ICE

ICE - it's something that forms on our roads this time of year (got your winters on yet?)

ICE - in England particularly, it stands for In-Car Entertainment. They mean of the electronic/musical/sound system variety.

But to paramedics, ICE stands for In Case of Emergency.

Now we all should not use our cell phones while driving. But there is a safety component to them - if you get stranded, you're only a few pushed buttons from connecting with someone.

But what if you're unconscious?

Apparently, paramedics will scan a phone's directory looking for the ICE indication - that's who they would call, to notify that there's been a problem, to get medical info, whatever.

So maybe while you're waiting at the tire store for your winters to be installed, re-program your cell so that your top priority emergency contact number is prefaced with the letters ICE.

Might even save your life some day!

CAR and other British automobile magazines

I don't get to England as often as I used to.

When I do, I always try to find Minstrels candies for our editor, and as many British automobile magazines as I can carry.

I use them as a metaphor transplant - I figure the Brits have been dealing with our language for a lot longer than we have; it stands to reason they use it very well.

Might as well borrow when you can. Steal from one source, that's plagiarism; steal from many sources, that's research.

It always amazes me how England can produce so many huge, high-quality car mags when their circulations are a fraction of their equivalents on this continent. Their advertising rates/production cost ratio must be totally different, or, as one ex-pat suggested, the fact that subscriptions are a much smaller part of their business model means more copies are sold at full cover price.

No Dick Clark/Ed McMahon low-ball subscription systems over there, I guess.

It is faintly amusing how these magazines seem to expect supercar handling prowess from even the cheapest crap-can Diesel-powered econobox - 'terminal understeer coming out of the roundabouts at full chat!' - but they're always fun to read.

It is generally agreed that CAR is the world's best English-language car magazine, although like all publications, it has had its ups and downs.

It has not been above the occasional subterfuge to claim a scoop, as when Georg Kacher wrote his 'driving impression' of the Dodge Viper some years ago. In the index, probably crafted by an intern, it said something to the effect that 'our man' drives the Viper. If you read the story carefully, nowhere does it actually SAY that Kacher drove the car; in fact he was a passenger with then-Chrysler boss Bob Lutz driving.

Oh well, they were first to print.

I was all ready to point out that they sometimes make misteaks (hey, who doesn't?) In the most recent issue I have (October 2008) they state that Mike Kimberly left Lotus for a 'top job with Lotus's then-parent General Motors in 1991, later running Lamborghini for them."

What? General Motors never owned Lamborghini! Chrysler did, yes.

Then I figured, OK, maybe that 'for them' was not intended to refer to General Motors, although it sure reads that way.

I would never get away with something like that; obviously, Wheels has better copy editors than CAR.

Sometimes they do get a bit carried away with those metaphors. The beautifully- if improbably-named Anthony ffrench-Constant gets so wrapped up in them that occasionally you forget what he is talking about.

The British references are also sometimes a bit opaque to us Colonials. If you didn't grow up watching Dr. Who on TV, you have no idea what a 'Tardis-like' interior is.

And while 'chauvinism' is based on a French word, it is no stranger to CAR's pages. Everything British is brilliant, everything American is crap. Example: in a Moroccan road trip story on the fabulous Audi R8, author Nick Trott waxes lyrical over the car's "Magnetic Ride" system, without mentioning that this system was invented by Delco, a former General Motors division, and was first used on various Cadillacs and Corvettes.

A deliberate omission, or just not enough space to include everything?

If I didn't see this sort of thing all the time, I'd give them the benefit of my considerable doubt.

They love Porsches (why not?) They hate BMW styling chief Chris Bangle - there are at least four pejorative references to the American-born iconoclast in this issue alone.

(No wait - he IS American. That might be enough.)

But they are seldom dull.

And I guess that's why we like them.

Most of the time.

Speaking of satellite radio...

...the string of Porsche press cars I've had over the last few weeks (more on that soon) have mostly all had XM satellite radio systems in them.

If you travel long distances, as I have done a few times recently (and if you have a string of Porsches, why wouldn't you?) satellite radio is a nice feature. Yes, you do lose the signal when you go under a bridge or in certain weather conditions, but you don't outrun the reach of the station before Beethoven's Fifth is over.

Speaking of, as much as I like and listen to 96.3, I hate the fact that they never play the entire piece, just one movement at a time. Mess with Beethoven, and some day you're gonna pay...

And while I'm at it, in the UK that main BBC stations have a deal whereby if your radio is so equipped, it automatically switches the frequency so you always have BBC2 or whatever on as you drive across the country. Brilliant.

Anyway, I got in the new 911 the other morning and noticed that my satellite pre-set stations had been changed. Instead of XM Pops (same complaint as 96.3) and XM Classical (they do it right) there were Sirius Pops and Sirius Symphony Hall.

Turns out at midnight the night before, the merger of Sirius and XM had been completed, and the amalgamation of the systems' programming had been implemented.

I knew this merger was imminent, and also that the US merger had somehow gone further faster than the corresponding one between the equivalent Canadian companies.

Still, it caught me by surprise.

The clever, almost scary, thing was how the system had managed to re-program my radio with no intervention from me.

Turns out some XM channels survived - the '50s on 5, '60s on 6, '70s on 7 (I am constantly looking for new/old repertoire for 'The Compleat Works on their Mid-Life Crisis Tour') were all still there, but the XM classical stations had been replaced by the Sirius equivalents.

Still no Blue Collar Radio ("Git 'er DUNNNNN!") I guess Porsche only subscribes to the one comedy channel.

Satellite radio actually got off to a somewhat slower start than I think the industry expected. Sort of like the Internet, the prospect of paying for broadcast radio after getting it for free for so long wasn't universally welcomed by the target audience.

Especially because it was not even commercial-free. (Bugs me too when I pay eight bucks to watch a movie and they have ads in there too. The trailers for new movies are bad enough - but I digress...).

Which is presumably why the two competing systems merged - there wasn't room or profit enough to support both.

In-Car was obviously the main market for satellite radio, although you can have in-home systems as well.

But with the advent of iPods, music on the Internet, and the near-universal adoption of AUX input connectors and/or USB flash card slots on today's car radios, some industry experts figure that even CD players might be as rare in five to ten years time as 8-Tracks and cassettes are now.

The Times They Are a-Changin'...

(No, we don't normally do that song, but if you want it, we can fake it...).

You turn me on, I'm a radio

The test cars we evaluate rotate through various members of the press.

So when I get one it has usually been driven by various other people. And it always surprises me - I am easily surprised – that the radio station pre-sets are almost always in ascending order of frequency.

On the AM band, 590, 640, 680, 740, 1010, 1050, etc. On FM, 91.1, 92.5, 96.3, 98.1, 99,9, 107.1. Depending on your taste in radio, of course.

Now this made sense in the old days when station tuning was actually controlled by a string which you dialed up using the right knob on the radio.

The pre-sets were established by manually dialing up the station, pulling out the button, then pressing it all the way back in. How this worked I have no idea.

Today of course it’s all electronic.

So my question is - why don’t people set the pre-sets in order of preference? Your favourite radio station first, so it’s closest to your hand, second-favourite next, etc.

So for me on AM, it’s 1050, 1150 (love those oldies - it’s the music my band plays, except they weren’t oldies when we started playing them), 680 (traffic), 640 (Leafs) then 590 (other sports).

On FM, it’s 107.1 (Kim Mitchell is the best DJ in town), 92.5 (a bit weird sometimes, but OK), 96.3 (I drive slower when classical music is on) and - well, that’s about it, actually.

But when I have a car with satellite radio - well, that’s another story.

We lost a great one

One of the downsides of travel is that you don't get to read your local newspapers, so you aren't always sure that what is news where you are is also news back home.

Yeah, you could read it all on the Internet. But this blog notwithstanding, I'm really a newspaper sort of guy.

So I don't know if the passing of Pat Moss Carlsson got reported back home. She died last month, aged 73, from cancer.

She was the younger sister of Sir Stirling Moss, who some rank as the greatest racing driver of all time, certainly the best who never won a World Championship.

Both Moss siblings got their initial interest in horsepower one horse at a time, in equestrian events. She followed her brother into motorsport, and soon became a force in International rallying, not merely in the Ladies' events that typically ran in parallel with the "real' rally, but overall as well, winning the rugged Liege-Sofia-Liege event in 1960 in an Austin-Healey.

In that year she also met Swedish rally champion Erik Carlsson, whom she married five years later. They had one child, a daughter.

I have always thought that motorsport was one sport where women could compete on a equal basis with men, because there is no particular advantage to be gained from upper body strength or size, areas where genetically, men typically are superior. Indeed, smaller, lighter bodies, and greater pain tolerance - if you're designed to give birth, you can withstand darn near anything - should give the advantage to women.

It's usually a cultural thing; women athletes simply don't tend to be attracted to motorsport.

Pat Moss was a proven exception.

"Mon pays c'est ne pas un pays...

...c'est l'hiver"

My country isn't a country, it's the winter.

The 'chanson' by Quebecois Gilles Vignault states that his country isn't a country, it's the winter.

And starting this winter - December 15, to be exact - all Quebecois will have to put winter tires on their cars.

This applies only to cars registered in La Belle Province, so if you're visiting, you're off the hook. Well, maybe ON the hook if your car skids into the ditch.

It does include rental cars (the car rental companies are thrilled - there goes the profit margin).

For an English-language version of the regulation, follow this link:

http://www.mtq.gouv.qc.ca/portal/page/portal/grand_public_en/vehicules_promenade/securite_routiere/securite_conditions_hivernales/reglement_utilisation_pneus_hiver

So far, Ontario has shown no interest in following Quebec's lead.

For sure, installing four winter tires on your car is definitely the wise thing to do (and yes, I do follow my own recommendation). You shouldn't need a law to understand that - just think about the cost of a single fender-bender they might prevent.

Put them on cheap steel rims so as to spare the tires the stressful mounting/de-mounting process each spring and fall, and to protect your expensive alloy wheels from winter's depredations.

Modern 'snows' are far better than those of just ten years ago - they're quieter, and still handle wet and dry roads decently. Just about every tire company has good new winter rubber - Brian's Auto in Milton recommended Swedish-made Gislaveds last year for the Kenzie fleet; if there's enough snow on them, these things will climb trees.

One thing most people are unaware of is the temperature operating range of tires. Just like racing tires, road tires need a certain degree of heat in them to work properly; conversely, too much heat and they start to degrade again. The no-season tires that come on most new cars (I call them that because they aren't much good in any season) are designed to work best in mild temperatures. When it dips down below about 10 degrees, the rubber starts to harden, and they start to lose grip, even on dry pavement.

So, winter tires aren't just about traction; they're about the correct rubber compound for cold weather.

And speaking of heat, one of the unintended consequences of Quebec's winter tire law is that winter tires have become something of a 'hot' commodity - it may be too early to call it an epidemic, but reports are starting to roll in about cars sitting at the side of the road up on concrete blocks, their winter tires having been 'liberated', probably to be seen later on eBay...

Mea Culpa again...

Back bloggin' again.

Seriously; you folks who have never had to live with rural dial-up just don't know what it's like.

Fifteen minutes just to make a connection; thirty seconds later it's been dropped.

It's been worse since my laptop got stolen. My new one doesn't have a phone modem, so I have to go through my desk top, whose WinModem - apparently, the only type I can get for it - gets even slower speeds than the old laptop (currently 21.6 kbps; I used to regularly get 40 on the laptop, still hardly lightning but better and more reliable than this).

"Quitcher bellyachin'!" I can hear my editor saying; so back to work, with apologies for having been gone for a week. I'll make it up to you.

Speaking of (but not on) cell phones...

I don't know what percentage of radio is listened to in our cars.

For me, it is about 100 percent. Music is my life, but I almost never have a radio on in the house.

So I wish the people who write advertisements for radio would stop including ringing telephones as part of the 'plot', such as these things have plots.

Because I am always driving when I hear these things. I think, 'Darn it - who's calling me now?" and I reach for my cell.

Except I KNOW I usually have it switched off. But the sound of a ringing phone, even if it isn't my ring tone (hard to duplicate the sound of an ancient Audivox 8200) turns me into a Pavlovian dog.

Can't you people just have somebody knock on an office door instead of phoning?

Hold the cell phone...

...preferably between your knees. (Anybody else out there old enough to remember Jack Nicholson in "Five Easy Pieces"?)

The Ontario government continued its stunning failure to grasp the obvious today when it proposed banning the use of hand-held electronic devices such as cell phones, GPS units and BlackBerrys by car drivers.

No less an august body than the Ontario Medical Association pointed out what has been proven by research conducted around the world, including some right here at the University of Toronto over ten years ago, that the danger of using these things has little or nothing to do with a deterioration of manual dexterity; it's the mental distraction caused by the conversation or task.

Talking on a cell phone is roughly equivalent to driving drunk. Hand-held or hands-free, it makes no difference.

The other interesting research tidbit is that cell phone users don't get instantly sober when they hang up. Deterioration of the driving task can last as long as fifteen minutes after the call is completed.

So if the government thinks it has a case - and it clearly does, as anyone who drives in this town can see every single day - they should ban the use of these things altogether.

But of course, they don't have the political courage.

One thing that has always intrigued me: why does talking to someone on the phone seem to be more distracting than talking to someone else in the car?

The only clue I have came from my late brother, who spent much of his adult life in radio. He really did have a face for television - he was the good-looking one in the family - but he preferred radio because it was a more intimate medium. The listeners got more drawn into it, because they had to make up a large part of it.

On TV, you know what colour the announcer's shirt is - on radio, you have to imagine it.

I wonder if that's true for cell phones as opposed to live in-car conversations?

I'm wondering if a phone call just uses up more of your brain cells than a live conversation, trying, among other things, to guess what colour shirt his conversee is wearing?

Not sure how you'd ever prove that, but the facts about driver distraction need no further proof.

I guess I should look at this as a glass-half-full situation.

It's just a crying shame Premier McGuinty doesn't have the guts to take this law to its logical conclusion.

Test Fest - over half-way home

The annual Test Fest, where members of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada put all the new 2009 vehicles through the tough evaluation process which results in the Cars and Trucks of the Year, is three-fifths over.

A new process meant we had to have our ballots for the various categories marked by 5 p.m. today. As I type, representatives of the accounting firm KPMG are tallying those votes; the winners of the categories will be announced Thursday at 10 a.m. We then have the rest of Thursday and Friday to drive whichever of those we haven't yet driven, in order to choose the overall Car and Truck of the Year. Those results won't be announced for some time.

Like all voting members, I was assigned to test several categories. The favourite? Sports/Performance over $50,000.

This is where the Big Dogs run.

Everyone had their eye on the mighty Nissan GT-R, and certainly on the track it proved to be very fast, and very capable. It's pretty rough and noisy in more gentle road work, however.

Then I got into the BMW M3, with the new seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. Not quite as fast as the GT-R, but wow, is it a fantastic car. Beautifully built, great ride, excellent handling, and the new transmission rivals the Porsche PDK twin-clutch as the best of this type I have ever tried. Much smoother and quieter than the Nissan on the road too.

Another huge surprise was how good the Cadillac CTS-V was on the track. Borrowing both engine and tire technology from the fantastic Corvette ZR-1, this thing is hugely fast, and very confidence-inspiring on the track. Not bad on the road either!

The Supercharged Jaguar XF is more of a luxury car than a pure sports machine, but it also handled very well, and was by far the best-looking in the field. Most sumptuous interior too.

I had only been in any new-generation Lexus IS briefly a year or so ago, but this was my first shot at the V8-powered IS-F model. Like any Lexus, it was well-executed and refined, but this car is also very quick and competent. Cheap too, in this field.

The Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG was beautifully balanced, a great combination of athleticism and luxury. Its main drawback was that the Pirelli tires didn't have the ultimate grip, especially compared to the Michelins on the Cadillac.

Yes, it is a tough life.

But I also drove family cars over $30,000, and Small Cars over $18,000. Gotta pay the bills.