Jim Kenzie's The Driver's Seat

Bike Lanes and Jarvis Street redux

Looks like Toronto Mayor Rob Ford will get rid of the Jarvis Street bike lanes after all.

Although the bikeys promise not to give up without a fight, Council voted Wednesday evening to rip them out by the end of the year and put the reversible middle lane back in.

While it would break my heart if I was a Toronto taxpayer to see $300,000 wasted reversing this plan (which should never have been implemented by the former administration of David Miller in the first place) it is the right thing to do.

It is right for vehicular traffic, which needs all the resources we can give it.

And it is right for cyclists, because anything that discourages cyclists from braving downtown Toronto traffic is bound to save some of their lives.

(Why am I more concerned about their safety than they are themselves?)

One councillor who opposed the removal of the bike lanes said the cyclists are going to stay there anyway, bike lanes or no.

Does that mean the cyclists were there before and will remain?

Well, city officials say their numbers have tripled since the lanes were installed.

Which is it?

Those city officials didn't give specific numbers, just that 'three times' ratio.

But when the bike lanes were first introduced last summer the numbers were minuscule.

So three times nothing is nothing.

And as I alwasy say, let's count again in February.

Remove the emotion, and the facts are clear - as I said in the Pottery Road piece a few days ago, bikes and cars cannot mix safely.

Sure, it is the car driver who is (almost always) at fault in a collision (although that bicycle courier I saw die against a concrete pole on Yonge Street some years ago did that all on his own).

But - like that bicycle courier - it is the cyclist who is virtually always dead or seriously injured.

Recreational bike paths are a different issue. Like soccer fields, baseball diamonds, any public facility, it is a matter of priorities and budgets.

But as a means of commuting?

Toronto isn't Copenhagen; it isn't even Montreal.

Never gonna happen.

If City Council can find the budget to build dedicated, segregated bike commuter lanes for the tiny handful of people fortunate/wealthy enough to live in downtown Toronto within biking distance of their jobs (I assume these people have the facilities and time to shower when they DO get to their jobs), then be my guest.

It is a collosal misallocation of tax dollars, to the benefit of a minute fraction of the population.

But at least it won't be MY tax dollars.

Other than the fact that my Ontario and Federal taxes might somehow get mixed up in this scheme.

Damn; why did I have to think of that?...

Completely Pointless Driving Advice from Gray Power

Have you heard those radio ads for “Completely Biased Car Advice” from Subaru?

Kinda cute.

But have you heard those radio ads for “Completely Pointless Driving Advice” from Gray Power Insurance?

Scary.

OK, so I do qualify for Gray Power on the hair colour count.

And no, contrary to that scurrilous comment herein a few weeks ago, I don't dawdle in the left lane with my turn signal (and a hat) on. After all, the Ontario government built the Jim-Only lane for me, and the police departments appear to enforce my exclusive thereof, so why wouldn't I use it?

And the only hat I wear in a car (other than in a convertible - gotta watch out for that sun) always has a Snell sticker in it.

(For those that don't get that reference, that's a racing helmet. Get your own and meet me at the track...).

But I digress.

These Gray Power ads purport to reward 'good' drivers like 'Stewie' - they even wrote a little ditty about him - who always comes to a full stop at every Stop sign.

I guess Gray Power doesn't insure the people who rear-end each other because Stewie - and Stewie alone - came to that complete stop.

The fact is, every Stop sign is an admission of failure to design the intersection properly. Actually, the 'Stops' should all be roundabouts, again like most of the intersections in the UK, but one step at a time...

At the very least, virtually every Stop sign should be a Yield sign which, in the absence of a roundabout, is what they typically use in the UK. The vast majority of even our drivers treat Stop signs as Yield signs anyway.

Hence, Stewie is probably gonna get rear-ended on a regular basis.

For safety, traffic flow management, reduced fuel consumption and lower emissions - never mind everyone getting home sooner - a Yield is what we need.

Yeah yeah, I know what the law says. It's not the only place where, in the words popularized but surely predating Charles Dickens, “The Law is an Ass''.

And it's still down to the traffic planners who do have the option of installing Yield signs instead of Stop signs where they would be more appropriate,

Which is almost everywhere.

Then there's the ad which extols 'Bob' for always checking his blind spots before changing lanes.

Come on, Bob. Open your mind, open your eyes, get with the program.

Do you drive like the young woman I saw in an Acura EL on Bayview the other day who must have driven half the length of a football field looking over her left shoulder, presumably checking her 'blind spot'?

Which, as regular readers know, simply does not exist: crank those side-view mirrors out farther, and presto - no more blind spots.

This young woman definitely would not qualify under the 'over-50' criterion for Gray Power Insurance; just as well, because you wouldn't want her on your roster under any circumstances.

Good for you Gray Power to try and use your platform to communicate driving tips to the general public.

But you've got to make them accurate and useful, not dangerous.

As in:

- Stewie, always back into your parking space so it's safer when you pull out again;

- Bob, learn how to adjust your mirrors correctly;

- everyone, turn on all your lights, all the time, because Daytime Running Lights typically don't illuminate the taillights, and in most of our driving they're more important than the fronts.

Have your copywriters give me a call. I've got enough driving tips for ten years worth of ads.

 

When You Hear the Siren, Get the Heck Out of the Way!

Met Grant Litherland out at Mosport a couple of weeks ago.

The Toronto Fire Service fireman ("I work the mean streets of Leaside!" he joked) says that the only reason he buys The Star is for the Wheels section.

We love to hear that - the publisher loves it too.

Grant mentioned a huge problem for anyone in his profession, or for any emergency services worker:

Cars just don't get out of the way when these people are rushing to an emergency.

What part of the sirens and flashing lights don't they understand?

For fire, ambulance or police emergencies, a couple of seconds can literally mean the difference between life and death.

I know this is something that any reader of this blog knows full-well.

But perhaps some of your friends or family are a bit thick on the issue.

So remind anyone every chance you get:

When you hear a siren, determine as quickly as you can where it's coming from. If you're in its trajectory, get as far off the main part of the road as you can, flick on your four-ways, and STOP.

The driver of the emergency vehicle has enough going on without trying to figure out which way YOU'RE going to deke. So stop, and let the driver figure out a way to get around you.

These people have special training in manoeuvring these rigs through traffic.

Get out of their way, and let them do their job.

For all you know, they might be trying to get to your house...

How Good are GO Bus Brakes?

I live on the Niagara Escarpment north of Milton. The Escarpment is being transported one truckload at a time into Toronto. Eventually, Toronto will be 200 metres higher above sea level than it is now, and the Escarpment will be a reservoir.

So I get tailgated by gravel trucks all the time. They get paid by the load, time is money, etc.

You learn to live with it, and hope you don't die from it.

But I had a new one the other day - I got tailgated by a GO Bus.

I was heading north on Mister-and-Mississauga Road, north of Steeles, down into the hamlet of Huttonville.

The speed limit there is 50 km/h, and previous experience has taught me that the police practically have a permanent radar installation at the bottom of the hill (I haven't actually checked whether the Ford Crown Vicky cruiser is up on blocks...).

For the iTunes download, no, I have not been caught here before.

There's construction going on there now too, which makes it even dicier.

So especially because I was driving a nice shiny new sports car (Subaru BRZ) - whether the police really are more likely to pull something like that over I don't know, but who's taking chances? - I was spot-on 50 km/h.

And this big ol' GO Bus was all over my can like he was drafting me at the Daytona 500.

You'd think if he was the regular driver on this route, he'd know about the frequent radar.

Unless maybe the police never pull GO Busses over.

I don't know that either.

I just wish I had a little pixelboard sign in the rear window where I could flash messages to following drivers, i.e. "Do you really think your brakes are better than mine? Wanna find out?"

Actually, a device like that would be very useful for other reasons too.

I think Canadian Tire used to sell something like that, but I haven't seen one recently.

Can anybody help?

Meanwhile, if you drive a GO Bus on that route, give your head a shake...

 

How to Balance Ontario's Budget

Took a rare trip on the 407 ETR (Express Toll Route, I think) yesterday.

Talk about the Jim-only lane!

They could hold the World Road Hockey Championships in the right lane on that road, and they'd hardly ever have to yell "CAR!!"

At first glance, it appears that drivers are assigned a lane at random when they enter the highway, and they stay there until:

a) they die;

b) they run out of fuel;

c) they decide to exit the highway.

On closer examination, it seems to me that a 'local culture' has evolved; the default lane seems to be the second from the left.

I believe I may have remarked on this before; it makes no more sense now than it did then...

What would ever cross someone's mind to get over there, set the cruise to a buck-thirty, and start working on their e-mail?

Brutal.

If I only had a dollar for every car I passed on the right (legally; you could look it up...) on that return trip.

Then I thought - hmm-mm; the Ontario Provincial Government could have $155 for every car I passed on the right, and hundreds of thousands more too.

Because every single one of those cars was violating the Ontario Highway Traffic Act, section 148, subsection (2), Fail to turn out to the right when being overtaken by another vehicle.

You could look that up too, but I'll save you the trouble - click here.

If they were really clever, they'd convert and install more of those toll collecting gantries so they would automatically take photos of cars violating this subsection.

They'd balance the budget within weeks.

Then Premier McGuinty could afford all the green energy subsidies he could possibly  come up with.

Just trying to help.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What - if anything - Does Go Through a Tailgater's Mind?

Memo to the guy in the gray Toyota Highlander (I think...) who was tailgating the white BMW Z4 on the Gardiner Expressway westbound just past Spadina Avenue at about 4:30 this afternoon.

Assuming you can read, of course.

Yes - that was me in the Bimmer.

A few questions, which I always wish I could ask people who drive like you do:

1. Do you really think the brakes on your SUV are better than those on a BMW sports car?

2. Do you really think your reactions might be quicker than mine? Do you have as much experience racing and rallying as I do?

3. Since you were the one tailgating me - about one metre off my rear bumper at about 40 kmh - I wonder why YOU were so mad at ME? I was just trying to leave a couple of car lengths between me and the car in front, a distance I had to increase because you were leaving no space behind me.

4. Are you not aware that in a rear-ender collision, the guy behind (you) who hits the car ahead (me) is almost always adjudged to be at fault?

5. Did you feel so much better when you roared up beside me, cut me off (missing my car by mere centimetres) and in doing so, got maybe 10 metres closer to home? Did your manhood grow?

6. If I am such a “fudging may-pole” (I'm not really good at lip-reading...) why did you want to drive so close to me in the first place? A rational person would want to stay as far away as possible from an idiot like me.

But I guess we're not dealing with rationality here.

 

Hello Ministry of Transportation - anybody out there?

The Wheels section of the Toronto Star is by far the most widely-read automotive publication in the country.

Last time I looked - well, last time anybody told me - wheels.ca is Canada's Number One automotive web portal.

So why amongst the hundreds (thousands?) of employees of Ontario's Ministry of Transportation, isn't a single one of them reading either the dead-tree or on-line editions?

What else am I supposed to conclude, after what I read on one of the MTO's pixelboard signs on the 401 this afternoon:

CHECK BLIND SPOT BEFORE CHANGING LANES

Geez, people: for the four hundred and ninety-seven million, three hundred and forty-two thousand, six hunded and twenty-seventh (estimated) time:

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BLIND SPOT!!!

As I've been telling you for thirty-five years (and the Society of Automotive Engineers for at least fifteen; took them a while to catch on too...): in the vast majority of cars, if you adjust your side-view mirrors properly - much further out than Granddad probably taught you - the blind spots disappear.

Again, there is no need to see the side of your own car. You know where it is; right where it was when you pulled out of your parking spot earlier in the day at the start of your journey.

It's what's BESIDE the side of your own car that you need to know about.

So why doesn't that pixelboard sign read:

ADJUST SIDE-VIEW MIRRORS TO ELIMINATE BLIND SPOTS

Easy as pie to do.

But then the very next pixelboard sign did read:

SEE AND BE SEEN - USE YOUR LIGHTS

Hmm-mm - maybe somebody who is running these signs does have half a clue! Because you really should have ALL your lights on, ALL the time.

Maybe I have ONE reader at the MTO??

This message was particularly appropriate, given that at this particular point in time it was raining, and you really need to have your full lights on in poor weather so drivers approaching from behind can see you.

Because - as you should know but so many people appear not to know - in most cases, Daytime Running Lights do not illuminate the taillights.

However, at this particular point in time, I'd estimate that about 90 percent of the cars only had their DRL on.

Which means that not many people are reading the pixelboard signs anyway.

Or at least, not heeding the message.

Sigh...

But if the MTO is going to put messages up there, they might as well be the truth!

And if the MTO can't convince their federal counterparts at Transport Canada to mandate that DRL also include taillights, or at the very least make it illegal for DRL to also switch on the dashboard lights, because that's what fools most people into thinking they DO have their lights on, the province should at least follow the lead of several US states (New York being one of them) and maybe some provinces too (not sure...) and mandate that headlights must be on when the wipers are on.

A single stroke of the legislative pen and our roads would be safer, because it would give our police forces the opportunity to create 'learning moments' for our brain-dead drivers.

Hmm-mm - wonder if anybody at Transport Canada is reading?

Probably not...

Double-sigh...

 

Bureaucracy at its Finest

RE: the bit a few days ago about gray market imports from Japan, check this out.

Now, I didn't call the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to verify this story.

(WHAT? You can't believe everything you see on the Internet?...)

But if it's even half-true, who do these people think they're protecting??

Anybody who would be even remotely interested in a Skyline would know what it is, and where it came from.

The worst part - in a couple of years, according to the story, these cars WILL be legal! What's the point in crushing them now?

Put them in storage for two years, fer cryin' out loud.

Surely these people have something better to do with their time.

 

 

 

 

 

Making Streets Safer for Pedestrians and Cyclists

I fully subscribe to (and share) the motivations of Toronto's Medical Officer of Health Dr. James McKeown, whose report on how to reduce danger to pedestrians was presented to Toronto City Council yesterday.

 

I lost a sister to a 'pedestrian-motor vehicle' collision many years ago - actually, before I was even born. Still, I know first-hand the damage it can cause to families.

 

But I'm afraid Dr. McKeown's conclusions are based on some false premises, and on an incomplete understanding of how traffic works.

 

His suggestions smack of “we have to do something”, as opposed to “let's do something that might actually help.”

 

First, he wants to make Toronto more 'pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly', and uses the city of Vancouver as an example.

 

Well, there are more differences between Vancouver and Toronto than the fact that their NHL team played a grand total of five more games this year than ours did.

 

There's the vastly more temperate (albeit rainy) climate on the Left Coast. Not much point in borrowing policies from there if they can't be utilized here for up to one third of the year. You don't - you never will - see many bicycles at the bottom of the Avenue Road hill heading up to St. Clair in February.

 

Also, during former Toronto mayor David Miller's even more ill-advised attempt to ban right turns on red lights, it came to light that Vancouver has the worst pedestrian safety record of any major Canadian city.

 

Not a paragon to which we should aspire, I wouldn't think.

 

Dr. McKeown's most controversial (but far from only) recommendation is for a blanket reduction of the speed limit from 50 km/h to 40 on non-residential streets and 30 on residential streets.

 

This ignores several facts.

 

First, research shows that on all types of road - freeways, arterial roads, urban streets - traffic drives roughly at the speed the road was designed to handle.

 

Give drivers a big wide four-lane road with excellent sight lines, no bumps or intersections, and they're gonna go about 60 - 70 km/h, no matter what you do.

 

I was once asked by a local politician how the municipality could slow down traffic on a major Regional Road near where we both live, which had just been rebuilt and modernized.

 

“Dig a one foot wide, one foot deep ditch across it every hundred metres or so,'' I replied.

 

“We can't do that!” she said.

 

“Then you don't really want to slow traffic down,” I countered, “because that's the only way you're going to do it.”

 

The police have nowhere near the resources needed to enforce the (mostly artificially low) speed limits we already have. What chance would they have of knocking 10 or 20 km off those speeds?

 

Approximately none.

 

Dr. McKeown notes that there are approximately 1,000 cyclists and 2,000 pedestrians involved in collisions with motor vehicles annually in Toronto; about 30 of these incidents result in fatalities.

 

How many of those could we expect to eliminate if we implemented his proposals?

 

Hard to say.

 

Data from elsewhere suggest that impaired walking is as proportionally dangerous as impaired driving. If that is the case in Toronto, then some 20 to 30 percent of those fatalities aren't caused by motor vehicles going too fast per se, but by the fact that the pedestrians are impaired.

 

I don't know if impaired cycling is an issue or not.

 

Dr. McKeown maintains that a pedestrian is eight times more likely to die if hit by a car going 50 km/h than 30 km/h.

 

That seems a bit high to me, given that 30 km/h is a pretty big hit.

 

But the real point is, the operator of the motor vehicle in such a collision has approximately zero chance of being killed.

 

Want pedestrians and cyclists to be safer?

 

The obvious answer: Get them into cars.

 

The sole reason I'm not totally bummed out that my second daughter has moved to Whitehorse in The Yukon is that she will no longer be riding her bicycle in downtown Toronto traffic.

 

So, what might help make our streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists?

 

Among the most interesting traffic safety initiatives in recent years - maybe ever - has taken place in a few cities and towns in Holland, subsequently extended to other cities in Europe. A traffic engineer named Hans Monderman removed ALL traffic restrictions - no speed limits, no lane markings, no stop lights, no crosswalks, no sidewalks, no signs, no nothing.

 

The theory was if nobody (or no signage, whatever) TELLS people what is or is not safe, the responsibility devolves onto all road users, and they figure it out for themselves.

 

Pedestrian/cyclist-vehicle interactions have dropped significantly in all cases, and traffic throughput actually increased as well.

 

Win win.

 

Can I see this happening here?

 

Not really. We're not brave enough to try anything this intelligent.

 

But it does indicate - to me, if not to Dr. McKeown - that in the world of traffic safety, all is not as it often appears to be.

 

Just Who is Teaching your Kids how to Drive?

OK, it's a lousy picture (relax; taken by my passenger).

So you'll have to take my word for it that this is a Driving School car.

Still, notice anything?

Yes, it is raining.

Yes, it is quite dark - in fact, it was after seven Monday evening.

Do you see any taillights?

No, you don't.

Because they weren't on.

So, a Driving School car with (what appeared to be) a student behind the wheel and an Instructor in the front passenger seat, in very poor visibility conditions - and the car only has its Daytime Running Lights on?

Does this instructor not know that his Toyota Corolla (sadly, like almost all cars) does not turn its taillights on with the DRL?

Does he not know that because a Corolla (wrongly, and again sadly, like almost all cars) DOES switch on its instrument lights with DRL, there's no indication to the driver that the full lights, including the taillights, are not on?

If a supposedly licenced Driving Instructor doesn't know a simple little (potentially life-saving) rule like this, what else doesn't he know?

What other bad habits is he communicating to your son or daughter?

I wish the photo was clear enough to identify the Driving School. Yes, I would so embarrass it if I could verify the name.

I do recall that the name started with a "K", and the address was on Finch Avenue East. This shot was taken on McCowan Road heading southbound near Finch.

So if you own a driving school in this area and you recognize this car, shame on you.

And smarten up.

If you are paying this outfit to teach your kid, cancel all subsequent lessons immediately.