Is it possible to drive into a fart? I've had some serious discussions with family members about this.
Sometimes when you're in the car, you'll smell it, and the predictable cries of accusation always spring up. But I don't see how the source of it can be anyone in the car, for the car is moving. If they farted in the car, the stench would have been left behind, right? So my conclusion is that you're driving into a fart produced by someone in a car up ahead.
Make sense?
Only if the windows are open.
PS: Don't forget cows.
Well, it is possible to drive into the smell of a sewage treatment plant that smells just as bad, even if the windows are closed.
If it's just a single person farting in a convertible ahead of you, I'd think your car moving along at 70 MPH or whatever would dissipate the smell before you'd register it.
While I *guess* it's possible, it would have to be a really strong one. And the windows would have to be open.
I can sometimes smell people smoking in front of me, especially because they are flicking their cig out the window.
There is a rendering plant I sometimes drive by, and I always try to remember to roll up winds, turn on AC and set to recirc before I get close to it. I have no idea how the people who live near it stand it.
As for a fart in the car ahead, you'd would just about have to be in town on a windless day, and the guy in the car ahead would have to really like baked bean and sauerkraut pizza.
PPS: the car is an inertial (usually) frame of reference, so a fart in the car will remain in the car unless dissipated by an outside force (such as the windows being open).
PPPS: the smelter is the delter.
Quote from: NE2 on January 08, 2014, 10:12:30 AM
PPS: the car is an inertial (usually) frame of reference, so a fart in the car will remain in the car unless dissipated by an outside force (such as the windows being open).
....
I have, on occasion, used the sunroof's "tilt" feature to lift the rear of the sunroof, then turned on the windshield defroster to blow a fart out the roof.
Why am I not surprised at who started this thread? :-D
One of my childhood memories is traveling along KY 89 near the community of Trapp in Clark County. Because my dad did not like paying tolls on the Mountain Parkway, usually when we went to Winchester, we took KY 52, KY 1571 and KY 89 through Estill County. Near Trapp, there was some source of a rotten egg smell that permeated the air for a small area. I never knew what caused that smell and it has not existed for many, many years.
Other natural sources of foul odors that I remember are a pig farm along KY 92 north of Monticello in Wayne County (which was on the way to my grandfather's cabin near Lake Cumberland, where we used to go fishing on occasion) and the dairy farm on the campus of Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond.
And as previously mentioned, sewage plants can really stink sometimes. The ones in my hometown and the town where I work are both especially fragrant.
But to try to provide a serious answer to Tim's question, I don't think you could smell an instance of flatulence from a car you're following or just met. Despite their denials, it was probably someone in the vehicle.
I actually think this would be possible under the right conditions.
I used to work with a 400-lb man who could let out massive amounts of very pungent gas multiple times in a row. He regularly drank a lot of alcoholic beverages, and ate tons of spicy foods. Once, after eating at a local Mexican Resteraunt, we were working in a very large garage, which had two truck bays plus a ton of other space. He let off about a fart so pungent that it stunk up 7/8 of this massive garage. He repeated this about six times in next 25 minutes.
So, if you were sitting at a red light near this guy, and he was on his motorcycle, and he farted, you would probably be able to smell it.
Quote from: Brian556 on January 08, 2014, 11:51:27 AM
I actually think this would be possible under the right conditions.
I used to work with a 400-lb man who could let out massive amounts of very pungent gas multiple times in a row. He regularly drank a lot of alcoholic beverages, and ate tons of spicy foods. Once, after eating at a local Mexican Resteraunt, we were working in a very large garage, which had two truck bays plus a ton of other space. He let off about a fart so pungent that it stunk up 7/8 of this massive garage. He repeated this about six times in next 25 minutes.
So, if you were sitting at a red light near this guy, and he was on his motorcycle, and he farted, you would probably be able to smell it.
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Did I
really just read that?
I've smelt some nasty things when driving - and some of them are from my own rectal cavity. I've found that even if I roll down the windows, the smell lingers for as long as if I didn't open them in the first place.
I think the worst thing I've ever smelled while driving was that seemingly permanent stench that hangs in the air around the Goethals Bridge. The worst time was when my brother gave me a ride to New York so I could pick up furniture our relatives were giving me (I was renting a truck for the trip home). We had the windows open for most of the trip and it was pleasant, but for some unknown reason he refused to put up the windows as we approached the Carteret exit despite my urging him to do so, and by the time we wound up in stopped traffic on the Goethals Bridge it was too late. I thought I was going to have to lean out the window and puke. Car and Driver once referred to that area as "miles and miles of universal fart," but I must disagree because farts smell a lot more pleasant than that area.
Back in the mid-1980s I was riding with my father and brother near Laurel Hill State Park in Pennsylvania en route to Seven Springs for a Boy Scout ski weekend one Friday night when my father madly swerved to avoid something. I twisted around to see what had happened just in time to see another one of the fathers on the trip (who was following us) fail to notice the skunk my dad had just avoided. We were probably doing 45 to 50 mph and he was driving a pickup.....the skunk never stood a chance, of course, but you could actually see a cloud of some kind of vapor (I don't know what, but I still assume it was a combination of blood, guts, and the contents of the skunk's stink glands). We never smelled a thing....until we all pulled up and parked at the ski resort a little while later and those poor guys got out of the truck. Damn, I was glad I didn't have to ride in that vehicle. Their clothes smelled all weekend because they were all too cheap to use the resort's laundry service, and we later learned they could still smell the skunk on the drive home that Sunday. :ded:
Quote from: NE2 on January 08, 2014, 10:12:30 AM
PPPS: the smelter is the delter.
If one was to deal the smell, and then pass by that point later on (next hour, next day, later in life...) and it can STILL be smelled, then please apply for an atomic bomb permit!
Paper mills are especially bad generators of that smell, there was one in Perry near US 19 that used to give me fits.
Driving past hog carriers on the road is also not recommended.
Quote from: 1995hoo on January 08, 2014, 12:17:30 PM
Back in the mid-1980s I was riding with my father and brother near Laurel Hill State Park in Pennsylvania en route to Seven Springs for a Boy Scout ski weekend one Friday night when my father madly swerved to avoid something. I twisted around to see what had happened just in time to see another one of the fathers on the trip (who was following us) fail to notice the skunk my dad had just avoided. We were probably doing 45 to 50 mph and he was driving a pickup.....the skunk never stood a chance, of course, but you could actually see a cloud of some kind of vapor (I don't know what, but I still assume it was a combination of blood, guts, and the contents of the skunk's stink glands). We never smelled a thing....until we all pulled up and parked at the ski resort a little while later and those poor guys got out of the truck. Damn, I was glad I didn't have to ride in that vehicle. Their clothes smelled all weekend because they were all too cheap to use the resort's laundry service, and we later learned they could still smell the skunk on the drive home that Sunday. :ded:
I actually don't mind the smell of skunk. now bleach, that to me is an unpleasant one.
Quote from: DeaconG on January 08, 2014, 12:52:24 PM
Paper mills are especially bad generators of that smell, there was one in Perry near US 19 that used to give me fits.
Driving past hog carriers on the road is also not recommended.
Nor hog farms for that matter.
Quote from: DeaconG on January 08, 2014, 12:52:24 PM
Paper mills are especially bad generators of that smell...
I-95 near Brunswick, Georgia is a supernatural type of nasty.
West Monroe, Louisiana has a particularly pungent paper mill. Even to someone who lives here, it can occasionally be pretty bad.
Tacoma, Washington used to be well known for its Tacomaroma that came from a combination of a paper mill and the industrial smell of the sea. Its a lot better now, you can still get a sniff every now and then, but it used to be unbearable. I have similar memories of Chillicothe, Ohio near where the family farm was having a similarly offensive paper odor
Littered throughout the eastern Dakotas/western Minnesota area are some sugar beet factories, which just smell...weird.
Smells of whatever stench, cannot be topped by some of the following:
"Mount Trashmore," one of my County's trash burning landfills, located in Coconut Creek, FL in northern Broward County immediately east of the Florida's Turnpike at Exit 69.
What is colloquially know as the "backwash" along of the Hudson River following NY 9J (River Road, originally the Farmer's Turnpike from 1802) between Columbiaville and Rensselaer, NY.
POWERFUL swamp gas approaching the US 17 bridge crossing the South Carolina-Georgia state line into Savannah, GA on a summer evening.
I grew up in a small suburban neighborhood outside of Hudson, NY in the Town of Greenport which surrounds the first chartered city in independent America (1785). Greenport has no zoning ordinance and it has been voted down twice in my lifetime. A now closed, chicken farm in the northwest direction of the home where I grew-up and now own, occasionally would catch just the right wind direction. Dear God it was so, so, so bad. No one would go outdoors. Children stayed indoors to play.
Franksville Wisconsin area can be a little pungent after the cabbage harvest. There is always some residue left in the fields, and if it's warm out it can make quite an aroma.
Pekin, Illinois has a rather odd smell. There's a plant in the southwest part of town that distills alcohol for use in products, including ethanol for gasoline. https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=40.553265,-89.663029&spn=0.018814,0.042272&t=m&z=15&layer=c&cbll=40.55322,-89.663052&panoid=OEGaMZ5YsDWXeTgPPtyQ5Q&cbp=12,354.7,,0,-0.73
Faribault, MN always smells like crap, even when you're nowhere near the sewage treatment plant they blame it on. A common joke here is that the two biggest cities in Rice County traded off: Northfield got the brains, Faribault got the county seat.
Quote from: Brian556 on January 08, 2014, 11:51:27 AM
I used to work with a 400-lb man who could let out massive amounts of very pungent gas multiple times in a row. He regularly drank a lot of alcoholic beverages, and ate tons of spicy foods. Once, after eating at a local Mexican Resteraunt, we were working in a very large garage, which had two truck bays plus a ton of other space. He let off about a fart so pungent that it stunk up 7/8 of this massive garage. He repeated this about six times in next 25 minutes.
Fired for farting? Now that's harsh.
Quote from: bandit957 on January 08, 2014, 03:17:58 AM
Sometimes when you're in the car, you'll smell it, and the predictable cries of accusation always spring up. But I don't see how the source of it can be anyone in the car, for the car is moving. If they farted in the car, the stench would have been left behind, right? So my conclusion is that you're driving into a fart produced by someone in a car up ahead.
Make sense?
The fart will stay in the car because it, along with everything else inside the car is traveling at the same speed. It's the same reason you can toss a ball straight up in a moving vehicle and have it fall straight down back into your hand. The fart will diffuse in the air the same way it would in a static room.
It's also the same reason we do not detect the thousands of miles an hour we are traveling through space on our planet.
Did we just pass a sulphur factory? - Bill Cosby
Quote from: triplemultiplex on January 08, 2014, 06:35:35 PM
It's also the same reason we do not detect the thousands of miles an hour we are traveling through space on our planet.
You don't? Freak.
-The Doctor
Quote from: formulanone on January 08, 2014, 02:40:50 PM
Quote from: DeaconG on January 08, 2014, 12:52:24 PM
Paper mills are especially bad generators of that smell...
I-95 near Brunswick, Georgia is a supernatural type of nasty.
Oh God, I forgot about that one.
I suppose it is possible that a car driving past this parked vehicle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2QNuDUTocE) moments after the driver opens his door would have to contend with some flatulence.
Once I was stopped at a traffic light with the windows down and the guy in the next car over ripped an LAP.
I think this forum has JUMPED THE SHARK
Quote from: vdeane on January 08, 2014, 08:24:51 PM
I think this forum has JUMPED THE SHARK
On the contrary, the fact that this forum is capable of producing and sustaining threads like this is one thing I love about it. :-D
Quote from: triplemultiplex on January 08, 2014, 06:35:35 PM
The fart will stay in the car because it, along with everything else inside the car is traveling at the same speed. It's the same reason you can toss a ball straight up in a moving vehicle and have it fall straight down back into your hand.
Not so sure if that's doable. Once when I was in high school, some kid on the school bus tried spitting a wad of bubble gum into the air and catching it with his mouth, but it landed on the floor because the bus was moving. I figured that if the bus was stopped, it would have landed back in his mouth.
QuoteIt's also the same reason we do not detect the thousands of miles an hour we are traveling through space on our planet.
That's because our planet has gravity.
Quote from: Molandfreak on January 08, 2014, 05:44:15 PM
Faribault, MN always smells like crap, even when you're nowhere near the sewage treatment plant they blame it on.
Hm. Don't think I noticed this -- thankfully so, I guess. I don't drive I-35 up to Minneapolis that often, but I was just there on Saturday (the weather in western Minnesota made it too risky to take MN 60) and didn't notice a thing.
Quote from: bandit957 on January 08, 2014, 08:55:27 PM
Not so sure if that's doable. Once when I was in high school, some kid on the school bus tried spitting a wad of bubble gum into the air and catching it with his mouth, but it landed on the floor because the bus was moving. I figured that if the bus was stopped, it would have landed back in his mouth.
the bus must have lurched. if it is traveling at constant velocity, you can do the "throw and catch" trick.
Quote from: TCN7JM on January 08, 2014, 09:14:09 PM
Quote from: Molandfreak on January 08, 2014, 05:44:15 PM
Faribault, MN always smells like crap, even when you're nowhere near the sewage treatment plant they blame it on.
Hm. Don't think I noticed this -- thankfully so, I guess. I don't drive I-35 up to Minneapolis that often, but I was just there on Saturday (the weather in western Minnesota made it too risky to take MN 60) and didn't notice a thing.
It's especially smelly on MN 3 and the eastern edge of town. I-35 is far enough away :D
Quote from: Duke87 on January 08, 2014, 08:48:21 PM
Quote from: vdeane on January 08, 2014, 08:24:51 PM
I think this forum has JUMPED THE SHARK
On the contrary, the fact that this forum is capable of producing and sustaining threads like this is one thing I love about it. :-D
It still has the distinction of being among the weirdest.
Now I'm thinking it would be fun to post a thread with the sole intention of topping this, but my thoughts quickly went NSFW. Moral of the story: I'm not allowed to think.
Also: you removed the awesome formatting!
Quote from: DeaconG on January 08, 2014, 12:52:24 PM
Paper mills are especially bad generators of that smell, there was one in Perry near US 19 that used to give me fits.
Driving past hog carriers on the road is also not recommended.
You mean getting passed by a livestock truck? It's extremely rare that I see a bull/hog hauler doing less than 70, anywhere. Usually they are well north of 75, and can occasionally be seen in the triple-digits out west.
Those guys are basically the last holdout of "outlaw trucking."
Driving past a dairy farm in the spring would certainly be an example of driving into flatuence.
You think dairy farms in the spring are bad?
Try driving past the beef farms in western Nebraska (or anywhere else) in the mid-late summer. That's driving into some of the worst flatulence to ever grace the air.
Quote from: bandit957 on January 08, 2014, 08:55:27 PM
Not so sure if that's doable. Once when I was in high school, some kid on the school bus tried spitting a wad of bubble gum into the air and catching it with his mouth, but it landed on the floor because the bus was moving. I figured that if the bus was stopped, it would have landed back in his mouth.
Because high school kids do everything perfectly.
Quote from: Crazy Volvo Guy on January 09, 2014, 01:22:36 AM
You mean getting passed by a livestock truck? It's extremely rare that I see a bull/hog hauler doing less than 70, anywhere. Usually they are well north of 75, and can occasionally be seen in the triple-digits out west.
Those guys are basically the last holdout of "outlaw trucking."
I have never seen a livestock truck doing over 100. in fact, the only two times I've seen any truck doing verifiably over 100 (i.e. I paced them) was one tractor hauling an empty flatbed, 106 down the grade from Flagstaff, and one random tractor with no trailer, doing over 103 on CA-99 near Fresno... I was doing 103 and it was gaining.
Quote from: Brandon on January 08, 2014, 06:45:39 AM
Well, it is possible to drive into the smell of a sewage treatment plant that smells just as bad, even if the windows are closed.
I remember smelling a weird smell on I-95 where it passes Port Richmond in Philadelphia. My dad said that it's probably the Delaware River or a sewer. It smells like sewage to me. Has anyone noticed this? I believe it's usually when the weather is warm.
Quote from: ilvny on January 09, 2014, 06:49:59 PM
I remember smelling a weird smell on I-95 where it passes Port Richmond in Philadelphia. My dad said that it's probably the Delaware River or a sewer. It smells like sewage to me. Has anyone noticed this? I believe it's usually when the weather is warm.
I noticed such a smell on D.C. 295 today - a vehicle carrying a load of untreated sewage unloaded it all onto the southbound carriageway between the Maryland border and the I-295/I-695 interchange.
And there is the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant near the southern tip of the land area of D.C. adjacent to I-295, which often smells pretty pungently in the summer. I don't know how the people next door at the Naval Research Lab get much work done.
Quote from: Crazy Volvo Guy on January 09, 2014, 07:34:32 AM
You think dairy farms in the spring are bad?
Try driving past the beef farms in western Nebraska (or anywhere else) in the mid-late summer. That's driving into some of the worst flatulence to ever grace the air.
I would have to agree with you, the smell of the beef farms is a rather foul odor. I drove through western Kansas on US 50 through Dodge City last year and yes, that was a horrible sort of flatulence.
As for the dairy farms, I wrote that comment when I was half awake this morning.
Quote from: formulanone on January 09, 2014, 07:50:43 AM
Quote from: bandit957 on January 08, 2014, 08:55:27 PM
Not so sure if that's doable. Once when I was in high school, some kid on the school bus tried spitting a wad of bubble gum into the air and catching it with his mouth, but it landed on the floor because the bus was moving. I figured that if the bus was stopped, it would have landed back in his mouth.
Because high school kids do everything perfectly.
No, because it was inertia.
Quote from: vdeane on January 08, 2014, 10:14:47 PM
Also: you removed the AWESOME FORMATTING!
Better? :bigass:
I was actually tempted to format the post like that, but figured that would be overkill territory.
ITT Tim fails high school physics.
Quote from: NE2 on January 10, 2014, 07:59:01 AM
ITT Tim fails high school physics.
We never had physics where I went to high school.
The easier test to see what we are talking about is to simply drop an object in a moving vehicle and observe its trajectory. It will fall straight down as if you were standing still.
I once got a bee in the car while going 70 mph. I had a bit of adventure hoping not to get stung and had to stop to get the bee out, but I always wondered what it was like for the bee. I assume he was flying along in his normal way, and then experienced a sudden gust of wind in the direction of my motion, causing a great change in his momentum, but leaving him at relative peace with his new surroundings (although I was not at peace with my new surroundings).
Quote from: wxfree on January 11, 2014, 01:54:48 AM
I once got a bee in the car while going 70 mph. I had a bit of adventure hoping not to get stung and had to stop to get the bee out, but I always wondered what it was like for the bee. I assume he was flying along in his normal way, and then experienced a sudden gust of wind in the direction of my motion, causing a great change in his momentum, but leaving him at relative peace with his new surroundings (although I was not at peace with my new surroundings).
I got one at 50+ mph on a random MD state highway. I panic braked, flung the door open, and practically barrel rolled out. I smashed a 2L water bottle but I eventually got the fucker. Lesson: I may be scared of bees like all hell, but I can smash.
I've had stinging insects fly into the car before. Not fun. After nearly wrecking a few times trying to get them out in the past, I've learned to pull over to evict the unwelcome intruders.
One incident with a wasp when I was driving home from college in my freshman year stands out.
Should we merge this thread with the What NOT to Eat On a Road Trip thread?
Chicken processing plants are extremely putrid smelling. Want proof? Drive through Arcadia, LA on US 80 west going toward Gibsland. It'll make you rethink your KFC lunch plans! X-(
Ashdown, Arkansas is infamous for smelling like a rancid SBD. The culprit: a paper mill, the only one in western Arkansas. Sometimes when the wind is blowing from the north, you can smell it in Texarkana. You couldn't pay me to live there.
There's a paper mill out in western Kentucky that smells awful.
Quote from: hbelkins on January 18, 2014, 07:52:55 PM
There's a paper mill out in western Kentucky that smells awful.
They're all over the Deep South. There's one in Port Wentworth, GA, that can be smelled from Savannah when the wind is blowing from the north. It is a sickening smell, and makes my stomach hurt. I wish the paper companies would switch to hemp, which can't smell as bad as wood pulp.
With the expanding scope of the topic, I'll mention what I guess could be called the planet's flatulence, or one form of it pervasive in oil country. I think it's H2S, hydrogen sulfide. It's awful stuff. At times it just smells foul, and at other times it's very strong. It once made my eyes water while I was driving by. Supposedly it's killed people working in mineral extraction areas when there have been large releases. Some people I know in the oil fields have detectors and gas masks and air tanks.
Just driving through areas where it's common makes me wonder how miserable it must be to live in such a place. I've mostly noticed it from San Angelo, to Midland, to Fort Stockton, but it's also common farther west and north.
I avoid my hometown due to the fact that it stinks of pulp.
Quote from: hbelkins on January 16, 2014, 10:59:07 AM
I've had stinging insects fly into the car before. Not fun. After nearly wrecking a few times trying to get them out in the past, I've learned to pull over to evict the unwelcome intruders.
One incident with a wasp when I was driving home from college in my freshman year stands out.
And this is the reason I refuse to drive with the windows open... I have a straight
phobia of stinging insects (particularly bees, wasps, HORNETS...) and I will go to many lengths to avoid those fuckers.
Quote from: hbelkins on January 18, 2014, 07:52:55 PM
There's a paper mill out in western Kentucky that smells awful.
I can't say I've smelt a paper mill before... should I be lucky?
My hometown (Lafayette, LA) has two sewage treatment plants right within the city limits. One was within olfactory reach of my middle school. The other is on what has now become one of the city's busiest streets, with new stores within walking distance.
I also recall the smell from the sugarcane processing plant near my father's hometown.
At the time that Hurricane Rita came through southwestern Louisiana, I was working for a casino that took a direct hit from the storm. I brought my then-girlfriend out to my apartment for a weekend. She complained that everything smelled "like mud."