Dashboard design

I was traveling from Hyderabad airport to Hi Tech city a few days ago in a cab, a Renault Logan. The car began to beep as the driver exceeded the speed limit. I looked at the dashboard and noticed that the needle was hovering between 20 and 30.

That cannot be right I thought to myself. The speed limit on the Outer Ring Road should be somewhere near 80 kmph.

Looking more closely at the dashboard, I realized I had been reading the tachometer marked x100 RPM. (Picture here) The speedometer was the other dial and it read 100 kmph.

Classic French design I suppose. Form-over-Function. I suspect some designer at Renault thought that two dials with similar looking numbers in steps of 10 looked better.

The Japanese will have the speedometer marked in double digits for kmph or mph and the tachometer marked in single digits with the legend showing x1000 RPM.

Interestingly, Mercedes Benz had the same issue until recently. The W126 S Class of the 1980s and 1990s had a similar dashboard design with the tachometer numbers in 10s with the legend x100 RPM. Google a picture of the Mercedes S Class (W126) instrument cluster or click here .

I wonder why automobile manufacturers are insistent on distracting you while you drive.

Here is another one. "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear." There you are, going 140 kmph on Indian roads trying to focus on the road ahead for cows, dogs, pigs, cycles, motorcycles, tractors, bullock carts and trucks coming at you on the wrong side of the road. And they want you to worry about optical illusions?