Jim Kenzie's The Driver's Seat

Hope You Were a "Snowcrastinator"...

Woke up at Kenzie World Headquarters this morning to another 20 mm of global warming on my deck.

Or what was left of my deck after the ice storm last Friday caused a dead tree to fall on it and crush it.

Aren't we all glad we are "snowcrastinators" who never got around to taking our winter tires off?

My Mother-in-Law says you can never trust the weather until the 24th of May.

She sure looks right this year...

 

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Arewn;'y we all glad what

Mimi and Lady Leadfoot go Topless

Does this mean winter is finally over?

We actually drove Mimi - Lady Leadfoot's Mazda Miata - top-down for the first time this year today.

Heater on, and one window down - for some reason, that seems to generate less turbulence than both windows either up or down - and aside from the hair getting quite a work-out, it was very pleasant.

We don't drive her in winter unless there's an emergency. We keep her outside, under a cover, with a trickle charger on the battery. She never fails to fire right up.

If there were some sort of award for the car that best discharges its responsibilities, best fulfils its brief, does exactly what it is supposed to do - do you understand what I'm driving at here? - then the Mazda Miata would surely win in a walk.

More accurately, it would win in a lovely drive through the countryside.

In a nutshell, it was supposed to be a two-seat British sports car that didn't break and didn't leak oil all over your driveway.

That was pretty much what Mark Jordan, a designer for Mazda North America, and Bob Hall, previously and subsequently a car journalist but then a product planner for Mazda, had in mind when they conceived the car on a cocktail napkin in a bar in Irvine California back in the 1980s; in profile, the original Miata looked more like the 1964 Lotus Elan than the Lotus Elan did.

Despite considerable upgrading and improving over the intervening decades, that's pretty much what the Miata still is today.

I.e., damn-near perfect.

Oh yeah, the company can try to call it 'MX-5' if they want, because the marketing people say that's how it is marketed in other countries.

Marketing people can be such idiots; like anybody over here gives a damn what they do over there.

It was originally sold in Japan as the 'Eunos Roadster'. Does that mean we should have called it 'Eunos Roadster' too?

Um, I don't think so.

The Miata Owners Club is still (I think...) the largest one-marque car club in the world, testimony to the affection people have for this car. Lady Leadfoot and I aren't 'joiners' per se, but might be talked into going on some of their cruises this summer.

We understand that the next-gen Miata will be a joint venture with Fiat through its Alfa Romeo brand. That company has no shortage of sports car heritage, although dead-nuts reliability like Miata enjoys has never even been hinted at chez Alfa.

Can the joint venture pull off a car that's as spectacular as Mazda was able to do on its own with Miata?

I hope so.

But I must say, I have grave doubts.

Do Pick-up Truck Drivers Really Want More Fuel Efficiency?

Every major manufacturer of full-size pick-up trucks is going on and on about improved fuel efficiency.

Ford has their 'Eco-Boost' Direct Injection turbocharged V6 engine, claimed to offer the performance of an eight with the economy of a six.

Chevrolet advertises the most fuel-efficient V-8 in the class.

Ram (yclept 'Dodge') boasts 36 miles per gallon on the highway. (Er folks, Canada switched to Metric about four hundred years ago - isn't it time you caught up?...)

But is this something their customers give a flyin' wahoo about?

I guess if you're a business owner and your trucks are racking up thousands of klicks a month, fuel costs are a Big Deal.

So how come when I'm on the highway, all the pick-ups I see seem to be going a buck-forty?

And in town, the "That Thang Got a HEMI?" dude is rocketing away from the stoplight, seemingly trying to spin all four wheels at once?

I think the only reason truck makers are doing this is that in the States, Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards for trucks are getting tougher and tougher to meet. So the manufacturers have to build more fuel-efficient trucks whether their customers care or not.

The trick then is to get the customers to buy them.

In reality, it's the same reason they build hybrid cars; if they can force-feed enough of those down buyers' throats, then they can sell some of the less-efficient cars that the customers actually want.

Of course none of this would be necessary if the US government would only act logically and raise the price of fuel to something even approximating the world level. Then the market could decide how it wanted to spend its money, on efficient cars, or on fuel.

But asking any government - especially these days, the US government - to act logically?

Hahahahaha.....

 

Truck Fuel Economy - Who Cares?

Have you noticed that pick-up truck advertising always seems to stress fuel consumption?

Ford is boosting its EcoBoost turbocharged Direct Injection Engine (that's one of them, left).

Ram (not Dodge any more) says it has Best in Class fuel consumption, thanks to its eight-speed transmission.

Chevy talks about 'unsurpassed' V8 fuel consumption, by which they mean the GMC equivalent does as well on that count.

But do customers for this type of vehicle give a flying wahoo about fuel consumption?

Not so's you'd notice.

It seems to me whenever I see a pick-up truck on the highway, it's a huge four-by-four going a billion km/h.

Fuel consumption - who cares?

BTW, if you didn't see that episode of MythBusters, they proved it doesn't help fuel consumption in a pick-up to run with the tailgate down.

And another thing, to all pick-up makers - Canada switched to the Metric system shortly after the last Ice Age. Why are you still advertising fuel consumption in miles per gallon?

 

Let It Snow, redux

Second big snowstorm in two weeks here in The Big Smoke.

Did we collectively learn anything from the first one?

Apparently not.

Good job it happened on a Saturday and not a work day.

Driving home from the Auto Show this afternoon/evening - yes, it took that long - the Gardiner was closed completely, and the 401 was 20 km/h from Yonge right through to Highway 10.

I only actually saw one collision on the westbound 401, near the on-going construction between 427 and Dixie. It appeared to already be moved off onto the left shoulder of the Collectors (I was in the Express).

It didn't look too bad, maybe two cars by the time I got there, with tow trucks and at least one fire engine already on the scene.

But that didn't seem to be what was slowing people down.

We just can't drive in snow.

You can tell the people who have proper winter tires.

Not only because they usually have them mounted on black steel rims so as to protect their nice shiny alloys from the rigours of winter driving.

But because they can keep moving.

Yes, there were still a few people without their proper headlights on.

But the one thing I noticed moreso than ever today, and of course it hearkens back to my longest-standing pet peeve - people driving slowly in the left lane.

Folks, it's the old heat-kitchen thing - if you can't handle the pace, get the hell out of the way, and let those of us who have proper tires (and know how to drive) get home in time for dinner...

 

Still Think You Don't Need Winter Tires?

Judging from the chaos on the roads today, a lot of people still don't.

I was in a big four-wheel drive SUV which only had no-season tires on it (a sharply-worded e-mail is in the works...) and even that got stuck a couple of times.

I know there's no point in whining to you people (my audience) about all the stupid drivers out there - you know this, and (I hope...) you aren't among them.

But so many people spinning out, everywhere!

I heard from one reader that several ramps off the 407 were blocked this morning because drivers who were presumably still doing the usual buck-forty on that road despite the obviously limited traction and visibility found out when they hit the off-ramp that - hmm-mm, my brakes and steering don't seem to be working as well this morning...

No s__t, Sherlock.

On Highway 25 heading up the Escarpment towards my house this 'prevening', to use Big Bang Theory's Sheldon Cooper's term, there are two lanes northbound, to accommodate the big trucks climbing the hill. But the Jim-Only lane was not being travelled in, hence was still snow-covered, so only the left lane was clear enough for traffic.

That didn't stop several cars - a red four-door Jeep Wrangler, a black Ram pick-up and a black Infiniti EX Crossover among those I personally witnessed - from diving out into the on-coming downhill lane to pass me and several other vehicles, including an eighteen-wheeler which was struggling to, literally, make the grade.

Yeah yeah, brave guys - we all got four-wheel drive too. Remember; mostly what that does is let you have your crash at a higher speed.

Seriously; what is SO important that you have to save four seconds getting home? At the risk of a very serious head-on crash? For which you would be 100 percent at fault?

The best us sane people can do is to back off, and let them go have their crash with somebody else.

Or a guard rail.

Oh yes, one more thing, one more time - just because your dash lights are on doesn't mean your taillights are on. With most Daytime Running Lights systems, they aren't.

So nobody coming from behind can see you. Particularly critical in inclement weather like today's.

Not sure about your car? How about doing a walk-around before leaving home tomorrow morning and find out?

Better still, just develop the proper habit - fire up your car, then fire up your full headlights.

All the lights on, all the time.

Simple.

Safe.

No-brainer...

 

Toughest Guy in the GTA?

I get it; some cyclists think I'm prejudiced against them.

Not at all.

I think they're crazy to ride in downtown traffic, but that's not a prejudice, or even merely an opinion.

That's a fact.

But credit where credit's due - some of them can be pretty tough.

During my foray into The Big Smoke the other day, I saw a cyclist, a big, buff dude, wearing his helmet, with his massive legs stuffed into - lycra bike shorts.

My dashboard thermometer read Minus 4 degrees.

That is one tough guy.

Cycle where you wish, my man. You'll get no arguments from me.

 

Driving in Fog is not like Operating in The Cloud

It was foggy, wet and miserable in the GTA this past Monday.

(I actually wrote this then, but never got around to posting it...)

And - an old beef, I know - about 90 percent of the cars on the road did not have their lights on, just their Daytime Running Lights.

Which meant of course that especially on the highway, you couldn't see them until you were right on top of them.

I really wish I could pull people over and ask them, "Did you notice that the car ahead of you just now did not have any taillights on? That you could barely see it in the haze and the road spray? Doesn't it make you even the slightest bit curious whether other drivers are saying the same about your car?" 

I mean, what were these people thinking about as they drove through this mess?

Or are they in a fog in the metaphoric sense too?

Some of you folks out there are much savvier about this whole InterWeb FaceTube thing than I am.

Somehow, that set of media has managed to make cats and hamburgers world-wide phenomena.

Geez; it has made Justin Bieber the world's Number One Twit.

Isn't there some way we can use modern information technology to get the message across:

TURN ON YOUR FRIGGIN' LIGHTS!

OK, so maybe turning on your lights isn't 'cool', hence isn't worthy of attention by this cohort of our population.

But I don't know that there's anything all that cool about standing at the side of the highway exchanging insurance information with the guy who just rammed into the back of your car.

Or, waiting for an ambulance.

I must say, it was considerably better in the evening Monday. Maybe people understood that after 5 p.m., it is supposed to be 'dark', and lights might be a good idea.

But there are always a few. Just last evening, 7:15 p.m., 401 eastbound at the airport, a guy in a newish Subaru Legacy (I think; obviously, it was hard to see...) was cruising along, nearly invisible from behind. As I drove up to then past him, I flicked my lights off and on (in the new Range Rover, you can actually do that; you can't in most new cars) and tooted my horn to try and indicate that he had a problem.

I could see his dash lights were on which, as I have noted several times, should not be allowed when DRL is active by Transport Canada regulation because of exactly this reason - it fools you into thinking your real lights ARE on.

He pulled on his turn signal lever to flash his high beams at me. Not sure what he thought he was trying to communicate to me.

But he never turned on his real lights.

Since Transport Canada doesn't seem to think this is an issue, and I've received lots of feedback from you to indicate that I'm not alone in thinking this IS an issue, I am appealing for help.

I assume you all know how to fix this for ourselves - always run with full lights on, all the time.

You do, don't you?

I do. Always have, since I first started to drive.

It's the only sensible thing to do

But how do we fix this for the Great Unwashed out there?

Road Signs for my Present, Your Future

I don't wear these Coke-bottle-bottom lenses on my face for decoration.

Sure, my 'corrected' eyesight is easily good enough for a Driver's Licence.

Even for a Racing Licence.

But do I see as well as I'd like to be able to see?

No.

I'd love to be able to read a newspaper from across the room, as someone once (I think incorrectly) said English racing great Stirling Moss could do.

And I'm too chicken, too astigmatic (and too cheap) for LASER treatment.

I'm obviously not alone here either. As our population ages (beating the only available alternative), our vision is collectively going to get worse before it gets better.

Which makes me wonder why municipalities don't make it easier for drivers to find out where they are going.

One thing they could do is be a whole lot smarter about where they position road- and street-naming signs.

Let's say, for example, you're headed south on Erin Mills Parkway in Mississauga. You see a major intersection way up ahead.

Is that Eglinton Avenue?

Can YOU tell from this photo?

If you can then YOU'RE Stirling Moss - fifty years ago.

Because the sign indicating it IS Eglinton Avenue is located only on the far side of the intersection itself.

By the time you get close enough to realise this, and if you want to turn left, then (assuming of course you're in the right lane where logic, courtesy and the law require you to be) you've got three lanes plus (in this case) two left-turn lanes to negotiate, all in about a hundred meters of 60 km/h road.

Not good.

Why isn't there a sign a few hundred metres back up the road, indicating that this up-coming intersection is in fact Eglinton? You'd have plenty of time to react.

Not everybody can afford a car with SatNav, with Doris of the Dashboard telling you where you are at every moment.

Sure, you'd still want the sign at the intersection itself.

But more advance warning?

It would make a huge difference.

I'm not picking on Mississauga here. Every municipality in the GTA - frankly, almost everywhere in the world - is guilty of this to some degree.

What makes it particularly frustrating is that not half a klick away, just around that left-hand turn, they have done exactly that. If you're headed west on Eglinton approaching Credit Valley Road, here's what you see:

Could hardly be clearer.

Well, they could put a sign on a pole in the centre median too, as they do in some instances.

Here, they've even put the house number range on the sign, so if you know the exact address you're looking for, you know which way you have to turn.

It is clear then that somebody within the Mississauga transportation department (road sign division...) knows how this is supposed to be done.

My question: why aren't they consistently doing it correctly?

Of course, if they'd just eliminate these stupid, sprawling, horribly dangerous, traffic-light-controlled multi-lane intersections altogether and replace them with roundabouts, the problem (and dozens of others) would cease to exist.

But no municipality within the GTA is smart enough to figure that out; I admit, I'm aiming low here, hoping that a few more properly-positioned road signs can at least alleviate the danger.

It would be a start.

 

Even Rick Mercer is After My Job

Motoring TV has been on TSN for 25 years.

For 24 of those, I've been doing Kenzie's Korner, beefing about something or other.

Did we steal the idea from Don Cherry?

Hm-mm - no comment.

Did we steal the 'walking rant' concept from Rick Mercer, initially with This Hour, and now his own Rick Mercer Report?

I dunno - how long has he been doing that? I'm too tired to do the math.

Let's just say that all three of us have fun doing what we do.

Now, since I got my PVR, two things - I never see TV ads any more, or the boring parts of sports events (I've got the quickest fast-forward digit in town - I can watch a baseball game in 20 minutes); and, I can catch up on older stuff I haven't seen.

So while some of you may have seen this particular Rick Mercer Rant when it first appeared back in 2008 (or caught it on one of many car fori on this InterTube thingee where it has been posted) it was new to me when I stumbled across it recently. Maybe it'll be new to you too.

We'll forgive him for calling them 'snow tires' - they're 'winter tires' because they work better in winter even when there is no snow.

But the rest of it?

Spot on.

Check it out here.