Jim Kenzie's The Driver's Seat

Safer Roads? It's Easy...

One of the defining moments of my traffic safety education was a story in Road & Track magazine a million years ago which reported on research indicating that traffic drives at the speed of the road was designed to handle, not according to a random number painted on a sign by the side of the road.

No, it doesn't go as fast as it possibly can - drivers seem to have a built-in sense of survival.

But if the road is designed to accommodate, say, 100 km/h, that's about the speed at which most drivers will choose to drive.

I don't know if that research has been replicated since.

But a perfect example of the concept is currently on display on the 401 eastbound near the Hurontario Street construction. It remains three lanes wide as you enter the signed construction area, although there is no evidence that any construction is being done, other than that the 'Jersey Barrier' - the trapezoidal cross-section concrete wall - is moved closer to the edge of the left lane, thereby removing the shoulder.

The speed limit changes at that point from 100 km/h to 80 km/h.

But does anybody even lift from the 120 - 130 most everyone is doing there?

No.

I think it supports that old research - the road doesn't change, it still looks like it was designed to be driven at 130, and that's what most people will drive.

Unless there's a police car there, but with no shoulder to park on, that's unlikely.

A neighbour of mine - the person who got me into this business in the first place, as a matter of fact - became a municipal politician. At the time, the municipality had recently rebuilt a stretch of a major road to 'modern' standards - wider, smoother, with bigger shoulders - but they found cars were going faster than traffic planners wanted.

No kidding!

To paraphrase the Kevin Costner movie catch phrase, "Build it faster and they will come faster."

She asked me if there was anything they could do to slow people down.

"Sure!'' I said.

"Dig a one foot wide, one foot deep ditch across the road every 100 yards or so."

"We can't do that!" she exclaimed.

"I know," I replied.

"But you asked me how to slow people down, and that's the only way to do it. Even speed bumps just provide a challenge to good suspension."

So if you want people to drive slow, don't build fast roads.

If however you do want people to get where they are going quickly, efficiently and safely - and isn't that what our road network is supposed to do? - then build good roads, apply relevant speed limits, and use our scarce police resources to ensure people drive properly on them.

Yes, it really is that easy.

So, why don't we do it?

Maybe you should ask our new Minister of Transportation, the Honourable Glen Murray.

I already have, and am awaiting his response...

 

Are Canadians Becoming More Polite Drivers - follow-up

My rant about buttinskis on the highway yesterday reminded me of the need for us to find ways to indicate to other drivers what jerks they are being.

I have searched - so far without success - for a portable pixelboard sign you could set up in your rear window, whereby you could flash messages to other drivers.

If for no other reason than to say, "HEY BUDDY! Your Daytime Running Lights don't turn on your taillights!"

I know such technology exists, because the unmarked German police car that pulled over my fellow-journalist / driving partner (who shall remain anonymous here, but you know who you are...) in the Bentley Speed GT a couple months back had one.

Very high-tech - it was hidden in the hat shelf, and rotated into view only when the officer pushed a button.

All it said was "POLIZEI", with flashing arrows pointing to the right, directing us into a rest area where they had set up a speed limt enforcement/entrapment fishing hole.

Yeah, German cops do that too - they are cops, after all.

(In case you didn't know, not all of the Autobahn is speed-limit-free.)

They had a van set up, three cop/clerks, no waiting, with currency conversion charts for foreigners - very efficient, as you'd expect from the Germans.

Also, expensive - something like 240 Euros for 32 km over the 100 km/h limit.

But surprise surprise - I digress...

I have also thought of other ways of expressing displeasure with other drivers.

For example, I've conceptually invented (no prototypes - yet) a paint-ball launching system, which would lob a paint ball pellet onto the hood of the offending car.

Except instead of paint, it would contain a paste mixture full of sulphuric acid.

Wouldn't that be delicious?

Now, it wouldn't be truly effective as a disciplinary device, because the perp wouldn't associate the punishment with the crime.

He'd just wonder - why is there this patch of peeled-off paint on the hood of my car?

Maybe if he got enough of them he'd start to figure it out.

That reminded me of a classmate back in my University days who mounted a Cibie Oscar driving light on the trunk lid of his car, pointing backward.

Someone forget to dim their high beams while driving behind him?

About 400 million candlepower right between the eyes should be warning enough...

You do know I'm kidding, right?

Sort-of?...

Are Canadians Becoming More Polite Drivers?

For just a moment, I thought I was back in Germany.

OK, there was still a speed limit on the 401.

But I was heading eastbound the week before last, just west of Napanee. The signs indicated the right lane was being closed for construction - memo to the Ministry of Transportation, the ONLY time the right lane should EVER be closed, and even then it should be the passing lane that gets closed and the driving lane diverted to the left.

Hey - we do have a new Minister of Tranportation! Hope springs eternal.

But I digress...

In any event, about a full kilometer before the actual construction, everybody had aligned themselves in the soon-to-be-only lane, just as proper, tidy and polite as those Germans.

We - they - didn't even need the transport truckers doing their staggered 'line up or we crush you' routine.

It was so nice!

Then, just as I got to the start of the construction, there was a fairly new black Corolla, zooming up the remnants of the right lane and butting in at the very last minute, a couple of cars ahead of me.

Seriously, man (and I could see it was a man, but I didn't catch the plate number) - would you do that in a grocery store check-out line, or a movie theatre ticket line?

No.

So why do it on the highway?

I've always thought if we had to post our name and photo on the roof of our car - eliminating the anonymity that cars give us - our behaviour would improve.

Michael Jackson sang, "One Bad Apple Don't Spoil the Whole Bunch".

But just as my faith in Canadian drivers was being reaffirmed...

Happy Birthday Aston Martin and Porsche!

Aston Martin has renewed the fourth car in its year-long total-product-plan refresh program - the Rapide S.

A new front end, designed largely around European pedestrian crash standards, the new more powerful and torquier engine and a revised rear deck spoiler are the main upgrades. 

Driving impressions to follow in a few days.

Aston Chairman Dr. Ulrich Bez also let slip at dinner last night here in not-so-sunny Spain that Aston will be the featured marque at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance this coming August, celebrating the company's 100th Anniversary. The official announcement will come on Wednesday.

Porsche will also be celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the 911 at Pebble.

This might be a good year to go...

How Clever Are Those Germans?

This certainly is no Big Deal.

But I thought it was interesting.

This is a picture (don't worry; it was taken when I was stopped on the shoulder of the road) of the SatNav display in the instrument cluster of a new Porsche Boxster.

It shows the 401 interchange I take every time I drive into The Big Smoke.

Now the normal route when coming southbound on 25 to follow Highway 401 eastbound into Toronto (what the road signs say you should do) is to take the on-ramp to the right, swing around on what we used to call a 'cloverleaf' - that would be the white circular piece of road below and just to the left of 'Chisholm Drive' in that pic - and join the highway.

But the route Porsche's SatNav is indicating suggests turning left heading towards the commuter parking lot (which isn't shown on the map) then continue onto the on-ramp from northbound 25.

This is in fact the route I often take, if the traffic lights look right, because you can gain a few seconds, especially if you would otherwise be following one of the multitude of huge, slow gravel trucks we have to put up with in our neighbourhood.

Can't beat local knowledge, right?

But how would Porsche's SatNav system know this?

I can only assume that the system integrates all possible routes, determines which is the shortest, and presents that route to you.

Clever, eh?

 

How Do Popes Get Around?

That wasn't an overheating Fiat in Vatican City on Wednesday (thanks for that, Billy!)

Nope; the white smoke meant the cardinals had elected a new pope.

Reminded me of the mid-1980s when the then-pope (John Paul? Can't remember...) visited Canada.

A specialty vehicle manufacturer in Montreal modified a General Motors pickup truck to transport him around.

A CBC radio show (also can't remember which one...) ran a listener contest to come up with a more appropriate name for this vehicle than 'Popemobile'.

Even the Pope apparently thought that term wasn't 'dignified'. 

The winning entry?

"Pontifiac".

Not bad.

And no, it was not my entry.

Walt McCall, the-then PR manager for Chrysler Canada, suggested his company should have built that vehicle.

"We could have called it the 'Jesus Chrysler'."

Well, I thought it was funny...

 

 

Can you really fly to work?

The dream of a flying car has kept engineers sleepless for maybe a century.

Dr. Paul Moller has been trying for over 40 years alone, so far without much success.

Perhaps just as well - we have enough trouble handling commuter traffic in two dimensions, let alone three.

But if the product this Dutch company appears to have invented is real (assuming the following YouTube clip wasn't fabricated by the video equivalent of Photoshop) it may be just around the corner.

The 'vehicle' appears to be more of an enclosed motorcycle than a car, and there's no indication of how much this thing might cost.

It also may end up being like the Amphi-Car, which was a terrible car and a worse boat - but it WAS both.

But it does look intriguing.

I guess time will tell...

 

Best Automotive Product Placement of All Time

In my post the other day on the MINI Cooper S owned by Howard Walowitz in the TV Series 'The Big Bang Theory' (which was parked in a spot coveted by the other "Cooper, S." - S as in Sheldon) I suggested it might have been a clever product placement by MINI.

I have no confirmation of that.

But it did remind me of what must have been the best automotive product placement of all time - certainly, the most cost-effective, max Bang for the Buck automotive product placement of all time.

A friend of mine ran (maybe still runs - haven't seen him in a while...) a publicity firm in Southern California which had (maybe still has...) the contract to place General Motors cars in the movies.

He was contacted by a never-was director (at the time, best-known as a stunt man) who had stupid B-Movie script about beer smuggling, and had somehow scored a soon-to-be has-been actor to star in it.

He needed a car, some sort of fast car.

My friend said, "Well, there's this thing over here, they're probably going to discontinue the car next year, so why not use it?"

The director was Hal Needham.

The star was Burt Reynolds.

The movie was 'Smokey and the Bandit'.

The car of course was the Pontiac Firebird Trans Am - the black one with gold trim (a colour scheme apparently inspired by the John Player Lotus Formula One cars of the mid-1970s) and the 'dead-chicken' decal on the hood.

The car became the star of the movie, and went on to many more years of successful sales.

My friend said he got $400 from GM for the product placement.

Pretty good deal for GM, I'd say.

MINI Makes a Big Bang

Does anyone else watch Big Bang Theory?

Yeah, pretty much everybody - it is at or near the top of Canada's TV ratings charts every year, and not just because Toronto's own Barenaked Ladies sing the theme song.

The episode I saw last week (originally shown last fall, according to CBS's web site) revolves around Howard Wolowitz getting a new car and taking over Sheldon Cooper's parking spot at the University where they both work.

Even though Sheldon doesn't even have a driver's licence, let alone a car, he decides Howard should not have 'his' spot, and tries to take it back.

First, he tries to push the car out of the spot - hard to do with the car presumably locked, in gear, and with the parking brake on.

You'd think a guy as smart as Sheldon professes to be would have known that...

Then he tries to prove he does 'use' the spot by setting up a work space there...

...and by painting his name over Wolowitz's on the curb stone.

I am ashamed to admit that even I didn't get this part of the joke, so thanks again to an 'alert reader':

Howard's car was a MINI Countryman Cooper S.

This might have been one of the most clever if most subtle product placements in television history...

Baseball Hero Needs to Set a Better Example

I just watched the 'Up Close Open Mic' feature on Sportsnet with new Blue Jay R. A. Dickey.

Not only is this guy a fabulous pitcher - the current National League Cy Young award holder is expected to lead the Blue Jays to heights not seen since the early 1990s.

But in this series of interviews, and in all cases where he has dealt with the public through media contacts, he appears to a most thoughtful, intelligent, serious and articulate man.

His references to his wife and children also reveal him to be a God-fearing family man.

He notes how his family is looking forward to getting to know their new country, learning our culture and our customs.

Welcome to Canada and to Toronto, R. A.

But allow me to introduce you to one Canadian custom with which you do not appear to be familiar.

In part of this TV show, Dickey is shown driving his car through downtown Toronto traffic. He comments that it is not as congested as the New York City he is used to.

But as you can see from this still clipped from that show, Dickey is not wearing his seat belt.

By the way, this is not merely a Canadian custom, my man.

It is our law.

It stuns me that someone apparently this smart and this devoted to his family would do this. If he wants to grow old to enjoy those children that he loves so much, I beseech him to wear it at all times.

Even religious people will say that God helps those who help themselves.

If you get hit head-on by some drunk - it happens - your seat belt will help a lot more than faith in any god.

We have lost too many athletes who thought they were above the laws of physics. Former NHL defenceman Steve Chaisson immediately comes to mind.

Dickey's knuckleball may appear to be defying those laws.

But if his unbelted body is hurtling towards his steering wheel and dashboard at 50 km/h - about half the speed of his knuckleball - it is going to end very badly.

Given that Dickey is a public figure and stands to be a role model for all our children, I beg of him: please R.A. - set the right example.

Oh yeah - and win 20 games.