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.

Don’t even get me remotely started.

Mid-October, and already we’re getting ads for remote car starters.

Don’t.

Even.

Think.

About.

It.

Letting your car idle when it’s cold is so wrong, for so many reasons.

First, you are obviously burning infinite litres of fuel per kilometer (it seems worse to say zero miles per gallon). Even if gasoline is now back below a buck a litre, who can afford to waste it?

Second, your car – like you – warms up best when it is under load. You don’t prepare for your workout by wiggling your fingers; you put a little bit of stress on those muscles to get them into peak shape.

Ditto your car - especially your catalytic converter, a critical component in cleaning your car’s exhaust. It needs to warm up quickly to work properly; let your car idle and you’re just spewing pollutants into the atmosphere.

Idling is also very hard on your engine. When a cold engine idles, the gasoline-air mixture is rich, and raw gasoline can wash lubricating oil off the cylinder walls, leading to premature engine failure.

This is particularly true of Diesel truck engines - every single manufacturer of such engines strongly recommends that they not be allowed to idle excessively. Yet all the time we see these things idling for hours on end.

Why? Truckers, if you want a warm cab, there are cab warmers that are a whole bunch more efficient than using the engine.

My favourite remote car starter story happened to a friend of mine many years ago, when the interlock technology wasn’t as well-developed as it is now. He fired up his Mercedes-Benz, forgetting it had a manual transmission. The car was in gear, and it drove right into a store window.

Served him right.

All this damage and expense, just so you don’t have to sit in a cold car for a few minutes? Well, boo hoo.

C’mon, Canada. Man up. Winter happens. Get in your car, fire it up, and as soon as it can run smoothly without bucking and coughing, drive away.

Take it easy for the first few minutes until the temperature gauge starts to move.

But drive.

If you really are a wimp, buy a pair of thin gloves, fer cryin’ out loud.

What can we learn from Minneapolis?

Made a connection through the Minneapolis airport the other day. One of the more efficient airports, I must say.

But one thing in particular caught my eye - the wording on their moving sidewalks.

I got to wondering - maybe this is what we need on our highways.

Not "Walk / Stand" exactly. But maybe "Pass / Drive"?

Not that I think we should be looking AT the road - we should be looking DOWN the road.

But maybe this would give our brain-dead co-drivers half a clue that they should be OVER THERE!

Actually, the Toronto Airport might learn something here too. They do have a disembodied voice on their moving sidewalks suggesting that passengers stand to the right, and walk on the left. I keep hoping they could add - in both official languages of course - a suggestion along the lines of:

"Oh, and when you're driving home, may we also suggest you follow a similar courtesy to drive on the right and pass on the left"?

Hey - couldn't hurt. Always lots of room in the "Jim-only" lane.

STOP READING THIS BLOG...

...and go back up your computer!

***

OK, you're back?

What does that have to do with cars?

Only that failure to do that myself means I have not been posting on this blog for the last few days. I left my laptop on an airplane coming home from Denver Saturday evening, didn't notice it was missing until Sunday morning, and have been trying to recover ever since...

No, I didn't have much backed up, except my photos for next year's Kenzie Car Calendar...

Anybody out there know someone who just came into possession of a beat-up four-year old SONY VAIO laptop? Let me know!

It had to be either another passenger who had the gall to rifle through someone else's seat back pocket on their way out of the plane; a member of the cleaning crew (really unlikely; the risk of losing their job would surely be 'way too great for such a lousy return); or whoever sat in that seat (1F) when this plane (Airbus 319) flew to Edmonton the next day if the cleaning crew missed it - it is pretty small and tucks in beautifully behind the En Route magazine.

I haven't totally given up, but I have bought another...

OK, enough about this.

I'll be back blogging on cars and driving tomorrow!

Rich folks giving back…

If you can afford a Ferrari or a Maserati, you are among the fortunate few.

So it was gratifying to witness some 400 people, most of them Ferrari and Maserati owners, attend a fund-raising car rally and dinner auction a couple of Sundays ago.

Organized by Remo Ferri, the local Ferrari and Maserati dealer, in support of Sick Children's Hospital, this was the tenth annual such event.

I attended some of the early ones, which typically started at Ferri's Ferrari dealership in Woodbridge with attendees watching the Italian Grand Prix from Monza on what passed for a big-screen TV back in those days, followed by a few cars jaunting around the countryside for a barbecue.

I was even the auctioneer a couple of times, reaching my personal (at the time) high of $18,000 for a pair of Michael Schumacher racing gloves.

The event still starts at Ferri's dealership, but this year it was the huge, brand-new, as-yet-unopened facility across from his BMW store, also in Woodbridge.

Among the celebrities on hand was Ron Fellows, and the very Ferrari sports car he had won in at Mosport some years ago.

Also in attendance was Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino, driving a cruiser you definitely will not see in regular patrol duty - a Maserati Quattroporte done up in O.P.P livery!

Julian and I agreed that this day would be all about the kids, and we'd leave our traffic safety differences for another time.

Ferri set me out on the rally in a Maserati Gran Turismo. I was bound and determined to win the "scavenger hunt'-type rally, mainly by cheating, using my cell phone to call "my people'' who could look up the answers on the Internet. Hey - I didn't have a navigator!

(I didn’t win…). 

But the kids did. At the dinner at The Liberty Grand conference centre at the CNE Grounds, a real auctioneer, Rock Fournier, got people to truly open their wallets. With live and silent auction items, plus the rally entry fee, approximately $300,000 was raised for the hospital on this single day. This brings this event's ten year total to a very impressive $1.5 million.

Congratulations and thanks to all.

"Accelerating into brake lights..."

A friend of mine made that comment almost as a dejected-sounding aside as we were heading towards a traffic jam on the 401. I already had my four-ways on, and was watching my rear-view mirror for others who had not yet seen the blazing display of bright red about half a klick down the road.

The comment of course was directed at those who were pulling out of their lane to try and gain a car length or two.

"What," we collectively wondered, "is going through their minds?"

We collectively concluded, "Not much..."

HOV - or HDV?

Does anybody keep track of crash statistics on the High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes on some of our local freeways?

I drove up the DVP onto 404 the other day, more-or-less in the middle of rush hour, and I couldn't believe the number of dangerous situations I saw.

For starters, I think there's probably a correlation between those who car-pool and those who tend to drive slower than the normal flow of traffic. Friend of the environment and all that.

So why are these lanes invariably positioned to the left of the highway? The left-most lane is supposed to be the fast lane. One left-lane bandit can clog the highway for km after km because there's no way to get around him.

And when cars try to escape the HOV lane to exit the highway, they are spewed right out into faster traffic. I saw several near-hits in just a few km. That makes the HOV lane an HDV lane - High-Danger Vehicle lane.

Now, like California, these new HOV lanes require only ONE extra rider - you can car-pool in a Miata.

But the main thing I noticed during my brief flirtation with these lanes is that I'd estimate between 70 and 80 percent of the cars in the HOV lane in fact had just the driver in them.

I can only imagine that most of these drivers run this route every day, and know that the enforcement of the two-to-a-car rule must be near-zero. Because there they were, taking advantage of the HOV lane without meeting the criterion.

Which also makes them HDV lanes - High-Duplicity Vehicle lanes.

If there isn't going to be any enforcement, then there is no incentive to car-pool, hence they should simply do away with this concept and return all lanes to all traffic.

Oh yes, and encourge everyone to Drive Right.