

Well the life flashing in front of the eyes would not be a feature film :-)

A Morris Marina could well drop it's silencer due to the shock though.

AB

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

what are you all about? .......insect hits car insect sticks to car.....

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

Apologies, I have made the assumption that around 50% of the insects are travelling in the opposite direction to that of the car.

Obviously if you are driving your vehicle say, north at 60mph and your windscreen encounters an insect also going north at 5mph, then the bug gets splattered and your vehicle carries on in the same direction of travel.

Should the bug be travelling directly south and encounter your windscreen, I need hardly describe the scenario!

An angled windscreen reduces the possibility of an insect stopping your car, a windscreen perpendicular to the road surface would certainly bring the vehicle to a stop unless of course you hit a bug so large that it would actually break the glass, even at that the vehicle would halt unless maybe you were in an open top sports car.

AB

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

and?

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

I suppose you would put a coat or something warm on.

AB

[Max Demian]

"What goes through an insect's head to moment after it hits the windscreen?"

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

mad

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

You asked.

AB

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

O

QSO

alt.talkers.nuts

I feel you would be very happy.

I can't join you I'm afraid, it's walkies time for the haggis's and the're apt to get a bit frisky without their two miles.

AB

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

definite nut allergy

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

ZBK2, ZBM2, ZLD2

AB