Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Car Whiskers

 Whiskers for cars
  (+18, -5)(+18, -5)
(+18, -5) 		  [vote for,
against]

Cars should have whiskers sticking out next to the headlights. These would bend when you drive through a narrow opening. The amount of bend would be either displayed on an indictor inside the car or communicated via little prongs pressing into your thighs. So if you squeeze your car through a narrow gap, the pressure on your thighs would really tell you it was a narrow gap and on which side of the car the gap was tighter. The whiskers retract when the ignition is turned off.

Whiskers would look cool too.
—hippo, Oct 31 2001

Newfangled cu(ke)rb feelers http://media.siemen...html?prjob_num=1169
[bristolz]

Article on obstacle avoidance (robotic) http://www.red3d.co.../nobump/nobump.html [bristolz, Oct 31 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004]

Article on obstacle avoidance (robotic) http://www.red3d.co.../nobump/nobump.html
[bristolz, Oct 31 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Sort of like this? http://bigpicture.t...mages/c_at_car1.jpg
[Ander, Oct 18 2007]

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       Are these like kerbfinders?   

       You don't see them any more, but they were like an aerial, about 15in long with a spring base. They mounted to your bumper, hanging downwards and out about 30 deg from the car. Upon approach to a kerb they gave an audible indication that you were about 5-6in from the kerb, by scraping against it.   

       They did *not* look cool.
—UnaBubba, Oct 31 2001
   

       Definitely better than the current system, where wing mirrors act as whiskers of a sort.   

       The thigh-pronging would make a nice addition to the already hysterical atmosphere that generally prevails inside cars when passing through a much too narrow gap at much too high a speed.
—stupop, Oct 31 2001
   

       I'm slightly worried about the effect on pedestrians and cyclists. Not very worried, but I imagine little wires swishing over someone's leg at 40 mph might smart a little. Guess that'd teach them to stand back from the kerb. Also fun to get in someone's spokes.   

       How long would they be?
—pottedstu, Oct 31 2001
   

       Perhaps they could prong every occupant in the thighs as you went through a gap?   

       If the prongs maintained the same distance for everyone then there would be a relative sensation of crampedness for everyone. Skinny little kids would pay no heed and big, fat, ol' Aunt Marie would be screamin' her head off when you went through a gap. She's already twice my width.
—UnaBubba, Oct 31 2001
   

       ... technical details ... need ironing out ... marketing ... <mumble, mumble>

Thanks for the 'kerbfinder' explanation, UB - these would be cooler than kerbfinders. The configuration would be between 5 and 10 whiskers of various lengths on each side of the car made, I imagine, out of a bendy black plastic material. The thigh-prongs would be calibrated to deliver the same pressure irrespective of the dimensions of the driver.
[pottedstu] maybe the whiskers should fold back into grooves on the side of the car at speeds above 10mph?
—hippo, Oct 31 2001
   

       kerbfinders are still available in Stateside auto parts stores. Saw some yesterday while getting a couple of shoulderbelt pads for a kids backpack, noted koolness factor is still -17.
—thumbwax, Oct 31 2001
   

       Those cats be fuckin' wit' your head man.
—UnaBubba, Oct 31 2001
   

       I think a visual guage in the dashboard would sufffice. No need to poke the passengers, is there? Unless they're really looking for a thrill ride...
—hinkle, Oct 31 2001
   

       anything to shirk one's responsibility to improve one's driving skills
—wireguy, Oct 31 2001
   

       My mother-in-law does that to the wheels of my cars. One of these days I'm gonna... send her to a school where they beat that 'driving in Braille' shit out of her.
—UnaBubba, Oct 31 2001
   

       Occasionally you'll find kerbfinders on the cars of wee old ones in Jersey or South Philly.
—PotatoStew, Oct 31 2001
   

       Yeah, for some reason they were popular with young Lebanese revheads here, a while ago.   

       As was the 'Makita cam'. You can't afford to pull down the motor and replace the camshaft with a 'lumpier' race version? Drill a hole in the exhaust manifold... the resultant noise sounds right, costs nothing but a new manifold down the track, (when you sell the car), and does nothing for performance.
—UnaBubba, Nov 01 2001
   

       My grandfathers car had curb feelers and I remember that, as a child, I found them to be quite fetching.
—bristolz, Nov 02 2001
   

       Cats with wing-mirrors would look better!
—bertram, Nov 02 2001
   

       You mean like Jaguars, Cougars, Mercury Lynxes, Sunbeam Tigers, Bobcats (now, there's a stretch)?
—UnaBubba, Nov 02 2001
   

       I don't find this idea to be any more than a thinly -disguised thigh stimulator.
—flerper, Apr 13 2003
   

       Damn! - rumbled.
—hippo, Apr 13 2003
   

       Damn, thought this said "Car Whiskey" at first...

The whole "curb/kerbfinders" thing (strips of tin or some kind of metal, looked like whiskers) was pretty popular with the thugs here for a while so they wouldn't fuck up their gangsta lowriders' tires & wheels when they parked, but then they switched to metal mudflaps that stick out diagonally.
—AfroAssault, Apr 13 2003
   

       <factoid>Cats' whiskers are exactly the same width as the widest part of the rest of the cat, so that they can tell if they will fit through a particular gap. Well, to within a whisker anyway.</factoid>   

       I heard this years ago, and I've since often wondered if they get longer if a cat gets fat. Does anyone have a fat cat with which to test this hypothesis? Or just to laugh at.   

       Croissant, btw.
—sild, Apr 14 2003
   

       Whiskers don't get longer if you get fatter. They are no fucking use whatsover. They are a fashion accessory only.
—The Kat, Apr 14 2003
   

       So how *do* you swing a cat, then?
—egbert, Apr 25 2003
   

       Hmmm. Hippos seem to possess more knowledge of vibrissae than Kats. Interesting.
—Shz, Apr 25 2003
   

       I had this idea, and it was already here. I thought it would be cool to have a metal band on each arm that contacts a little when another car gets within five or six feet on that side.   

       If a car tries to crowd into your lane in your blind spot, you would know to look around and see what was going on.
—nomocrow, Dec 19 2006
   

       //If a car tries to crowd into your lane in your blind spot//   

       That, or if you try to merge into a lane with a car already there that you can't see. I like that line of thinking, nomocrow. Bun for your anno, and for the post.
—21 Quest, Dec 20 2006
   

       even though most of y'all SEEM to agree with thumbwax's anno that "koolness factor is still -17", i note that there are +17 votes for hippo's sense of practicality and style. . . as for me, my '83 mazda pickup (now there's a stylin' ride) is equipped with curb-feelers (as we call 'em out here). i have 'em, and i use 'em. . .
—spike, Oct 17 2007
   

       [UnaBubba] kerbfinders seem like they would make you look more like a catfish than a cat.   

       Vertical whiskers would be useful so that you could tell if the vehicle would go into a carpark. I believe some people used to bake this by making the radio antenna the same height as the roof.
—marklar, Oct 17 2007
   

       Some trucks have these.
—wagster, Oct 17 2007
   


 

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