Jim Kenzie's The Driver's Seat

Doesn't ANYBODY Care about the Environment - Chapter 2

Apparently, I misunderstood the press release from General Motors about remote starters becoming standard equipment on 2014 vehicles.

The headline on the press release read, and I quote - well, I can do better than quote, I can cut-and-paste:

GM to Make Door Unlock, Remote Start Standard

You wouldn't think those words left much room for misunderstanding.

And yes, I did read the entire release!

But it turns out remote start will not necessarily be standard.

What will become standard for vehicles that DO have remote start is an app called RemoteLink, which will allow you to operate door locks, lights, horn and that disgraceful remote start function from your smart phone.

Also, it will continue to be operative even if the customer does not choose to renew his subscription to OnStar.

The press release also states, "Remote start is the most popular remote service by current users of the RemoteLink Mobile App."

Which is the saddest news I've heard today, and is the reason for the title of this blog post.

The fact that GM is making it even easier for wusses to use remote start is almost as bad as making it standard.

Because nothing changes the fact that remote starters are an offence against nature, and should be banned.

So there.

Doesn't ANYBODY Care about the Environment?

We're on Day Two of the AJAC EcoRun, designed to illustrate to Canadians the terrific advances in fuel-saving technology that the industry is making available, and to show that you can improve your own fuel consumption no matter what vehicle you're driving, by adopting a lighter-foot approach, and applying a bit more common sense to your driving style.

One of the most important things you can do to save fuel of course is - not idle.

By definition, you're using infinite litres of fuel per 100 km - getting zero miles per gallon - if your engine is running and you're not going anywhere.

And no, it does NOT take more fuel to re-start your engine than to keep it running. A study done many years ago for big trucks showed that shutting the engine off and re-starting it 30 times a minute - i.e., about as fast as you can do it - still uses less fuel than idling it for that minute.

The 'Eco' driving course we all took prior to doing this EcoRun said that if it looks like you'll be idling for more than 30 seconds, you should shut your engine off.

I think it should be an even shorter time than that, but 30 seconds at most...

Some jurisdictions - including Toronto - have an anti-idling by-law, although it seems more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

Idling is stupid, but idling when the engine is cold is even stupider. In fact, it's the worst possible thing you can do for your car's engine, short of sabotage.

The raw gasoline can wash the lubricating oil off cylinder walls, leading to premature wear.

And the engine also operates more efficiently when warm, and it warms up faster when under load - i.e., when you're driving.

As soon as the engine runs smoothly after a cold start - 10 -15 seconds tops - you should get rolling.

So while we are here spreading this Save The Trees gospel to the masses, what does General Motors do?

Announces that remote starters will become standard equipment on all their 2014 vehicles that are OnStar-equipped - which I think is almost all of them.

The Remote Start nonsense is part of a package of remote services available through a 'RemoteLink Mobile' app, which includes remote unlocking and horn/lights activation via a smart phone.

Lights, horn and unlocking, maybe.

Remote start?

Don't even think about it.

Geez GM, not only does your timing suck with respect to announcing this during EcoRun, but the whole idea sucks.

Warming up a car interior with an inefficent gasoline engine is the worst possible thing you can do - for your car, for your wallet, for the environment.

I know people who have these damned things - and leave their cars running for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour, while they drink their morning coffee - love them.

But come on - car companies go to all this trouble and expense to make their cars more fuel-efficient, then they pander to these wusses whose tushes are too tender to sit on a cold seat cushion for two minutes?

We all suffer the resultant higher car prices because of the added fuel saving technologies that governments are mandating, and these people are throwing this fuel away because they're too cheap to buy a pair of gloves?

At least the car companies should be forced to put a warning sticker on the sun visor saying, "Using Your Remote Starter Today Will Kill A Tree Tomorrow", or words to that effect. I'd be happy to help with the wording.

Your car has a cup holder - use it, and take your coffee with you.

And if it has a remote starter, please, if you care at all for your environment, do NOT use it.

For all our sakes.

For Whom the Toll Tolls..

Lot of talk going on these days about toll roads, especially putting a toll on the High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV, or 'Car Pool') lanes.

I'd say, "DGMS" - Don't Get Me Started.

But if I didn't get 'started' now and then, what's the point of having a blog?

To consider whether it's a good idea to have a toll on HOV lanes, shouldn't you first consider whether it's a good idea to have HOV lanes at all?

As I have expressed before, the evidence is clear:

NO.

If the purpose of an HOV lane is to encourage car pooling - and is that NOT the purpose? - then the fact that they are used infreqently now suggests they are a miserable failure.

Is the idea that by car pooling we save fuel and reduce congestion? When I cannot run in the HOV lane in my little Jetta Diesel wagon by myself but some dude and his buddy in a 4,000 kg Hemi doolie pickup that is twice as big, twice as heavy, and uses three times as much fuel can?

That's just nuts. 

My and your taxes already paid for the building of those lanes. Why shouldn't we be able to use them whenever we want?

One of these days, perhaps when all the Spider Solitaire games have been played and I DO have spare time on my hands, I'm gonna find a bridge over an HOV lane and count how many people are in fact using them legally, i.e., with the required minimum number of people in the vehicle.

Anecdotally, I'd guess maybe half.

So all that putting a toll on them would do is turn it from being illegal to putting a tax on another sin.

I guess it works for cigarettes and liquor.

Would a toll on HOV lanes encourage people to use them more, hence ease traffic congestion?

You can hardly get people to use them now for free; how are you going to charge people to use them?

OK, so maybe if you could legally use them by yourself it might increase utilization a little, even if it cost a couple bucks a day. So, essentially one system for the rich, another for the poor.

But if you just made the lanes available to everyone for free - everyone, as I pointed out, who has already paid to build them - wouldn't that be an even better use of our road resources? It would make better utilization of the investments we have already made in road infrastructure.

If they put tolls on HOV lanes, how are they going to collect the money? Issue permits?

How are they going to do that? How much would that additional bureaucracy cost? 

How are they going to enforce it? There's scant evidence they enforce the restrictions now.

Or is every HOV lane going to become like Highway 407, privately run and tolled via transponder?

I doubt it. Who could/would afford the up-front capital costs?

HOV lanes are a stupid idea that is made stupider by putting a toll on them.

Now, IF the point of all these restrictions on our commuting is to reduce car use and encourage public transit, well, that's a non-starter because the bus/street car/light rail/commuter train 'public transit' systems we do have in the GTA are already over-crowded, yet don't service enough citizens to be worth it for countless others.

To expand that capacity, our municipal politicians would have to agree on - well, let's not get into that. You can read about those folks in the front of the paper...

Besides, we have a public transit system - it's called the roads!

If you want to encourage more efficient use of the road system, encourage people to take other forms of public transit, or better still encourage them to buy smaller, more fuel-efficient cars which would reduce pollution and fossil fuel consumption - who knows, maybe even make hybrids and electric cars financially feasible - there's only one way.

Raise the price of fuel.

Now I know nobody wants to hear this, especially politicians.

Which is why I can say it, because I'm not running for any office.

Anything else is ignoring reality.

How Do You Know When Your Time is Up?

In case Wheels is the only section of our fine paper/web site you read, you should know that our Jack Lakey, a.k.a. 'The Fixer', has been following an interesting aspect of Toronto's parking world. Read about it here.

Maybe you all knew this, but I didn't - that according to Toronto's own web site, there's a five-minute grace period for certain 'time-limited' parking offences, such as meters or pay-and-display parking zones.

The Toronto Police Service Parking Enforcement Unit won't issue a ticket if you're less than five minutes over the time limit.

Plus, there's a separate administrative policy that if the ticket is issued within ten minutes of the limit, you can apply to have the ticket cancelled.

You can read the policy here. It might help if you've had some law training.

Note that there are exceptions to the grace period policy. You can't overstay your welcome on major arterial roads in rush hours, or violate the snow-clearing policy.

And, it doesn't mean you can park for free for the first five minutes either...

OPP on the Lookout for Distracted Drivers

The Ontario Provincial Police are mounting one of their periodic blitzes on distracted drivers this week.

Already, I've seen more than the usual number of black-and-whites with 'customers' pulled off to the shoulder; whether they're just the Usual Suspect speeders or they've been caught applying make-up, shaving, texting, sorting vacation photographs AND eating their breakfast, I couldn't say.

Interesting tidbit came out of Manitoba recently though. It indicated that crashes due to DWT - Driving While Texting - actually INCREASED after the texting ban was imposed in that province, because drivers were 'lap-texting' rather than 'front-of-face' texting, trying to avoid detection.

This of course means that not only were their brains otherwise engaged, but their line of sight was compromised too.

Obviously, trying to work even a so-called 'smart' phone while driving is a dumb idea.

And as we all know by now, hand-held or hands-free makes no difference.

But I wonder if anyone's got any stats on how many crashes are due to drivers being distracted trying to figure out how to use the exact same touch-screen technology that comes in altogether too many new cars' dashboards?

It makes no more sense there...

 

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...

 

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.

 

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?

Sometimes, you just wanna kiss a cop right on the lips...

OK, so not often - unless she's like the Oklahoma State Trooper I 'met' during my search for this video...

But I digress...

The original version of this clip was accompanied by a voice-over of the young male driver whose female passenger actually shot it. The commentary, shall we say, was not fit for a family blog.

I can barely access YouTube, let alone edit the sound on a video clip. Someone with way more skills in this field than I possess has done that job for me, adding what I think is the theme song from 'Jaws'.

The hand-held, presumably cameraphone video is also very jumpy in places. Hang in there; it's worth it.

I am not able to identify which state the state trooper is from.

So (s)he is safe from my osculatory intentions.

All I know is that THIS is what traffic patrol officers in every jurisdiction in the world should be doing way more of.

Check it out here.

 

Bill Blair, Photo Radar, and Cash

[NOTE: This started off as a little blog posting. It evolved into something rather longer. Sorry 'bout that...]

Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair says photo radar should once again be up for consideration because, as his spokesperson Mark Pugash said, "...police officers are a very expensive resource to use for something which technology can do, and much more economically.”

Mr. Pugash added that the force isn’t looking to increase revenue.

No, of course not.

Regular readers would not expect this to go without comment from my own self, especially if they know that former Ontario premier Mike Harris - the guy who killed photo radar in 1995 - personally gave ME credit for getting him elected on this very issue, because I had brought the manifold flaws in this program to light through my stories in Wheels.

(Geez Mike; don't blame ME for getting you elected. My teacher friends have never forgiven me. They might not have known when they had it so good. But I digress...)

The reason I was opposed to photo radar then, as I am opposed to it now, is quite simple: it doesn't work.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Messrs Blair and Pugash, but the point is supposed to be to make our roads safer, yes?

Nothing to do with revenue, as Mr. Pugash confirms.

And the statistical evidence to back up this claim?

ZERO.

How is that possible? 'Everybody' knows that if we drove slower, we would kill fewer people.

Turns out, just as 'everybody' knows by merely looking out their window that the world is flat, 'everybody' is wrong on this score too.

Our fastest roads - our divided highways - are, by any statistical measure, our safest roads, because of superior design and engineering.

There is ZERO statistical evidence that any amount of speed limit enforcement we can even begin to afford will have any measurable effect on the speed we actually drive. If it did, why would they have to keep doing it?

And even if we DID drive slower, there is also ZERO statistical evidence that it would positively affect collision frequency or severity.

Sure, speed can be a contributing factor to the severity of a given crash - I'm not arguing the laws of physics here.

But according to police 'accident' reports, speed is way WAY down on the list of driver actions that lead to collisions.

And never mind that over fifty percent of the photos taken by this technological solution during the former photo radar 'experiment' never resulted in a charge being laid; according to data collected and provided to me by various detachments of the Ontario Provincial Police, in areas where photo radar was most often implemented, traffic deaths actually increased during this time frame, and by substantial measure.

I am not saying - I have never said - that photo radar caused these increases, or even contributed to them.

It is simply yet another piece of evidence that speed limit enforcement:

Simply,

Does,

Not,

Matter.

Now, we know that our federal government ministers are proud that they don't let facts get in the way of their decisions.

Are our provincial and municipal governments falling into that same abyss?

In a vastly previous lifetime, I worked for Procter and Gamble, at the time (possibly even now) one of the best-managed, most profitable companies in the world.

It had a cost reduction program called 'Methods', which encouraged every single employee to examine every single procedure he/she performed, and ask, "If it were not for what 'Basic Cause' could this cost be eliminated?"

In other words, don't start by looking for ways to do things cheaper; start by looking to see if you need to do this thing at all.

Pure common sense, isn't it?

But the one thing we know about common sense is that it isn't very common.

Especially amongst politicians.

So, maybe the way for Bill Blair to save some money on his budget is to tell his officers to stop speed limit enforcement altogether.

It costs huge amounts of money.

We know that.

We know (or are at least told) that the fines accumulated (by the provincial government, as must be repeated, NOT by the Toronto police department) do not begin to cover the expense.

And it is spectacularly ineffective in achieving its stated objective.

If that isn't a cost crying out for elimination, what is?

We also know from various experiments in Holland and elsewhere that eliminating ALL urban traffic controls - lane markings, stop lights, stop signs, pedestrian crossings, everything - can curb the number of collisions, injuries, and deaths.

Cost ELIMINATION, not cost REDUCTION.

And better results.

Who could possibly argue against that?

Assign those existing expensive officers to tasks that actually can make our roads safer, such as moving patrol cars with videotape cameras to catch unsafe driving actions in court-acceptable form, to get lousy and unsafe drivers off the road.

If you still want a technological solution, take the money saved and put it into technology which can return additional benefits.

I'm even all for red-light cameras, because they DO indisputably catch people doing what is among the most dangerous acts possible in an urban traffic environment.

Better still, (again, indisputably) build more roundabouts, which - like divided highways - reduce the possibility of serious collisions due to their superior design and engineering.

And of course, roundabouts do not need red-light cameras.

Yes folks, it really IS that simple.

The people in charge just have to realize that this particular Emperor is not wearing any clothes.