It Never Rains in Abu Dhabi...

Well, it isn't supposed to rain in Abu Dhabi. They get something like 245 sunny days per year here in the largest city in the United Arab Emirates on the north shore of the Gulf of Arabia.

Yesterday was not one of them.

I am here for Mercedes-Benz's year-end celebrations, this location chosen in part because Daimler AG is now part-owned by Emirati interests, in part because they have this fabulous Formula One race track we can drive the new SLS gull-wing sports coupe on, and in part because of the usually terrific weather.

Apparently, the deluge, downpour, cloudburst, camels-walking-two-by-two inundation that hit this entire coast was the worst rain in December for decades. The roof of the spectacular airport leaked like the proverbial sieve the morning we arrived.

While shopping for tee shirts (serious packing failure) in the Marina Mall later that day, I thought there was some sort of massive fountain or wave pool or something on the second floor (nothing surprises you down here) because of the rolling-ocean sound which reverberated through the place.

Nope; just rain pelting down on the canvas cover over part of the mall roof, a common motif here, reflecting the shape and material of an Arab nomad's tent.

It leaked like said proverbial sieve too.

So far, ten traffic fatalities were directly linked to the storm on a single afternoon.

Of course, when you're in a desert, drainage run-off is pretty much the furthest thing from an urban planner's mind. Like Los Angeles, come to that.

So underpasses - heck, even moderately low roads - were completely flooded.

But, being the desert and being made largely out of sand, it does drain on its own fairly quickly. Good job, because one of the tunnels that was flooded was the pit lane exit of the Formuala One Yas Marina Circuit.

If THAT hadn't drained we would not have been able to take the SLSs out on the race track.

And that would have meant 50-odd very cranky journalists from all over the world.

Given that the collective noun for journalists is "whine", as in "a whine of
journalists", that would not have been a pretty sight.

More on our Abu Dhabi adventures in subsequent postings, and/or this weekend in the print edition.

One less excuse for not blogging

Finding time to blog with all the travel I do is tough.

But I am posting this FROM AN AIRPLANE!

Air Canada is having a trial of In-Fight Internet access. And so far anyway, IT'S FREE!

How cool is that?

It's only on selected flights so it may not improve my efficiency all that much.

But it is a start.

What's next - tweeting?

Jump-Starting Tips, and a Trick

Hard to believe with the weather we've had, but one of these days you might just have to jump-start a car.

Here's a web site that tells you all about it:

(Once again, I seem to be having trouble making hot links work. Until my on-line editor bails me out, copy-and-paste the following into your browser:)

www.aa1car.com/library/battery_safety.htm

But I had to help a friend jump-start an old BMW the other day, and I learned something new (hey - it happens).

There were two sets of jumper cables available to us, and I chose what appeared to be the thicker gauge because thin cables cannot carry as much current, and/or they get hot if you need to crank the dead car for too long (the BMW had been sitting for several months so that was a distinct possibility).

After taking all the above precautions and ensuring there was gasoline, oil, coolant, etc., we cranked it over.

Click-click-clicketty-click.

No start.

We let it sit for a while (and yes, the cables did start to get a bit warm) and tried again.

Click-click-clicketty-click.

Jiggled the connections to make sure they were solid.

Click-click-clicketty-click.

Then I thought - hmm-mm; I wanted the thicker cables for more current. What would happen if I doubled up on the cables?

So feeling very MacGyverish, I connected the second set of cables in parallel with the first set.

VROOM!!

Fired on the first crank.

I presume the extra cables did in fact allow enough current to get to the BMW's starter to turn the car over.

So instead of carrying ONE set of jumpers with you at all times, maybe you should get two?

Or maybe just buy a decent set in the first place.

If it's not one thing...

...it's another.

Tokyo (Motor Show) last week, the Niagara on the Lake Regional Airport (Automobile Journalists Association of Canada Car/Truck of the Year Test Fest) this week.

This past weekend, I didn't know what day it was, let alone what time.

I'm going to try and file tidbits from here as we proceed through what is by far the most exhaustive and comprehensive annual car evaluation process in the universe. Internet access from the site hasn't always been perfect, but we'll give it a try.

There are no airline tickets issued in my name to anywhere in said universe next week; I REALLY promise to use that time at home to catch up on your comments, and to dial up some more umbrage over idiocies like this counter-productive truck speed limiter nonsense.

Fortunately, our various levels of government provide me with endless fodder!

How do whistles get so clean?

Big chunks of the US infrastructure are in decay.

Big chunks of the huge government 'stimulus' package are being directed towards fixing this.

But from the 'credit where credit's due' file, kudos to whoever looks after the rest areas (one northbound, one southbound) on Interstate I-94 between Port Huron Michigan and Detroit.

OK, the southbound one is located just north of a prison (roadside signs warn against picking up hitchhikers).

And they consist of just a couple of washrooms with some vending machines.

But the facilities are beautifully maintained, surgically clean, and the hot air hand dryers bearing the brand name 'ExtremeAir' actually blow air in sufficient quantity, at sufficient velocity and of a sufficiently high temperature that your hands actually get dry, although the signs on them aren't as much fun as those on the hand dryers in Tokyo's Narita Airport: "Place wet hands into below pocket. Fully automatic warm air blow gives an instant speedy dry up."

These places absolutely put the corresponding commercial service centres on our side of the border to shame.

The state of Michigan has been hit harder than most in the current economic crunch. But somebody somewhere has the budget and/or the energy to do a great job here.

Small victories...

While you're at it, would you check my lower left bicuspid?

If a place I have to go is less than about a six-hour drive from my house, I'll do that - drive - instead of fly.

Flying is no fun these days. And especially if you're heading to the US, you have to clear customs at Toronto, which means getting there two hours before take-off - heck; in my car I'd be one-third of the way there already.

So when this Bentley Continental Supersports event fetched up in downstate New York (near New York City) this week, I decided to drive. I still have the BMW X6 M that I drove to Mont-Tremblant last week, and while it isn't the most fuel-efficient cruiser going, it proved to be a surprisingly comfortable conveyance.

And I did manage to squeeze the average fuel consumption number on the Driver Information Centre down from 14.4 litres per 100 km to 14.0 during the drive down here. (I'm about to head back home now...).

The trip down here took a bit longer than planned because I was pulled over at US Customs for a 'random spot check'. The fact that this is a pretty hot looking car and the next car pulled over was a bright blue Mustang GT suggested to me that maybe the young, tough-looking, shaved-head males running this detail just wanted to get a close-up of the more exciting machinery. Doesn't explain the gray Camry though.

In any event, the procedure consisted of lining the selected cars up nose-to-tail; we drivers got out; then they drove this big white cube van slowly past the line, down one side and back up the other.

The van had "X-RAY" lettered on the side, so I assume it was checking to see if any of us were running guns into the United States. As if - most of our guns come FROM the United States.

It is of course part of the Americans' on-going attempts to strengthen their borders in hopes of improving their security.

The fact that Janet Napolitano, the new secretary of Homeland Security in US President Obama's administration, still thinks the 9/11 terrorists entered the US from Canada may be behind this. Her former position as governor of the state of Arizona presumably makes her an expert on US-Canada relations.

(Memo to Ms Napolitano - Logan Airport, Boston Massachusetts; Portland International Jetport, Portland Maine. You're welcome.)

Fortunately, the shaved-heads didn't find anything in any of our cars.

I'm just glad I have already had my children.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign...

This sign is wrong:

This sign is right:

Both signs are a few hundred meters apart, on southbound 427, just south of the 401.

What’s the difference?

Apart from the colour and the number of street names on each?

Hint: It has to do with the yellow band at the bottom.

Give up?

The international convention for yellow bands on highway signs is that the options listed on such a sign are the ONLY ones available to you.

Where they are used properly on Ontario highways is when they identify a lane that is about to become an exit ramp.

If you’re in this lane, you’re exiting.

If you don’t want to exit, you shouldn’t be in this lane, and you better move over as quickly as you can safely do so.

Simple.

Consistent.

And therefore, inherently safe.

That’s what the second (blue) sign indicates. If you’re in this lane, you MUST exit onto Holiday Drive.

Fair enough.

But the top (green) sign suggests that if you follow either of the two lanes marked with the black arrows, you MUST exit on one of Holiday Drive, Burnhamthorpe Road or Eva Road.

Again, the yellow band signifies the MUST component.

But that’s not the case at all.

All the top sign means is that you’re entering the collectors lanes. You CAN choose one of the three exits listed, but you don’t HAVE to. You can keep going southbound in the 427 collectors.

Why this matters was pointed out to me vividly some years back, where the westbound Gardiner expands from three (or four) lanes into Express and Collector sets of lanes, just west of Park Lawn Road.

I saw a BIG out-of-province commercial bus approaching this split. All of a sudden, he lunged left, crossing about three lanes of traffic to wrench the rig back into the Express lanes.

He - and the rest of us on the road at the time - were damned lucky there wasn’t a major collision.

I couldn’t read the bus driver’s mind, nor did I chase him down for an interview.

But I think my speculation about what went on is pretty close to the reality - I’m thinking he saw a sign similar to the green one on top here which reads “Islington Avenue / Kipling Avenu", he realised he didn’t want any of those, and because the yellow band implied he HAD to take one of those options, he swerved to avoid getting onto an undesired off-ramp.

(Wasn’t that the plot, such as it was, for 'Bonfire of the Vanities'? Ranks right up there with the worst books and worst movies ever made. But I digress…)

If the sign also included “Thru Collector Lanes" or some such, the yellow band wouldn’t be so misleading.

Now, anyone who has driven the 401 more than two or three times soon figures this out.

But one of the essential points of good engineering and design is that it be instantly intuitive.

Put another way, you shouldn’t have to rely on ‘local knowledge’ to be safe on our roads. We should welcome visitors, not put them through mazes.

Or darn-near cause their busses to mow down a bunch of us.

That’s also why we have standardized signage systems, so people understand what they mean without having to think unduly hard to decipher them.

So, why don’t we follow standards?

Beats me.

I’ve got other beefs about our highway signage too. Stay tuned.

And send me your pet peeves as well.

Oh - the green and blue colours on the above signs? Most of you probably know already that the green signs are for the express lanes, the blue signs for the collectors.

That’s one standard Ontario does seem to maintain.

Oh, another thing - I took those pictures with my car well and truly stopped off the shoulder of the highway.

Ain't the Internet wonderful?

I met Anatoly Fomin yesterday.

The automotive journalist from Moscow and I were sharing a shuttle at a BMW event in Marseille France.

He said, "Ah, The Toronto Star! I read Wheels on the Internet! I remember your story on the Chinese battery-powered cars at Detroit this year. I was at that show too."

As much as I love newspapers, the chances of Anatoly ever picking up a print edition of Wheels in Moscow are pretty slim...

What a life...

Just arrived in London (England, that is) this morning, for the start of a four-way press trip.

First stage, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Mini.

Next, an AMG driver training program in Belgium.

Then a new Mercedes-Benz S Class in Stuttgart.

Finally, a sneak preview of the BMW X1 in Mallorca.

I barely have enough socks to be away this long.

Interesting though to get a European perspective on the travails of the automobile industry.

The British Financial Times - a copy of which was cello-bagged and waiting for me on the Heathrow Express train to Paddington Station - had several articles on various auto-related topics, with a spin we don't see back home.

Primary among the reports was the three-way battle for the European arm of General Motors. Seems the main contenders are Fiat (which is also looking at acquiring Chrysler's North American interests), the Canadian Magna parts-making group (which also made a play for Chrysler before it was sold to Cerebrus a couple of years ago), and a little-known (on our side of the pond anyway) Belgium-based auto parts conglomerate known as RHJ International.

GM which is expected to file for Chapter 11 (bankruptcy) in the US by June, wants to maintain a large (up to 40 percent) stake in Vauxhall/Opel.

Stay tuned.

Also, Daimler has acquired ten percent of electric car maker Tesla. The press release does not mention how much if any cash was involved; Tesla has been awaiting the injection of some capital to finance the construction of a new factory in Southern California to build their new "S" sedan.

But the intention of this deal seems more likely to cement the joint venture between Tesla and Daimler to build 1000 battery-powered Smart cars.

Pardon me if I retain my massive skepticism that battery-powered cars will ever be anything more than bit players in our transportation network.

The Financial Times also reports on US President Barack Obama's proposal to force car makers to achieve a corporate average of 35.5 miles per US gallon by 2015.

The oh-so-polite Brits can't quite bring themselves to directly express the pointless idiocy of this scheme, but they do include a chart showing the cost of gasoline in various countries. I hardly have to tell you where the US ranks.

And while we Canadians whine about our gasoline prices, we're second from the bottom on that list. Yet we still buy more fuel-efficient cars than our American friends do.

If Mr. Obama wants car makers to make more fuel-efficient cars, all he has to do is create a demand for them by pushing gasoline prices closer to world levels.

Simple.

This would also encourage owners of older gas-guzzlers, which are also big polluters, to trade in their clunkers for new technology. Simply forcing car makers to build those cars does nothing to nudge those owners to upgrade. Not to mention that those vehicles would be about seven hundred dollars pricier.

Still on the pollution front, various Greenies welcomed the proposal. One Frances Beinecke, president of something called the Natural Resources Defense Council, said it would "cut global warming pollution".

Which shows she has as solid a grasp on reality as Mr. Obama. The TOTAL contribution
of CO2 (the 'global warming' gas) attributable to the personal transportation sector (i.e., cars and personal-use trucks) is about 14 percent in the US, and about 12 percent in Canada.

So if we stopped driving altogether, 88 percent (here) and 86 percent (down there) of the global warming issue would remain untouched. The impact of this proposal on CO2 emissions would be on the order of a percentage point or two.

Whoopee.

Now, if former CIBC World Markets Chief Economist Jeff Rubin is correct when he says that oil will soon be $200 a barrel, never to return to the low levels it has been at for most of the past century and a half, all of this will be moot. Gasoline prices will soar due to market demands, and the car industry will react accordingly.

And Mr. Obama's proposal will, again, be pointless.

Can't anyone get a grip down there?

In a three-dimensional world...

...two wheels is at least one too few.

Just too many degrees of freedom in that scenario for me.

My motorcycling buddies - yes, I have some - have heard this a million times, but they continue to flaunt the laws of physics, whistling past the graveyard on their two-wheeled road rockets.

And some of their two-wheeled confreres make it very difficult for the entire fraternity/sisterhood, by being absolute jerks on the road.

I saw one particularly loony bikey during my drive home from Quebec City last week.

I couldn't tell because of the helmet, but I'd bet my AMC Hornet it was a young man at the, um, handlebars.

I didn't recognize the make and model; maybe you bikeys can help me? It had a wheel at the front, a wheel at the back and an engine in the middle - you know that one? It was red - a Ducati maybe? They're red, aren't they?

Anyway, this idiot came screaming onto the highway just west of Montreal, juked back right to pass several cars on the on-ramp, cut back left across three lanes of traffic missing a transport truck seemingly by the thickness of his leather riding suit, and disappeared into the far distance.

I just don't get it.

Then there's lane-splitting, the practice of riding along the dotted white line between lanes of cars.

With their handlebars and our side-view mirrors, this leaves approximately zero room for error - or for sabotage on the part of irritated drivers.

Discussions with the Esteemed Editor of the print edition of Wheels - an avid bikey - and perusal of the web seems to indicate that lane-splitting is not illegal in Ontario per se - there does not appear to be a sub-section in the Highway Traffic Act that I can find which sayeth unto thee: "Thou shalt not split thy lanes".

I imagine The Man could still find something to charge you with if he/she was in the mood ("The Man" being a non-gender-specific term in this context.)

But why in the world would a bikey even think about doing something like that?

Their chat rooms are full of nasty comments about car drivers - 'lard-assed rust-bucket runners" popped up on one of them.

So why would bikeys put their lives at risk by getting so close to people whose intelligence and skill they clearly do not overestimate?

Esteemed Editor noted that lane splitting is common in Europe - it used to allow him to cut his commute into London in half. And it's relatively safe because car drivers over there sort of expect it to happen.

Still, I wonder how the French reproduce themselves. Lane-splitting is so common there and so fraught in Paris particularly that I wonder how any of them live long enough to sire offspring...

On the handlebar/side-view mirror issue, said Esteemed Editor told me he once saw a "dispatch rider" - I think we call them couriers - in London come to a situation where his bike would not fit through. So he pulled a wheelie and rode on by.

A braver man than I am. Gunga Din.

Bikeys are engaged in on-going discussions about their right to lane-split, how it would improve throughput hence efficiency on our highways, how can we be so ignorant, etc.

All of which reminds me of an epitaph my Grade 10 history teacher told the class one day (ah yes, Ernie Brown. He collected epitaphs...).

It went like this:

"Here lies the body of Jonathan Ray
Who died defending his right of way
He was right - dead right - as he rode along
But he's just as dead as if he'd been wrong."

Let the flaming begin.