Jim Kenzie's The Driver's Seat

Buckle up, Moms-to-be.

This is hardly news, but a semi-recent report published a few months ago in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology reiterated that pregnant women should always wear seat belts when driving or riding in a car.

Researchers at the University of Michigan reported that 200 of the roughly 370 fetuses who die in car crashes in the US each year could be saved if Mom buckled up.

It has long been known that the biggest danger to a pre-born's health is harm to the Mom-to-be.

Yes, a seat belt can be uncomfortable, as they can be for many women, pregnant or not.

But they're a heck of a lot more comfortable than slamming your face into a steering wheel or dashboard.

Pregnant women should make sure the lap portion of the belt is below the tummy, and secure against the hip bones.

The shoulder strap should go between the breasts and to the side of the tummy, not across it.

Both portions should be snug, not loose, so the belt can do its job properly.

And Dad? Buckle up too.

We're in Good Hands

Rod Campbell ran a very successful public relations agency in the Dearborn Michigan area for a number of years. Among the things the transplanted Canadian did was hire away the former occupant of this seat, Len Coates. I was lucky enough to grab that seat and don't plan on letting it go any time soon.

Len was in many ways the founder of the automobile journalism profession in this country, among other things serving as the first president of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada.

Len was also a terrific writer, a man of great journalistic integrity, and a charming companion, as his many wives would testify!

He passed away a little under three years ago, and it's amazing how often his name still comes up in conversation within our ranks to this day.

Rod Campbell and his wife Sandy decided to honour Len's memory by offering awards to the "most promising" students in first, second and third years in the School of Journalism at Ryerson University, Len's alma mater.

Len's brother Bert, also a Ryerson graduate, was to present one of the awards, but got stranded in Arizona with a recalcitrant old motorhome. He asked me to fill in; I was honoured to do so.

Those who only knew Len in his bon vivant years are always surprised to learn that he was something of a student radical. During a confrontation with the administration over the editorial direction of The Ryersonian, the student newspaper - run by the students, but published by the School - he led a mass resignation of the staff and started The Eyeopener, a completely student-run publication.

Both papers exist to this day. But as Ron Granatstein, editor of the Toronto Sun and once an Eyeopener editor, said during a presentation he made this night, he looks back at the masthead of the Eyeopener he ran and sees nothing but people who have gone on to become top-rated journalists all across this globe.

This year's winners appear destined to follow in those footsteps.

The first year Coates Memorial Award winners were Kevin Hamilton and Aleysha Haniff. Rod Campbell presented these himself - his gorgeous wife Sandy was too shy to join him on stage.

Second year, Denise Law and Joyce Ying Chi Yip
(left and right respectively in the
accompanying photo. I think you recognize the guy in the middle.)

Third year, Heather Li and Jesse McLean, presented by Stuart Sherman of the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame, another institute that was very close to Len's heart.

These three awards were among dozens and dozens presented that night. I can't recall an awards night which showed how much the current members of the profession support the newcomers.

The Star of course was well represented, with current editor-in-chief Fred Kuntz presenting various awards, and former publisher John Honderich presenting the Gold Medal to the most outstanding student in the graduating class, Jeffrey Semple.

What impressed me so much about all the award winners was their personality and style. Facing what is an even more uncertain future than usual to students, with the face of journalism changing almost by the day, these young people exuded amazing energy and confidence.

We are indeed in good hands.

Sure could use a little good news today...

That old Anne Murray song (the song is old, not Anne Murray...) popped into my mind when I read about the local layoffs at the Magna plants.

850 jobs to be lost in Aurora and Newmarket by next June.

I guess if Chrysler is your biggest customer and Chrysler is not doing well, it stands to reason that their suppliers are going to feel the heat too.

Chrysler is now a private company so we are not privy to their financial situation as we are to those of Ford and General Motors.

One of the ironies of this entire situation is that Canadian car sales have actually been up recently - October was up by just a few percentage points over October of last year.

But up is still up.

And Chrysler is doing relatively better in Canada than they seem to be doing in the US.

But the Canadian market is still one-tenth the size of the US, and our economies, especially our automotive industries, are inextricably linked. As Pierre Elliot Trudeau once famously remarked: if you're a mouse sleeping beside an elephant, when the elephant rolls over, the mouse notices. When the mouse rolls over...

Actually, our automotive mouse does punch above its weight - some 14 percent of North American auto production takes place in Canada, at least partly due to our country's superior pension and health care schemes which lower manufacturing costs, partly due to the weak Canadian dollar during most of the recent decade and which, despite the resurgence in the past year or so is falling back to what most economists seem to feel is a more natural and certainly more competitive level, and largely due to the fact that based on all available data, Canadian car workers are simply among the highest-quality and most productive in the entire world.

Part of the problem with the Magna factories is a big part of the entire problem for the domestic car industry - many of their workers are older, hence are near the top of their respective pay scales. As I outline in more detail in this weekend's planned Carte Blanche column in the print edition of Wheels, one of the main advantages the import-brand car factories had and still enjoy to a degree is that new, young, non-unionized workers in southern "right-to-work" states work cheap and don't care about titanium hips.

While it is always hard to lose a job, I guess we also must understand that things do change. These jobs were not there before Magna showed up, and they brought a lot of wealth to the community, the province, the country.

Now it's time for some other entrepreneur to show up and start something else.

Billboard wisdom

A billboard on the I-405 in Los Angeles, sponsored by an Insurance Company, has a cartoon showing a guy driving along, tapping away at a laptop computer sitting on his dashboard.

The caption reads:

"The most dangerous office on earth - just drive."

Amen to that.

Plate-spotting

Vanity plates let you have some fun.

Here's one I spotted on the 401 the other day. Wisdom for the ages, young and old:

PB4UGO

And here's one I first saw with my own four eyes many years ago on a Jaguar XJ-S Convertible in Yorkville. It subsequently showed up in a mass e-mail transmission on a Porsche Boxster. Presumably she traded the Jag in on the Porker.

WAS HIS

Please send me your favourites.

It makes you wanna cry, Part Two

A few km further along, on the Gardiner around Kipling Avenue, I see a car weaving in its lane.

Not crossing over the lane markings, but nearly so.

In the centre lane, needless to say.

As I pass him on the right, I glance into the car to see if I can tell whether he appears drunk.

Nope.

The tell-tale glow of a cell phone is all I need to see.

Oh, boo hoo...

It makes you wanna cry, Part One

Driving home on the westbound Gardiner the other night. Pixelboard sign over the road read:

"Slow traffic keep right except to pass."

Well, it should say ALL traffic keep right except to pass, because (a) that's courteous, (b) that's intelligent, and (c) that's what Ontario's Highway Traffic Act requires that you do.

But we'll take it for now. The mis-wording only makes me sad; doesn't make me cry.

Then a guy in a gray Hyundai Elantra, with no-one in front of him for at least a kilometre in the Jim-only lane (i.e., the right lane, the correct lane, the driving lane) moves into the centre lane - directly underneath the huge, brightly lit pixelboard sign telling him precisely NOT to do just that.

Oh, boo hoo...

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...).