New year's eve is upon us.

2010 is just around the corner and with it will come the usual sense of freshness that any New Year brings. From a motoring perspective, the question is this : will we see any change to the status quo? Will the big three American manufacturers actually start producing a smaller vehicle? Probably not - well two of them won't. Ford looks like it's going to be the winner to me. If they follow through on the promise of bringing the European Focus and Fiesta to the US in 2010, they could reap huge rewards. I'm not a big fan of Ford - never have been. (Nor GM before that argument starts). But I know a decent car when I drive one and the current European Focus is decent. Not brilliant. Not outstanding. But decent in a way that few American cars can hope to achieve. Good handling, a reasonable interior, frugal with its petrol and a frankly great looking body all tie up to make a good package. Will the Focus be the car to sway the American public? Probably not. There's a hard core of drivers here that believe that size (both physical and engine capacity) is everything when it really isn't. Oversize American vehicles with archaic V8 engines are boorish and outdated. Come on people - grab the future. Move with the times. Embrace forced induction, small-capacity engines with excellent fuel economy. It's not like anyone over here ever drives at even 20% of their vehicle's capacity anyway so why do you need a 12mpg V8?
Happy New Year.

Christmas eve - I hope everyone is home and well

Just a quick note for any of my readers who are online tonight instead of being at home with their families enjoying the annual argument and crappy television : have a Merry Christmas.

Winter brings England to a standstill

It's amazing to me that a simple 2 inches of snow can bring an entire country to its knees. I'm in England right now, which is gripped in the midst of what the media are laughably calling "blizzard" conditions, meaning the entire transport infrastructure has failed. Trains have stopped running because of "the wrong sort of snow". Roads have iced up and frozen over because, despite thousands of tons of sand and grit being available in the transport depots, none of it has been used to grit or sand the roads. Bus services have stopped running, the channel tunnel is closed, ferries are running up to a day late and the four main airports are basically closed. Motorways are closed because chunks of ice are falling off bridges, and motorists are abandoning their cars everywhere. This of course has brought out the best of British. In one case, motorists abandoned their vehicles in a pub car park (rather than leaving them blocking the roads) and when they returned, found a clamping / booting company had clamped all the cars. Everyone was forced to pay a £150 release fee.
Because of 2 inches of snow? Seriously? Okay I realise that it doesn't snow like this in the UK that often but when this little snow can stop an entire country it's a pretty tragic enditement of the place.

Running the engine before getting into a cold car.

At this time of year, plenty of people start their car and leave it to warm up in the morning before getting in. I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand, it lets the engine warm up and all the bearings and seals expand nicely before you start to drive it. And obviously the blower will be circulating warm air when you get in. But on the other hand, if you don't have a secure area to do this, you're practically asking to have the car stolen. Car thieves know this - they prowl suburban neighbourhoods on cold winter mornings because the pickings are plentiful and easy. And here's the other thing : when your engine is idling, it's essentially under no stress at all so it's going to take a while to heat up. If you actually just get in and drive it, the increased load on the engine helps it to heat up much more quickly. My morning commute has mild air blowing around the car after less than 1km and properly warm air in less than 2km. If you live somewhere where it's properly and consistently cold overnight, then the only true option is a sump heater or coolant heater. Sump heaters heat the oil in the engine sump so that it's not cold and gelatinous when you go to start the engine. Coolant heaters heat the coolant and circulate it around the engine to keep the block warm (not hot) so you get warm air out of the blower right away. For my money, this seems like a much better alternative to leaving the car running in the driveway while you eat breakfast.
Or you could just put on a coat and wear some gloves for the first five minutes and deal with it :-)

Winter is here for good this time.

Winter weather blew into our area over the last couple of weeks. Daytime high temperatures just below freezing, with high winds and a combination of powdery drifting snow, and wet teflon. Naturally this means that everyone around here promptly forgot how to drive in snow conditions and the accident rate went through the roof. I've said it before on this blog, and I'll say it again : winter tyres. Don't mess around with all-weather tyres if you live anywhere with a decent amount of snow and cold roads - just do it. This year I'm sporting two-wheel drive, having given up all-wheel-drive for the weight and mpg advantage. So this morning I had my first proper test of a moderately chunky SUV with 2WD and snow tyres, on packed wet snow from a standing start going uphill. It passed with flying colours. As I quietly made my way past all the other cars who were nicely polishing the road to a glossy black-ice finish with their summer- and all-weather-tyres on the same hill, I noticed the traction control light flicker on a couple of times, but it was nothing dramatic. The super sticky rubber compound, aggressive tread and plentiful siping on the tyres was doing it's job nicely. Seriously people - if you've never driven on modern snow tyres in the snow, it's a revelation.

Finding an alternative window cleaner

After the dismal performance of Armorall's customer service, I've been looking around for a suitable alternative, and I stumbled across this : Lifter-1 ProGlas. I'd never heard of this particular company before but that seemed like an opportunity to try something different. What a pleasant surprise. Their product is an aerosol but once it's been shaken up, it sprays a relatively thick, gloopy foam that sticks to the windows pretty well. A quick wipe with a cleaning cloth and a buff with a dry cloth and the inside of my car's windows are spectacularly clean again. It did a sterling job of cutting through the plastic vapour haze that builds up after a summer of being parked in the sun, and it shifted all the goop from various placements of my GPS suction cup too. It did the job quickly, with very little fuss, and the after-smell was not at all objectionable. If you're in need of a glass cleaner for your car, give them a try and let me know what you think. I really liked the job it did on my Honda which is why I'm giving them the free plug.

The Toyota floor mat issue.

You may have read about the ongoing problem Toyota has with some of its cars where the use of aftermarket floormats, or incorrectly anchored Toyota floormats, can cause the accelerator to stick fully open. Toyota are working on a fix for this problem - most likely the installation of shorter accelerator pedals, but this brings about an interesting question : should Toyota be responsible for the actions of people driving its vehicles? For example - if I stuck my hand in the way of the door and slammed it, should Toyota be expected to design a door that wouldn't injure me? The answer of course is "no" - so why are they having to solve a problem that they didn't create? If the drivers can't be bothered to use the anchoring system on the floor to hold the floor mat back, how is that Toyota's problem? It isn't. The issue is that Toyota recognise that America is a litigious society, and rather than people accepting responsibility for their own actions, they'll likely sue Toyota instead. It's sad that we've reached the stage in society where manufacturers have to change the design of a product to protect them from being sued by people who can't use the product properly. Of course Toyota aren't the first manufacturer to suffer this - any company that's ever built a ladder will tell you that 75% of the cost of the ladder to to you - the buying public - is covering the cost of lawsuits against the ladder manufacturer for people falling off their products.

The Amorall Guarantee - Pt.2

A quick followup to the blog post from a few weeks ago. Seems the Armorall guarantee is pretty much vapourware. They never responded to email or phone calls, nor even the returned pack of wipes I sent them with a letter. It's a shame - I've used their products for years, but in the face of lousy customer service like this, there's plenty of other companies out there that make competing products. It's a shame these people don't understand customer service any more. They're all in it for the quick buck at the expense of anyone who buys their products.

Chrome trim inside - why?

I recently had the misfortune to rent the most awful car I've driven in a long time. It was a GM product but I can't remember which one. What struck me the most, apart from the bad ergonomics and incomprehensible onboard computer, was the sheer volume of chrome that had been used in the cabin. They'd outlined all the instruments, centre console and vents in chrome. Now I've never been a big fan of chrome - I think it looks tacky and cheap and is a quick way of attempting to gussy up an otherwise dull design. But putting it in the cabin of a car is just inexcusable and I'll tell you why:- the sun. More specifically, when the sun reflects off all the bling inside the cabin and blinds you whilst you're driving, especially at this time of year when the sun is low in the sky. I was constantly fighting reflections and highlights from the chrome bezels as I drove - it was distracting, it was annoying and frankly it was dangerous. Add that to the laundry list of reasons why GM are failing - you simply don't put chrome inside a car.

Too lazy to park in the right place.

People with an over-inflated sense of self-importance are the worst drivers. They're so filled with perceived entitlement that they think they have the God-given right to drive wherever the heck they want and park wherever the heck they want. I have a lot of pet hates in motoring but this is my number one - people who are so lazy that they'll park in a clearly-marked no-parking area simply to save 10 steps. These people just have no common decency - no sense of the greater good or concept of - you know - following rules. Typically these cars are sporting handicap stickers but the people driving them are just friends or relatives of the person who's sticker they're using. That's low, but what I find intolerable is when the car in question actually does have a handicap driver and they simply can't be bothered to use the designated handicap spaces. In this parking lot in question, the spaces are the same distance the other side of the entrance door as this Jeep was parked. And they were all empty bar one. You can see them in the photo behind the lady with the shopping cart - they're the spaces with the blue paint. But no - whoever this person was just couldn't be bothered. I don't know if they were actually handicapped or not - I didn't see them park, but the Jeep was there for a good five minutes (empty, doors locked) before I took the photo. Selfishness like this makes me sick. I would say this person should be ashamed of themselves but if they park like this, chances are they couldn't give a flying rats ass about anyone other than themselves.

Texting public transport drivers

Well the message about texting whilst driving clearly isn't getting through, least of all to public transport drivers here in Utah. We snapped this pic on the way to lunch a couple of weeks ago. The guy looks very pissed off and for good reason - he knows he's been caught and probably suspected the picture would turn up online sooner or later. If you work for UTA or know someone who does, tell them their drivers need to concentrate more on driving the bus full of fare-paying passengers, and less on texting. You'd think with all the press this year about public transport drivers being involved in horrific crashes because of texting that things would change. Apparently this individual thinks he's more important than the safety of his passengers though.

Testing the Armorall guarantee.

I don't know if you've ever used those ArmorAll glass wipes in your car, but if so you'll know that within days of cracking the seal on the tub, they're all dried out and basically useless. I recently bought a "to go" pack of these wipes which have a different packaging, and come with the following emblazoned on the front of the packet - "Guaranteed Wipes Stay Moist". Well - we're going to test that guarantee because the wipes were almost dry when they came out of the packet new, and since then - over the last three weeks - have dried out completely despite being sealed in their packet. I've sent an enquiry to ArmorAll's customer service - we'll see if that results in anything.

Don't drive on tyres more than 6 years old.

With winter coming up, a lot of people will be getting ready to swap to snow tyres. This is a great time to do a critical safety check on your car. Find the DOT age code on your tyres and check how old they are. The DOT code is a 3- or 4-digit code stamped right at the end of the series of letters and numbers after 'DOT' on the tyre sidewall.
If it's a three-digit code, for example 345, then it means the tyre was manufactured in the 34th week of 1995. If it's a four-digit code, for example 1204, then it means the tyre was manufactured in the 12th week of 2004.
You should never be using, buying or riding around on tyres that are more than 6 years old no matter what condition they appear to be in. If you have tyres with a three digit date code, get rid of them - they're too old. If you have tyres with a four digit date code, then check my DOT tyre age calculator to find out the maximum age your date code should be for them to still be considered roadworthy.
It doesn't matter if the tyre looks new and has full tread depth - if it's more than 6 years old, it simply isn't safe to use any more. Bear this in mind when you go to buy your next set of tyres - ask to see the date code before they're fitted to your car. It's not uncommon for dealers to have old stock sitting around that even they don't know is more than 6 years out of date.

Driving mantra Part 9 - S.I.P.D.E

This part could easily have been the first or the last entry in this series of driving mantra. I chose to put it at the end because it encompasses everything I've talked about over the last few weeks and it's a simple technique that you should learn and use to the point where it becomes habit. If you've ridden a motorcycle for any length of time, you will be practicing S.I.P.D.E without even knowing it. You have to - it's the only way to stay safe on a motorbike. But for car drivers this is often a difficult concept to grasp, coccooned inside their mobile entertainment complexes. If you've ever seen a police driver training video where you can hear one of the officers constantly narrating what is going on, that's S.I.P.D.E. It would sound a little like this:
"Approaching a road on the left - no traffic. Bus stop to the right - old lady there - could be deaf or blind - might walk into traffic. Car in front slowing down. Car behind getting a bit too close. Bicycle on the pavement - has he seen us. Old lady has sat down - probably OK. Car now approaching junction in front of us - driver looking the other way. Bus coming towards us having to go wide to get around cyclist." etc etc etc. It's a constant, real-time observation of everything going on around the police car. So what is S.I.P.D.E? Search, Identify, Predict, Decide, Execute.
Search for problems before they happen. Is that person approaching from the side road a little too fast? Have they seen you? Identify the hazards around you. Someone texting on their cellphone? Someone distracted by kids in the back seat? Predict - try to predict what the traffic around you is going to do. Can you see a lane closed ahead? Chances are the cars in front of you are going to try to merge and if they do, will they be paying attention? Decide what to do - can you slow down and make room? Can you avoid the problem by changing lanes? Execute your decision - just do it. If this all sounds complicated and exhausting then you're right - it is. Driving a car should never be considered a luxury, or a right, or something that is easy. It's a complex interaction between you, the 2 ton weapon you're driving, the road and the other road users. If you can get into the habit of this sort of prediction-avoidance loop, you will be able to drive far more smoothly than you would simply by reacting to events only when they happen. And when you drive smoothly, as I said in Part 1 - the river flows a lot more easily.

That concludes my mini series on driving mantra. Hopefully you got something useful out of it and hopefully it will give you pause for thought next time you step behind the wheel.

Driving mantra Part 8 - Cruisin'

Too many people, especially here in America, think cruise control is the be-all and end-all of long distance driving. They'll set the cruise control at some given speed and then stay there irrespective of anything that might be going on around them. A classic example is an overtaking truck. I saw this recently and it prompted me to include it in this mini series. We were all coming up behind a slower car in the inside lane. The truck about half a mile in front of me pulled out to overtake just as we reached a slight gradient. It was a laden tanker so he started running out of steam pretty quickly but was very nearly past the slower car - probably less than 2m to go. The driver of the car just sat there though. He didn't speed up to get past and let the truck pull back in, nor did he click the cruise control down a notch to allow the truck to get in front and pull in. No - for 3 miles he sat staring at the truck's indicator. By the time the truck did pull in, there was a line of traffic about half a mile long behind us - all because captain cruise control didn't think to help the situation out. So who was at fault here? The truck driver for attempting to overtake on a gradient in the first place or the car driver for being obstinate and not allowing the truck back in? I'd go with the car driver here. The truck had completed 95% of the overtaking and the car driver simply would not take account of the changed situation. Instead he stuck to his guns and glued up the freeway for 3 miles. So if you find yourself in this situation, take notice of what's going on around you and don't zone out. Adjust your cruise control. Remember the flowing river.

Driving mantra Part 7 - The safety bubble.

When you're travelling at 120km/h on the motorway, and everyone else is doing the same speed, it all looks relatively calm. Your speed relative to everyone else is within 5 to 10km/h of them. Everything seems relatively peaceful. In reality you're still doing 120km/h and that will be brought home in a big way when something goes wrong. When traffic is flowing smoothly, there's not a lot of energy being transferred because there's not much change of speed or direction. But when you start to brake or swerve, things start to go downhill very quickly indeed. Complex forces come into play that will easily overwhelm all but the most experienced driver in a fraction of a second. So you need to consider a safety bubble around your car. A virtual airspace where you don't want anyone else to be. If someone else gets into your safety bubble, adjust your speed or road position to resolve the situation. The safety bubble gives you a known area around your vehicle within which you can maneuver. It absorbs some of the variations in speed brought on by variable traffic, and gives you an "out" on at least one side for if things in front go pear-shaped. Think of it like an undercover operative thinks when they enter unfamiliar territory. Be suspicious of the vehicles around you and know the exit routes in case you need them.

Driving mantra Part 6 - Use your eyes properly.

If you really want to stand a chance of driving smoothly, you need to look way further ahead than the car in front. Some people will suggest looking at the vanishing point but I find that takes too much of the near-field away from me. Instead I recommend you watch the car in front of the car in front. That gives you an early warning of what is coming up. If that vehicle suddenly brakes, then it's a good bet the vehicle in front of you will do the same. If you've anticipated this by already slowing down, then you've bought yourself more time and road space to do something about it when the next car in line does the same. The same goes for swerving or emergency moves. Can you see the lane is closed up ahead some way? Then change lanes now. Don't wait for everyone in front to do it - just because they can't see any further ahead than the tip of their own steering wheel doesn't mean you should follow suit.
In a related note, get used to the relative size of pedestrians as you're driving. This sounds a little odd at first but think of this: is that person in the road in front of you an adult who is 100m away or a child who is 30m away? Making the wrong choice could be disastrous and anedotal evidence suggests that this could be a contributing factor to the number of children hit by cars. People are so used to thinking in terms of adult size, that their interpretation of a child standing in the road is actually that it's an adult standing much further away. That mistake fools them into believing they have more space for avoidance than they actually do, often with tragic consequences.
Finally, don't get distracted. Your cellphone isn't that important. Neither is the in-seat DVD, the navigation system or the climate control. You are at the wheel of a 2-ton weapon and when you get distracted you become dangerous. Keep your mind on the job at hand - driving - and if you must take a cellphone call, find somewhere to pull over and do it. Your time and convenience is not worth more than the safety of roads users other than yourself. However simple and safe car manufacturers make it seem, driving is a complex task with life-threatening consquences when you get it wrong. Treat it as such.

Driving mantra Part 5 - Use your indicators and brakes in the right order.

Remember in part 2 I said that your tail lights are your only real form of communication with those behind you? Throw us a bone. If you're going to turn off, use your indicators first. Give those drivers behind you some clue what you're going to do. As you approach the turning, begin to slow down. The drivers behind you (if they're attentive) will begin to slow down too. If you can, gauge your speed so you can turn without coming to a complete stop. It's the analogy from part 1 again - water flowing in a river. If you brake first, then indicate only once you've come to a complete stop, you gave nobody behind you any clue what your intentions were, so now everyone is forced to bunch up and stop behind you instead of being given the option to go around you or slow down and give you room to get out of the way. You're the blockage in the river, creating turbulence.

Driving mantra Part 4 - The proper use of mirrors.

Your mirrors are there for a reason so use them. But understand their limitations and advantages first. Every vehicle has blind spots - areas behind and around you that you can't see into because of the design and position of the windows and mirrors. You can minimise the size of these blind spots by adjusting your mirrors properly - and again this is something that most drivers will find hard to do and even harder to use to start with. Most drivers have their external rear view mirrors adjusted so they can see some of the rear of the car in them. Wrong. Doing this creates the biggest blind spots. To adjust them properly, do this. If you're in a left-hand-drive car, sit in the driver's seat and tilt your head as far to the left as you can - so you're resting on the window. Don't lean your body - just your head. Look in the left external mirror and adjust it so you can just see a little bit of the rear of your car. Now when you sit upright again, in your left mirror, you won't be able to see any of the rear of your own car. Do the same for the right mirror, but tilt your head to the right so your cheek is resting on your shoulder. If you do this properly, as a vehicle passes you on either side, you should be able to see the nose of it in the side rear view mirrors just as the tail end of it disappears from your center mirror. Voila - tiny blind spots. Now this never excuses you for not double-checking. Every motorcyclist is trained to do head-checks and as a car driver you really ought to do the same. If you check your mirrors and you're not 100% sure, do a quick over-the-shoulder check before turning or changing lanes. If more people did this by habit, there would be a lot less side-swipe accidents.
The last thing to know about mirrors is how you drive when you're behind a larger vehicle. It's really super simple. If you can't see the mirrors of the truck in front of you, he can't see you following him. (Plus it means you're way the hell too close to him). Fall back - make sure you can see one if not both of his external rear view mirrors. It gives you more chance to anticipate his moves, and it gives him more chance of seeing you.

Driving mantra Part 3 - Your arms, airbags and steering wheels.

Think about this for a second. Your airbag in your steering wheel can inflate quicker than you can blink. That's a tremendous amount of force involved during the inflation and if your arms are crossed on the steering wheel when this happens, they will be propelled into your face at about 250km/h or 150mph. That means broken arms and a fractured skull. The same is true with side airbags - if you drive in the summer with the window down and your arm out to the side, expect it to be broken or dislocated if the airbag goes off. So what to do? Well you just need to keep this in the back of your mind when you're driving and pick hand positions on the steering wheel that are most appropriate to your situation. Forget that ten-to-two crap - that's old-school mantra for back in the days when cars didn't have power steering. In fact, in a modern car, that's probably the last place you want your hands in the event of an emergency, because it gives you the most leverage on the steering wheel. The last thing you need when you're panicking is to yank down hard on one side of the steering wheel in a car with power steering - it will change direction very abruptly, and in the worst case, induce the car to flip and roll. With the airbag being in the middle of the wheel, you really should avoid resting the palm of your hand on the horn pad, or even your thumbs for that matter. Pick hand positions which are comfortable to you and try not to cross your arms when turning the wheel. It's difficult to do - a habit you typically got into early on and will be hard to break. I still find myself crossing my arms when turning even though I write articles like this all the time.

Driving mantra Part 2 - Don't use your brakes unless absolutely necessary.

This one is difficult to master if you're a nervous driver who is always on the brakes. What you need to understand is that your tail lights are your only real form of communication with those behind you. If you're constantly tapping the brake - or worse - driving with your foot on the brake all the time - it's like crying wolf. The driver behind you has no indication of if you're really slowing down, or just nervously tapping the brake for no reason. When you do need to stop, everyone behind you is conditioned to think you're just nervously fiddling with the brake pedal again, and that's one way to ensure being rear ended.
So what do I mean by "don't use your brakes"? Simple - take your foot off the accelerator. Your car will naturally begin to slow down. If you're not slowing down enough, then you may use the brake. But if you're in motorway traffic and the brake lights come on in front of you, just take your foot off the accelerator first. Chances are the person in front is a nervous braker. 9 times out of 10, a slight slow down on your part will be all that is needed, and because you didn't brake yourself, you've not amplified the problem for those behind you.
Why drive like this? Well - a good deal of traffic jams are known as phantom or shockwave traffic jams. The traffic is stopped for no other reason than a nervous braker. It works like this - someone gets a bit twitchy and instead of simply reducing their speed with the accelerator, they dab the brake. The person behind them does the same, only a fraction harder. Behind and to the sides, people now see two brake lights so they all begin to dab the brakes a little too. Each dab of the brakes slows down the traffic in that lane by a tiny fraction until suddenly, a kilometre behind you, everyone has come to a complete stop. There's your phantom traffic jam. If you were able to observe this from above, it looks like a shockwave travelling backwards through the traffic. In effect - particles bunching up and pulling apart. Remember the river analogy from part 1 of this series? If you want to see this in a mini simulation, this little java application can be tweaked to show the problem very clearly : A Microsimulation of road traffic. Set it to 'ring road' and watch what happens - you don't need to tweak anything but after a few seconds you'll see a shockwave traffic jam form. Think about this next time you're driving.

Driving mantra - a mini series of blog entries.

After a long and detailed conversation with a movie stunt driver recently, I've been spurred on to write a series of articles which I'm going to publish in the blog over the next few weeks. It will be a series talking about driving skills and how you can do your part to help both yourself and all those around you on the road. This isn't "speed kills" or anything like that, but hopefully a series of bite-sized chunks of information to give you something to think about. It might cover topics you already know about. It might make you think "crap - I do that!" or it might make you think a little more about what's going on when you drive. Either way, I hope you find it useful. Feel free to comment as usual.

Part 1 - Traffic is like a flowing river.
This is the best way to think of traffic. Imagine all the cars are particles of water flowing in a river. If you slow down for no reason, you cause an obstruction like a rock being dropped in the river. Water - the other vehicles - now have to either slow down or go around you, which causes turbulence behind you and to the sides. Turbulence slows down the flow and causes problems. The same is true if you are going to pull out in to traffic - make sure there's enough room or you create a blockage and more turbulence. Apart from your own safety and that of others around you, your sole job is to get from A to B without causing any interruption in the flow of the river.

The Fiat 500 to come to the US?

It seems that Chrysler will be bringing the Fiat 500 to the US in about a year or so, largely unchanged. Wow. This is awesome news. I just wonder if they really will be able to resist the urge to Americanise it. I mean look at what Ford did to the Focus - in Europe a svelte, fast, sporty, economical and attractive car. In America, a porky shitbox that struggles to get decent gas mileage, speed or handling:



Those ARE the same car - look at the glass shape in the windows. It's just that for the US, Ford Americanised the car. Is it any wonder that they have trouble competing in their home market? Fortunately, now that Jacques Nasser and William Clay Ford (Jr) have both gone, Ford US are planning to bring this car over in 2010 badged as a 2011 model year so people will finally be able to see what a proper European-spec car is like. Hopefully it will force the other manufacturers to do the same thing.

So with Chrysler - what will the do to the Fiat 500? Will it become an SUV? Will they add 500lbs of weight to it and neuter the engine to get only 20mpg? I don't trust the US car manufacturers to do anything right, so I'm going to be watching the Fiat 500 story with interest. If they do bring it here, and more importantly, if they bring the Abarth here without cocking around with it, they'll have a winner on their hands:

Utah is the first state to sort of get it.

Living in Utah I'm pleased to see that they recently passed a new bill here to do with texting whilst driving: It views the act is inherently reckless and punishes it as harshly as drunk driving. It's a far stronger law than most of those already existing in other states; California's, for example, punishes offenders with a tiny fine, usually around $20.
The problem is that they still treat it as a secondary offence - ie. you can't actually be stopped by the police if they see you texting. That's a problem. Until it's a primary offence, and one that is enforced properly, it's not going to stop anybody. In fact on the evening news, they even said "so it's OK to check your email and surf the web, but make sure you don't text".
WTF?
How about "put the goddamn phone down and engage your brain in the act of driving".
The police and politicians are quick to spout the usual lie about "speeding kills" (which it doesn't - fact - you can read about that in the facts and fiction about speeding) but they won't do anything about people who use cellphones whilst driving.
Whereas only 4% of accidents can be directly attributed to speeding, your chances of being involved in an accident whilst texting go up 2300% (source). Why aren't the police taking this seriously? For that matter, why do they not care about people who read the newspaper, do their makeup, use the laptop or any of the other multitude of distractions that people engage themselves with in front of me every day on my morning commute? Is it because America is the country that has actually encouraged laptop use whilst driving with products like the Laptop Copilot (below)? I know the manufacturers will claim it shouldn't be used whilst driving but I've seen people doing exactly this. (I'd like to see the airbag go off and see what happens).
This can't be a revenue thing - the police would make far more stopping people for texting than they'll ever do by stopping people for doing 31mph in a 30 zone. This whole thing is such a mystery to me. It's so obviously a problem yet nobody is willing to do anything about it. Why demonise speeding when texting causes far more accidents?

Those who see, those who don't, and those who don't care.

Some friends and I went for a long motorcycle ride last weekend - up in the mountains in the cool air. It was fantastic but it reminded me that when you're on a motorbike, there are essentially three categories of car driver. Those who see you, those who don't, and those who see you but just don't care.
On narrow mountain roads, for the most part, the lanes are separated with a double yellow line. Passing opportunities are few and far between - you can ride for miles before coming across a broken yellow.

When you come up behind a car driver, those who see you are normally very accommodating. Realising you are infinitely faster than they are on a mountain road, they'll pull to the side and slow down, and/or pull in at a lay-by, and/or wave you past. This is nice - you know you've been seen and a friendly wave as you pass them helps seal the deal.

The drivers who don't see you are the same ones who cause all the motorbike accidents. They'll happily run you down as much as look at you, mostly because they're busy corralling the kids, arguing with the co-driver or more likely, texting on their phones. These are simply lost causes - you have no choice other than to sit well back to give them room to drive like total dicks, and then pass them when the markings allow. More often than not, taking them by surprise.

The last category are those drivers who've clearly seen you, and are deliberately doing everything possible to prevent you from passing. Normally this involves driving incredibly slowly when the lines in the middle of the road are double yellow, then speeding up and drifting to the left when you get to a passing area.

Motorcyclists all love driver type 1. We deal with driver type 2 because we have to. Driver type 3? Well, the less said about them, the better. You know who you are and you know where you can go.

From a motorcyclist to all the type 1 drivers who have seen me and acknowledged me: thank you. Especially the guy towing the boat up Mount Nebo loop a few weeks back who pulled the entire rig over on to the soft shoulder and waved me through. I appreciate it.

Please - use your brain.

In my ongoing theme of intolerance of idiot drivers, it seems to me that less and less people are able to use their brains nowadays. This was illustrated again today on the way to lunch. The situation is a little unique - the intersection in question has two left turn lanes. About half way along, there's a street on the left. People want to turn out of that street into the turn lanes so they invariably sit there for ages, waiting to cross traffic and try to force their way in to the lanes that are full of traffic waiting to turn.
The solution is so brilliantly elegant that it illustrates just how stupid some drivers are. If they turned right out of that road and then did a legal U-turn, they could simply join the line of traffic waiting to turn.
But no.
Today, the incredibly short woman in the ridiculously large SUV decided it was in fact better to block the entire road, than it was to use her brain. When she eventually did push in to the traffic, she had to cross a slightly raised kerb and a painted double yellow line to do so, thus not only demonstrating her stupidity, but her complete lack of understanding of road signs and traffic markings.
Why?
Why do people have such a hard time using their brain? I just don't understand it. Are people really evolving to be so idiotically stupid that they can't perform the most simple tasks of reasoning and elemental problem-solving? Or is it just plain selfishness?

Yet another idiot driver causes yet another accident.

A few days ago I was driving home when I came across an odd sight. At one particular set of traffic lights with two lanes each way and a turn lane, all the traffic in the outside lane was standing still at a green light. The inside lane was completely clear. Figuring it was the usual inattentiveness of the driver at the front (who hadn't noticed the green light), both me and the car in front went down the inside lane which was clear. Sadly, it was a trap. The driver at the front of the other lane was in fact attempting to turn right from the left turn lane. He did this just as the driver in front of me got to the front of the queue. The driver in front of me hit the guy who was turning broadside and shoved the entire wreckage into the middle of the intersection. I was able to stop in time for it not to become a three-car pile-up. Once again I found myself filing yet another accident witness statement to the police. I made sure it was crystal clear in my statement that the guy who caused the accident was the idiot who turned right from the left lane. I'd like to think he'd get some sort of punishment for being such a retard, but in my heart I know he'll get a small fine and be left to go on with his life, probably to cause more accidents in future.

Helmet shopping

From time to time (and when the funk in my current helmet is too much to bear) I find myself shopping for motorcycle helmets. It's a strange world though. From the alphabet-soup manufacturers (HJC and the like) to the high-end Japanese jobs (Shoei, Arai), there's a gigantic amount of choice, and a similarly gigantic amount of variation. The key to a helmet of course is that it must protect your noggin in the event of a spill, and to that end, most helmets are DOT, SNELL or BSA approved nowadays. Given that metric, a $70 helmet ought to protect as much as a $700 helmet. And they do. So it then comes down to style - the way it looks - solid colours or graphics, and fit and build quality. Sadly for me, I have a Shoei shaped head. I don't mind - I like Shoei helmets because they fit well and are built well, but I say 'sadly' because that puts me in the $350 range for a new lid. I've never been able to fit into Arai helmets because they always seem to be too oval for me but this time around I was able to try on a lot more manufacturers products than normal. I must have had my head in 40 helmets trying them for fit and it ultimately came down to three. The HJC CL-15 actually fit really nicely once I took the noseguard out. It had some funky graphics options but felt a little 'cheap'. The Scorpion Exo 700 was similar - a nice fit although a little tight across the forehead. The whole feel of the helmet was more polished although it did have a lot of vents on it which makes me wonder how noisy it would be. Ultimately, as always seems to be the case though, I got to Shoei and popped on a TZ-R and it fit like a glove first time out. Typical. Questionable personal taste in graphics aside, this is what I ended up with then:

Redundant (adj). See "Ford".

Long-time readers of my site or this blog will know I'm not one for nanny cars. So it should come as no surprise to find that I'm appalled by what I found when looking through the Acura brochures recently. Specifically, 2010 Acura MDX is able to use its GPS to determine the location of the sun in relation to the car, which it then uses to adapt the climate control to blow cooler on the sunny side of the vehicle. Tell me: how much extra technology (in terms of motors, sensors, processors etc) did it take to make this happen? What's wrong with an analogue heat control and a knob to tell the system where to blow the air?
It's like adaptive cruise control, auto brakes, blind spot sensors, auto windscreen wipers and auto lights - all technologies designed to prevent the driver from having to use a consistently high level of attention to pilot their 2 ton weapon. Instead, people are being coccooned from the outside world and pampered to in the worst way possible. Why do none of the manufacturers understand that this causes more accidents? The more people are isolated from the act of driving, the lazier and more dangerous they become. Or is this the backdoor way of "proving" that we all need autopiloted cars? Make cars so dangerous and people so irresponsible that the only option is to take all control away from us to make us "safe" again? Puh-lease.
But the award for the most retarded and redundant car accessory this year? Well that goes to Ford with their 2010 Mustang GT. Sports car it certainly is not, but to make it sound more like a sports car, they've added sound pipes - an extra pipe from the exhaust that is routed up around the inside of the dash to bring engine sound into the cabin. Umm. Surely if they hadn't added all the extra sound deadening in first place, they wouldn't need the extra pipe so you could hear the engine? Plus the weight loss from throwing away the extra plumbing and sound deadening would lighten the car significantly and make it more sporty to drive, and more sporty to listen to.
Insulating you from the engine noise, then deliberately adding complexity to bring the engine noise into the cabin. Genius.

You've got a big engine - use it!

One of the things that really irritates me about our local drivers is that on the one hand they complain constantly that they need big cars with big engines because small, fuel-economic European cars are either unsafe, too small, or the engine isn't big enough. On the other hand, these are the same people who drive at 19mph in a 40mph zone in a car on their own. Why post a blog entry about this? Obviously because this is what happened to me this morning. I was forced to endure one of the worst commutes of recent months because I got stuck in roadworks behind someone who was driving a Saleen-modified Mustang. Normally you wouldn't think that would be an issue, but this joyless driver was doing 14mph in a 55mph work zone. Every bump in the road, every construction cone that was slightly out of place, and every corner caused the brake lights to come on. He was either nervous, talentless, or too stupid to own a car of any sort.
But here's the point - if you own a 5.4l V8 that is capable of putting out over 500bhp, damn well use it! Most American drivers don't need most of the cars they own. A 32v Northstar engine is a complete waste of time - so is a Hemi - so is anything modified with a supercharger or a turbo unless you're actually going to benefit from it. So instead of bitching about why you need a behemoth of a car riddled with 1950's 'technology', why not buy something modern? A Smart car, or a Fiat 500, or a Ford Focus, or a VW Polo Bluemotion. These are all respectable cars (well - in European form anyway) that are perfectly safe, perfectly roomy, and perfectly fuel economic. And they're all still capable of going faster than 14mph in a work zone.

Schumacher Returns

The bizarre accident in qualifying last weekend that put Felipe Massa in hospital has thrown a bit of a spanner into this year's Formula 1 championship. Faced with an empty seat, Ferrari have done the unthinkable and appeased Schumacher fans the world over : Michael Schumacher is going to race Massa's seat for the remainder of the season. I'm giddy like an excited schoolgirl at the prospect of this, because for the first time it means Alonso and Button are going to get to drive on track, in racing conditions, with the greatest Formula 1 driver of all time. Presuming of course that he's still got it - and I hope he has. Whilst I'm ambivalent about the politics of Ferrari and how they manipulate the Formula 1 stewards, I was always a huge Schumacher fan. To see him come out of retirement for even one race would be awesome. To see him race a half season - even under these unfortunate circumstances - is more than most of us would have hoped for.
And what about Massa? Well his injuries are severe. To bring you up to speed, in qualifying last weekend, the heave spring on the rear of Barrichello's car popped out and started bouncing along the track. Felipe Massa was the next car around and unfortunately, that spring was in mid-bounce and slammed into Massa's helmet near the visor at 160mph. Massa was knocked unconscious and straight-lined the next corner slamming into the tyre wall. He was taken to hospital, where he still is, with a brain contusion, and probably a fractured skull and eye socket. The good news is that he's responsive now, and walking around under his own steam. The arguments have already started about the relative safety of open-cockpit racing cars but hopefully they'll stay just that - arguments. With all the rest of the regulations that we get in Formula 1, the last thing we need is closed cockpit cars. This was a freak accident and a testament to the strength and design of the Schuberth helmet that Massa was wearing. We should all hope he gets well soon and is able to race next year, but in the meantime, we should watch with interest what, if anything, Schumacher can do.

2009 Camaro : Big Bucket of Fail

The big US car manufacturers always seem to be caught wondering why people buy imports rather than their own home-grown products. Generally speaking it's because they build awful cars and they don't seem to want to improve. Case in point the new Camaro. Great looking car superficially, but when it comes to the details - not so much. Users at Camaro5 have started penning a combined list of problems with their brand new vehicles. Now everyone expects one or two issues with a new car, especially the first production run, but this list demonstrates clearly why the US car industry is in such trouble. The Camaro had the chance to be the saving grace - a new start - a chance to prove that GM really was capable of building a truly 21st century car. Instead, a long and horrifying list of items, a lot of which are non trivial.
Highlights?
The trunk doesn't open with the key or the remote unless you're pushing down on it.
Lots of loose and misaligned body panels outside, and loose and misaligned trim panels inside. Overheating and exposed, uninsulated wiring. Paint runs, bubbles and chips. Leaking radiators. A digital speedometer that's both inaccurate and only functions intermittently. An AC system that stops blowing cold air intermittently. Rims and tyres coming off the delivery transports in bad condition or damaged. Faulty gas gauges (improper readings). Missing brake parts.
For the full 68 reasons why you need to seriously reconsider buying a Camaro, visit Camaro5.

Stone chips in your windscreen

As you'd expect from driving a vehicle with a near vertical windscreen, rock chips are an occupational hazard in a Honda Element. So many people get little chips and dings and think nothing of it, or put off a repair.
Just do it.
Get down to your local rock chip repair place and pay them the $20 or £15. I went to a Technaglass near where I live and it took them about 10 minutes. The chip is still slightly visible from a cosmetic point of view but that's not the issue. Most rock chip repairs are structural which means that when winter comes around, there's less chance of water getting in to the pits and cracks, freezing, expanding and making things worse. Apart from that, your windscreen undergoes a lot of torque and flex in the day to day driving of a car. Small cracks and chips lead to bigger cracks and chips which ultimately will lead to a new windscreen.
Or you could spend barely anything today to mitigate that happening.

Why can't Utahns park properly?

There's a sad joke here in Utah - it's called "Utah Drivers". The irony is that they don't realise they're the joke. Of the many peculiar, dangerous and lazy driving practices the people in this state adopt, the inability to park is a pet favourite of mine. Generally speaking, if there's any possible way to completely mess up the parking process, Utahns will be right there. Can't reverse park? Check. Can't park forwards? Check. Can't judge the length or width of their own car? Check. Don't understand which way to leave the front wheels when parked on a hill? Check. The picture here was taken yesterday in a local parking lot, and is typical of the problem. This rocket scientist isn't straight, has no idea of the length or width of their car and doesn't understand what the markings in the parking lot are for. As a result they've inconvenienced everyone else most likely because they just couldn't be bothered to do it properly. So here's to you 281PEB. You're now famous for being a complete tool.

Doing TV work

If you've read the CarMD review on my site, you'll know that I recommend it as quite a useful tool. Well today I was called up to do my bit for the world of infomercials. As the author of this site, CarMD wanted me to do some time on camera giving a testimonial about their product. It's important for me to stress to you all that there was zero financial reward for this - they simply asked if I'd do it, and I said "sure thing".
The day was a lot of fun. I've been on TV before for various things, from the original Boycott The Pumps protest back in England in 2000, to motoring shows on TV, to the odd news spot where they've wanted a talking head that knew something about cars. Today was no different. We spent about 40 minutes filming, of which I expect to see between 8 and 12 seconds used in one of their ads.
I don't know if I'm going to feature in regular TV ads, short or long infomercials, but if you see a CarMD commercial come on, don't skip it this time - watch closely and you might see me. I'm the English bloke wearing the blue and grey shirt ....

We're spoiled.

This past weekend I went out with a couple of mates on our motorbikes to ride the Mirror Lake Highway. It starts in Kamas, about 40 minutes from where I live. The ride out and back was great - we're typically spoiled for beautiful countryside in this part of the world. I was on my Triumph Tiger, and my two friends were on a Yamaha R1 and a BMW R1200GS respectively. An eclectic mix of bikes for sure but we weren't out to race, just to spend some time with friends. We came across a couple of groups of Harley riders - one group was totally pleasant whilst the others were the usual HD morons who believed they owned the road. The usual, then. There were mercifully few car drivers around, and even fewer campers and trucks. I suspect that's because we started early. By lunchtime as we were coming back, the road up to Mirror Lake was stuffed full of the aforementioned mobile roadblocks - it would have been miserable having to ride up at that point.
So if the weather's good, and you've got a good group of friends with motorbikes, just take off for the day. Doesn't matter where - just enjoy it. Summer will be over soon enough but that leads on to Autumn - the best time to get out on your motorbike....

The right oil for the right job.

Time for a quick refresher: in multigrade oils, there are two viscosity ratings. For example 5W40 indicates an oil which is thinner when cold and thicker when hot. The "W" indicates "winter" - more typically "cold". So 5W is an oil which has a viscosity value of 5 when cold. The other number is the viscosity when hot. In this example, a viscosity value of 40. So why use a multigrade oil? Well when the engine is cold, you want the oil to flow as quickly as possible to all the engine parts, and also not to impede the power of the starter motor in turning the engine over. But if the engine oil stays thin when it gets hot, then it does no good because it runs too quickly, and doesn't stick to any moving parts. Hence multigrade oil that thickens up with temperature.
So which oil should you use? Suffice to say that a 5W oil isn't going to give you much benefit if you live in Singapore in the same way that a 20W oil won't do you any good if you live in northern Alaska. Here's your rough guide:

5W-30 Cooler climates, like Sweden or Canada
10W-40 Temperate climates, like England, northern Europe, New Zealand
15W-50 Hot climates, like Italy, Spain, Egypt, Australia

The 2009 Mercedes C Class

Another business trip, another car rental. This time the glitch in my corporate account means that I'm paying for a Ford Focus but driving a 2009 Mercedes C Class with only 15 miles on the clock.
Initial impressions? Very nice. It drives pretty well for such a large car. It's an automatic, which means it has a "C" and "S" mode, "S" mode simply meaning - "the mode with most of the electronic shackles removed". It took me a while to find the 12v accessory socket though. I found one in the glovebox, but the small cubby hole at the front of the dash is so well disguised I didn't find it until this morning.
One thing that's a little bizarre is Mercedes choice of stalk controls behind the steering wheel - there's only one. It does headlights, washer/wiper and indicators all on one stalk. My daily driver is Japanese so I'm used to controls split across two stalks, so driving the Mercedes from the airport yesterday, I spent a lot of time flashing the cars in front and randomly indicating left whilst trying to use the windscreen wipers. The location of this giant multi-control stalk is also a bit Ford-like in that it's very low down. If the car was a manual, I'd no doubt have snapped it off by now because it just about touches my left knee even with the adjustable steering column in the highest position.
Otherwise it seems Mercedes have come out of their early 2000's funk when they were building just awful cars, and it looks like they're trying to regain their status as a luxury marque. It's quiet and comfortable, and there's definitely something unique about driving with a visible emblem in front of you - in this case the Mercedes star that protrudes from the front of the hood.
Would I buy a C-Class Mercedes (or any Merc for that matter)? Still probably not. Not only because of the cost, but it's just too much luxury and too many nanny items for me. It doesn't feel like driving a car any more - as the driver I feel too far removed from the process in it.

F1, FIA or FOTA?

It seems that Max Mosley and the FIA are absolutely determined to destroy Formula 1 motor racing as we know it. For years they've been adding regulation on top of regulation trying to hobble the cars and drivers. Frankly I'm surprised the Grand Prix events don't just have drivers pushing their cars around the circuits now. And so, of course, with the 2010 season, Mosley wanted to introduce yet another ridiculous restriction - this time a cap on the R&D budgets of the teams. Apparently he doesn't understand that cutting-edge motorsports development costs quite a bit of money. Only this time the teams have fought back and today they announced a breakaway series - FOTA - backed by Ferrai, Brawn GP, McLaren, Renault, Toyota, BMW Sauber, Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso.

So where does this leave us - the fans? Well the TV rights will go to hell - all the existing contracts are very long term, and are with F1 and FIA. The same goes for the circuit contracts. So if the FOTA goes ahead with this, we'll be left with scant TV coverage of their events next year, and they'll likely be racing at backwater circuits nobody has ever heard of. In place, we'll have a neutered F1 series with no-name teams, no-name drivers and no-name sponsors racing at empty circuits with no spectators. Genius decision guys - thanks for that.

Why can't the FIA just fire Mosely? That idiot has been nothing but trouble for motor sports with his meddling.

My biggest concern with all of this is that the breakaway FOTA will probably be no better off without the FIA. I doubt they have the stones to re-introduce small wings, V8 and V10 engines, turbochargers and driver aids - in fact all the stuff Mosley has removed over the past decade. Mosley and the FIA keep insisting that their changes make the sport better, when in fact it becomes duller and duller to watch because you essentially have a sport which has been dumbed down to the level of Indy Car - a sport where a procession of cars turn left for 200 miles and then they all finish in the exact same order they started.

Speaking of Indy - Mosley, the FIA and for that matter the breakway FOTA could do well to open the history books and look what happened when the IRL split from CART back in the day. As in nature, when two competing species try to occupy the same niche, one will always die out. In that case it was CART that vanished, and the resulting IRL was weak in comparison, and has never regained the popularity, sponsorship or attendance that CART did. If the same happens in Formula 1, it will become just another motorsports event that nobody cares about.

Conglatulations on your new Hummel.

It's a racist stereotype I know, but I couldn't resist. The fact of the matter is that the ailing GM have now sold the Hummer brand to Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery in China. Quite what this means for the company I'm not sure. I know the Chinese will probably be delighted at the acquisition but what about GM and its employees? Will the existing plants be kept open, or will they be culled in favour of building the ubiquitous gas guzzler in the Orient instead? Can the new owners make a more fuel-economic version? How about stripping out the petrol engine and stuffing in a nice turbodiesel instead?
I'm in two minds about this latest in the saga of a death of a thousand cuts. On the one hand, the Hummer always has been, and will likely continue to be a ridiculous vehicle for private ownership and use. It should have died years ago. But on the other hand, that does put a lot of people's jobs at risk. The sensible company would find a way to adjust and re-task, and Tengzhong Machinery might just do that. But what if they don't? What if all the workers are laid off? Who do you blame? It's easy to sit behind a keyboard and answer that question: GM's arrogant management. They continued to build terrible vehicles with terrible gas mileage that people didn't really want, believing that was the correct way to steer the company.
But that will be of little solace to the Hummer employees if they end up on the job line. Sadly - if that happens - GM's bosses high in their ivory towers probably won't even be able to hear the angry mob below, through the triple-glazed windows whilst leaving from the rooftop helipad with their briefcases stuffed with billions.

The wheel on the rental car goes ....

Pop. Well more of a hiss than a pop. The car we rented whilst in England recently had a slow puncture in one of the tyres. Avis were excellent - I called them and explained that it wasn't worth a breakdown call because I could get back to the airport for an exchange. The girl assured me there would be a car for me when I got there, so we bumbled back up to Gatwick. Sure enough they knew I was coming and had a replacement car ready to go. The slight sting in the tail? Because I didn't do fully comprehensive insurance with them, I had to pay a flat (pun intended) £89 fee for the replacement tyre. In retrospect though, their fully comprehensive insurance only brings the deductible down from £800 to £100 so it wouldn't have covered the tyre cost - I would still have had to pay. No biggie - it was an expense we could do without, but Avis dealt with it courteously and promptly. That's a lot more than can be said for some of the issues I've had with Hertz at Gatwick in the past.
+1 to Avis.

I'm an impatient driver...

...but for the sake of 2 seconds, even I couldn't care. Apparently A10AOW did care though. As I was reversing out of a parking space this morning, this guy came barreling down the parking lot towards me. I was blocking the way - because I was backing out - and as I turned to straighten up, he cut me off, squeezing between me and the parked row of cars I'd just come from. I honked him and gave him the internationally-recongised sign for "you're number 1" and drove off, chalking it up to the day-to-day inability of Utahns to be able to drive. The bespectacled, moustachio'd man in his red saloon did a quick three-point turn and raced up behind me, then tailed me out to the next set of traffic lights where he got out and leaned in through the passenger window of my car. "Swear at me again and I'll fucking bust your fucking head in!" he spat, whilst reaching in to the car but not being able to get quite all the way to me.

Wow. Not only was he impatient, but apparently my one-fingered salute actually spoke to him. Not only spoke, but swore at him.Must get on the phone to the Guinness book of records - apparently my left middle finger can speak.

Oh - and if that was you, I gave all your details to the police and the guy in the black truck next to us gave a witness statement. You're being charged with assault.

Have a nice day :-)

Driving with like-minded people

I recently spent 5 days back in my childhood country of Holland, driving all over the place in a rented Hyundai. It was a joy to be on roads with like-minded drivers. For the most part, they all obeyed the road signs, almost always used their indicators, waved people in to gaps, acknowledged such gestures, and drove like pros. Especially compared to the UK and my current home drivers in Utah. It was just so pleasurable to be surrounded by drivers who weren't texting, weren't talking on cellphones and who were so in tune with actually driving a vehicle on the road, that the whole traffic stream just works like a finely choreographed ballet.
Now that's not to say they're perfect - I saw the odd idiot move - but it was 90/10 between good drivers and bad, as opposed to 5/95 which is the split back in Utah.
And the less said about the UK drivers, the better.
The odd thing is, and not being a trained expert, bribed official or trained consultant I could be wrong on this - the driving in Holland is commensurate with their driver education which is long, comprehensive and strict. The driving in Utah is similarly commensurate, with their driver training being essentially that you know what a car is. Could it be, and perish the thoughts, that better driver training results in better drivers?

Driving on the wrong side of the road.

You might think from the title of this entry that it's going to be about driving in England, but it's not. This morning on the way to work I encountered a car driving the wrong way up a divided highway. Being the abrasive person I am, I stopped him and challenged him. His excuse was that he "just needed to get in to the back entrance to the post office". Rather than go to the end of the road and do a legal U-turn, he'd crossed the centre divider and started driving up the wrong side of the road because it presented a shorter route to him. One long, heated argument later, and I got the police involved - more because he was trying to call my bluff than anything. After a couple of minutes, we had assembled quite the audience, listening to the argument, and when the police turned up, it was immediately obvious to them what the problem was. The guy was given a ticket for dangerous driving based solely on the various eye witness reports, and the fact that he was parked facing oncoming traffic. He was also ordered to go to traffic school or face points on his licence and a ding on his insurance notification.
So here's the thing. It really doesn't matter what excuse you think you have, driving the wrong way down a road is never acceptable. You're not that important, and you will cause an accident or come across someone like me who'll make good and sure that you pay for your stupidity.
In this driver's case, his attempt to save 20 seconds caused him a half-hour delay making him late for work, a huge fine, traffic school, and potentially points on his license and increased insurance premiums.
Frankly if I'd been one of the policemen who turned up, I'd have just taken his licence away.

I love your car but the legroom sucks

There's a group of us who go out to lunch every day from my office, so we take it in turns to drive. Most of the cars are average runabouts but one guy has a beautiful red Audi A4 with full leather and the works. I love Audis - I'll defend them in any argument. But the legroom in the back of the new A4 leaves something to be desired. Actually - it leaves a lot to be desired.
What amazes me is how manufacturers will claim that a car has 5 seats when it clearly can only seat 4 people. The hump in the middle of the bench seat at the back isn't a seat at all. Worse, most cars have trouble sitting 4 normal people because of legroom problems in the back. Sure, technically you can fit 5 people, but not in anything resembling comfort. Realistically the average saloon car should better be described as a 2+2 - 2 adults plus 2 children. Alternatively, make the cars 20cm longer and use that 20cm as additional legroom for the rear passengers.

America to Chrysler : "Screw You".

Following on from Chrysler's ill thought-out advertising campaign in December (see Chrysler to America : "Scew You"), they finally entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy today and completed the deal with Fiat. CNN had a good list of reasons Chrysler have ended up like this, including the 6 vehicles that finally finished them off (2004 Chrysler 300C, 2006 Dodge Caliber, 2006 Jeep commander, 2007 Dodge Nitro, 2007 Chrysler Sebring, 2009 Dodge Ram).
So what happens now? Hopefully Fiat can inject some sense into the smouldering pile that once was Chrysler. Stop building awful, fuel-thirsty cars that are unreliable, ugly, and out-of-touch, and start producing cars like Fiat's own mega hit Fiat 500. Better yet - don't build anything - just import cars from Europe and sell them in America.
Whatever happens it will be interesting to follow this saga closely. Not least of which because as an American taxpayer, I own(ed) part of Chrysler thanks to the equally ill thought-out bailout package.

What a drag.

I've just finished adding the section on aerodynamic efficiency to the Hybrids bible and it was a bit of an eye-opener doing the research on drag coefficients. I know we all poke fun at the Hummer for being such a ridiculous vehicle, but did you know just how bad it is? In the grand scheme of things there are really only 2 vehicles ever made that have a worse drag coefficient than the Hummer H2. The Bugatti type 51 (which was made in 1933) and the Caterham 7 racing car, which is largely unchanged from it's 1950's design. Way to go GM - and they wonder why the company is failing.

Please don't race me.

You're going to lose anyway, so what's the point?
As a motorcyclist and a car driver, it never ceases to amaze me the number of car-only drivers who don't understand power-to-weight ratio. This lovely, clear sunday morning, I was out for a ride and at one set of lights I came to, a gold Subaru pulled up behind me, then backed up, and moved over to the empty lane to my left. The lovely little thing inside gunned her engine, and I could hear the big bore exhaust, and I thought "Do I let her win, or do I teach her a lesson". Obviously, being a testosterone-fuelled male, I went for option B and smoked her off the lights. The difference is that I settled at the speed limit whilst she went tearing past a good 20mph over it. At the next set of lights, there she was again, gunning her engine, looking over at me. Again, I smoked her and again she took off way over the speed limit. This could have gone on all day as far as I was concerned, because as well as she was driving the car, and as modified as it was, the combination was still singularly incapable of out-dragging a totally stock 1 litre motorbike, complete with lardy rider.
By all means race other cars, if you feel you must, but please don't try it against a motorbike - you'll only look silly.

Motoring, Vegas style

We just got back from a short trip to Vegas, and with the spring weather, driving down the strip was a joy for a petrolhead. From the stretch limos and "girls to you" advertising trucks, to the Ferraris and Aston Martins - everyone had their top down or the windows open. Most entertaining of all was a boosted F350 pickup that was next to us at one set of lights. As the lights went green, the guy in front of him didn't move off, so he used his horn. And what a horn. It was a diesel locomotive air horn - the sort you hear American freight trains using when they're approaching road crossings and freight yards. Glorious Vegas excess.
Of course the best place to go car-spotting is the valet at the Wynn or the Bellagio. Millions of dollars of exotica, just parked up for the pose value. If you've never been to Vegas, you really should go at least once. If you're a regular, you know all about what I'm describing here from a motoring point of view...

Don't drive like a dick

This morning I was making my way west across town and came to merge on to one of the motorways. Traffic was light and it was relatively early. As I set off down the on-ramp, I saw a white Ford Taurus jump the red lights behind me and careen past me on the dirt, accelerating towards the motorway. Just about the time I thought "he's going to crash!" he shot across all three lanes of traffic. His brake lights came on just as he slammed into the concrete divider in the middle of the motorway. Overcompensating for the first crash, the driver then yanked the wheel hard to the right which deflected him back across all three lanes again, this time with the front wheels locked up and performing a full 360 on the way across. Last I saw he vanished off the hard shoulder down the grass verge, presumably to come to rest upside down in a ditch.
You know what my first thought was? Not "I wonder if he's OK" or "wow that was lucky he didn't hit anyone". No - it was "what a total dick. Nice to see Karma work so quickly once in a while."
Does that make me a bad person to wish ill of someone driving like that? I don't think so. Clearly he had no right being behind the wheel of a car, and forces beyond my control sorted the problem out nice and quick.

Motorcycle safety course

I've ridden motorbikes since I was 14. That doesn't mean I know everything there is to know - it just means I've ridden bikes for 26 years. This weekend a friend and I went to a local motorcycle safety course for a post-winter refresher. It was fun to be out with like-minded individuals, and whilst I didn't learn anything totally new, it was good to put some techniques to the test in a controlled environment. For example I did learn how far I could go before the ABS kicks in on my bike.

We did a lot of cone work - cornering, low-speed maneuvering, swerve-and-brake, emergency stops - that sort of thing. For the most part, all the riders on the course were pretty competent although one guy did have a really hard time with his Harley. He dropped it a couple of times and just didn't look confident on it at all. His undoing was the double-u-turn test where you have to perform a double-u-turn inside a 26ft wide box. I found that one hard and my bike is nice and maneuverable. I kept letting the speed get down too low and losing balance. Once I had the hang of it, things were OK but one of the instructors put us all to shame by doing the same exercise in a 23ft box on a fully loaded Honda Goldwing. If you're not into bikes, Google for a Honda Goldwing for a picture, then walk out a 23ft box in your office and see if you think that bike could double-u-turn in that space. It can - I've seen it done.

So what's the point of a course like this for riders who've been doing it for as long as I have? The point is that it helps refresh your technique on things you might have taken for granted, and that you can still learn things in a controlled environment. The same goes for cars - perhaps we should all consider advanced motorist courses once in a while. It won't do anything for all the other lunatics on the road, but it will give you a better insight into stuff you didn't know you didn't know.

Vanity mirrors in the driver's sun visor. Really?

My new Honda has a vanity mirror in the driver's side sun visor - a first for me. It's not bad enough that I have to content with women using their rear view mirror to apply makeup and guys using it for shaving on my morning commute every day; now there's the potential that they can use a vanity mirror in the sun visor too? Who's bright idea was that? Surely there can be no reasonable explanation for doing this. Drivers are distracted enough as it is now - did we really need to add just one more thing to take their mind away from the matter at hand? It does seem that car manufacturers are more and more interested in clogging up the interiors of our cars with useless junk, and less and less interested in keeping the driver accountable for piloting a 2 ton weapon.

Only make improvements where they are needed.

I'm enjoying my new Honda Element. I replaced the old one with a 2009 model year largely because I liked the changes they'd made externally. But on taking delivery of the car, there are numerous things which Honda have improved - almost all of which were things I griped about in the past. For example the cruise control on/off button is now on the steering wheel instead of down by my left knee on the dash, and the intermittent wipe now has variable timing. Plus, the improved engine air intake, remapped ECU and 5 speed auto instead of 4 speed returns 5mpg more than the old one. Ok so these aren't exactly groundbreaking items in today's car market, but the fact that they were so illogically implemented the first time around meant there was room to improve. So either Honda listened to their customers, or they've since employed a designer who looked at the original Element and had a "WTF?" moment.

The really nice thing is that a lot of the stuff which didn't need touching has been left alone, and that was also a pleasant surprise. How many times have you upgraded a car, or changed cars within the same brand, and found something which worked just fine in the original but seems to have been "improved" or moved in the new one just for the sake of it?

I guess the message to the car manufacturers here is to only improve that which needs it. If something works well and logically, leave it alone.

Now that's how a car dealer should be.

I settled the paperwork on a new car last weekend. Far from the high-pressure no-haggle screw-the-customer mainstream dealersm Willey Honda in Bountiful, UT, did me proud on the price of the new car. I'm a repeat customer for them - I got the original Element from them in 2006. I went back there because they are a pleasant car dealer, with pleasant staff and a no bullshit pricing approach. For example they didn't lowball me on the trade-in value. In fact they were higher than I'd budgeted for. On the new car they came in at an out-the-door price which was $200 less than the MSRP. Bear in mind the MSRP doesn't include tax, title, license and paperwork etc etc. In short : they came down $2,200 on the price. The best part? It reduces my monthly car payment by $40. Oh wait - that's not the best part. The best part is that the car I want is in Vegas and the dealer is trucking it up to me here at no cost to me....
That's how you do business as a car dealer.

OnStar advertising: suspect.

OnStar's latest advertising campaign seems a little suspect to me. They claim that in the last year alone they have responded to 100 million calls for help. That doesn't add up and here's why. GM Produce an average of 2.2m vehicles a year equipped with OnStar. They've been doing so since 1996. To date that means about 26.4m vehicles. The subscription is free for the first year, then it costs, so assume that 50% of those vehicles don't have active subscriptions. Being GM products, the chances of all those vehicles still being on the road with functioning OnStar units is slim, but we'll be kind and say 70% are still on the road. That gives us a napkin calculation of about 9.25m OnStar equipped cars on the road, with live subscriptions. So for OnStar's advertising to be true, that implies every GM OnStar owner crashed their car over 10 times last year.....

That's clearly wrong, so we have to assume that their 'calls for help' include people calling for directions and their other services. But the ads always feature someone trapped in a wreck crying for help which is totally misleading because they imply that all 100 million people were in a situation that made OnStar critical for them. By GM's own figures they only respond to about 700 air bag deployments a month - or 8,400 a year.

8,400 is not 100 million.

NASCAR's Car Of Yesteryear

If you've read my site or blog for any length of time, you'll know I'm not the world's biggest fan of American cars. As an extension, I think NASCAR is the most pointless waste of motorsports in the history of Creation. (And I'm an atheist so that's saying something).

So it's amusing to read about their Car Of Tomorrow that was introduced in 2007. It had 'cutting-edge' innovations like crumple zones, a rerouted exhaust designed not to fry the driver, a front splitter, a larger rear wing and - well - that's it really. It still uses pushrod engines and with the exception of a couple of courses like Watkins Glen, they all still drive in left-handed circles.

Those design features would have been the Car Of Tomorrow in the late 70's. Most other motorsports have had all of those features and dozens more true technical innovations for decades. So from this should I conclude that NASCAR is a full 30 years behind the rest of the world when it comes to their 'technology' ? I know it was only fairly recently that they decided the drivers would fare better in crashes if the circuits had tyre walls and impact barriers rather than three metres of impenetrable concrete to stop wayward cars.

Basic jack safety.

This weekend I swapped the winter wheel and tyre combo on my vehicle for the summer one. To make life easier, I used a 3-ton floor jack to get the job done and it occurred to me that it would make a good blog entry. Too many people, it seems, assume that trolley-style floor jacks (and bottle jacks for that matter) are a safe way to lift a car. For the most part that's true - obviously, or you wouldn't be able to buy one - but they're not the best way to hold a car off the ground once it's up there. Why? Trolley jacks rely on seals and valves to hold the pressure in the cylinder that is used to jack up the arm holding your car off the ground. Those seals and valves normally rely on rubber o-rings, and rubber, as we all know, perishes. At some point, that seal isn't going to be as good as it was when new and it will slowly let all the pressure out. When that happens, the jack will slowly lower the car back down on it's own. If the failure is sudden, it won't so much lower the car as drop it. Either of these scenarios is bad news if you've got a wheel off the car - it results in the car being dropped on it's brake rotors and that will essentially mean new brakes. But brakes can be replaced easily. Squishy bags of mostly water - you and me - don't fix quite so readily when two tons of car fall on us. If you're working on wheels, likely your legs will get pinned under the car and you'll have two broken shins. If you're working under the car, then it will crush your chest. As the drug commercials would say - a potentially fatal side effect.
So how to prevent this from happening? Simple - jack stands. Once the car is up at the height you need it, pop a jack stand underneath against a load-bearing part of the chassis or subframe and lower the car on to it. For 10 seconds of extra hassle, you now have a purely mechanical support under the vehicle as well as the trolley jack. The chances of both failing at once are slim to none.

Product review and competition time !

I've posted the product review of the CarMD automotive diagnostic tool, as well as a competition to win one. Enjoy, and good luck.

Site update.

I've concluded the long term test of the Pulstar spark plugs. You can read the review here : Pulstar plugs review.

The right engine makes all the difference.

Gas mileage in a vehicle has a lot to do with how you drive it, but more importantly is how well matched the engine is to the weight of the vehicle.
I recently test-drove a Mazda CX7. The mpg figures are in the same ballpark as my current vehicle - the Honda Element - averaging about 19mpg. But the performance difference is staggering. The CX7 has a smaller engine but it's turbocharged and that makes all the difference in the world. It's not sluggish. It doesn't bog down going up long inclines, and it just feels altogether more peppy. Well - with a turbo, it would, but the 6-speed automatic gearbox helps too.

So I figured it was the turbo and the lighter vehicle that made it more zippy to drive (I can't bring myself to use Mazda's "Z" word). Well - not so much. The quoted kerb weight for an Element is 3640lbs for the 4WD AT. For the CX7 it's 3930lbs - about 300lbs heavier.

So a smaller (albeit turbocharged engine) in a 300lb heavier car, with 6 gears instead of 4 and returning about the same gas mileage, makes it an infinitely more driveable SUV than the Element.

And this is the problem with the Element overall. It's a wonderful vehicle - totally practical and fun to drive, but it's just out of breath all the time. The engine just isn't up to the job because it's a normally aspirated 2.4 engine from the Civic and Accord. What Mazda did was realise they were hauling a heavier vehicle around and adjust the engine accordingly. Honda didn't. The difference is like night and day.

Variable Vent Tubes?

I went to test drive a Mazda CX7 yesterday. The car is nice - peppy - a lot different to the Honda Element. It's because of the turbocharged engine of course. What was entertaining was when the salesman started to tell me about the VVT engine. According to "Chuck", that meant variable vent tubes, which as he described it, was the difference between the size of your airway when you are breathing normally, and the size of your airway when you are panting for breath whilst running. Say what? The Mazda engine is able to alter the size of it's intake manifold depending on how hard I'm breathing?

Well I suppose it was a nice try. He got the 'variable' part of it right at least. What he was trying to describe of course was variable valve timing. More zippy engine performance requires more fuel-air mix, which requires altered and lengthened valve opening timing.

The closest thing to what he was describing (I think) is the variable length intake tubes on the Yamaha R1 motorbike. Or he could have just been pulling it out of his arse. Either way, he was trying to sell me a product he clearly didn't know anything about.

Treating the symptoms instead of the cause.

So the Nanny State (England in case you were wondering) is now claiming that airbag jackets should be mandatory for motorcycle riders, because whilst riders account for only 1% of road users, they account for 20% of fatalities.
You know what, they're right. But rather than force everyone to wear a ridiculously cumbersome jacket that hinders your movement and would cause more accidents through loss of control, might it not be better to treat the cause of the problem : car drivers?

TRL323 (a report commissioned by the UK government themselves) indicates that 90% of motorcycle accidents are caused by cars driving into them. In other words, 18% of all road fatalities are caused by car drivers hitting motorcyclists.

Here's an idea - ban cellphones and enforce the ban. Remove air bags, traction control and all the other so-called "safety" devices that are put into cars to eliminate responsibility from the driver. Until motorists realise that they are accountable, and there are consequences of their actions, this statistic isn't going to change. And that won't happen until the car manufacturers stop building ridiculously cocooning living rooms on wheels.

More details on the actual facts (rather than random government conjecture) about accident rates are available on the facts about speeding and accident rates page.

The delicate art of the torque wrench

One tool that is a complete must-have when it comes to working on cars and bikes is the torque wrench. Don't skimp on the price either - get a decent one and it will last for years. Having said that, you also need to get matched parts for it, by which I mean the driver bits, sockets and heads. I was over at a friend's house this afternoon and he was working on the brakes on his Moto Guzzi. As he came to tighten the final bolt on the brake caliper mount, the torque wrench suddenly became very loose. We both thought he'd stripped a thread, but it turned out that the socket set he was using was a 7mm hex head on a 1/8 inch mount. That was attached to the torque wrench with a 1/4 inch adapter. The 1/8 inch driver just didn't have the strength to deal with the torque he applied to it, and it literally shattered. I'm home now and he's off to our local tools emporium to but a 7mm hex driver on a 1/4 inch mount....

When all wheel drive isn't a luxury.

This last weekend I went skiing as I normally do during the winter. It was snowing and as I trekked up the canyon to the ski resort, I didn't give much though to the road surface. The Honda Element has a part-time all wheel drive system, and combined with the winter tyres, it made the trip as effortless as driving up in the middle of summer. A colleague of mine was not so lucky though. On the same road at the same time as me, he was trying to make it up in a two wheel drive Chevy Malibu. He said that it was slippery and gruesome most of the way up, but his problems didn't really start until they were nearly at the top. The driver in front of him decided to stop to pick up an uphill hitchhiker, but did so by stopping in the middle of the road so nobody could get past. My colleague had to stop, and once he'd lost momentum, getting going again was a complete nightmare. The car was sliding side to side and the tyres couldn't get a grip, and when he did manage to get going, he could barely manage 20mph without sliding. Coming down the canyon was even more sketchy because the road hadn't been ploughed, but again my Honda dealt with it as if it were a dry day. I didn't realise how much difference the all wheel drive and winter tyres made until I came across a two wheel drive sedan going down the hill. We were making steady progress but we got to a long straight and he pulled over and gestured me to pass him. I did and within two corners, I'd lost sight of him in my mirrors. He was obviously also having a really hard time.
So whilst I pay the price for all wheel drive in terms of reduced gas mileage in the summer, in the winter I don't consider it to be a luxury around where we live. It's a necessity if you're going to drive on snow.

Cocooned in a modern SUV

It's not bad enough that driving in Utah is regarded as a right rather than a privilege. It's not bad enough that the driving test is 20 minutes practical, and an open-book multiple choice test. It's not bad enough that lawmakers here don't consider cellphone use in cars to be a problem. And it's not bad enough (apparently) that lane discipline and use of indicators here are two totally foreign concepts. No - now we have to deal with people cocooned in their cossetting 4WD living rooms, complete with video monitors, OnStar (the on-board spy), 48-speaker Bose hi fi systems and enough airbags to cushion a mars landing. The net result is that when these buffoons cruise around a parking lot now, they're so isolated and distracted that they don't notice the small things any more. Like the chap tonight for example, who cut a corner and mashed my shopping cart into a concrete light support. I pretty much owe my life to a $3 bent piece of wire on 4 casters. Had I not been pushing it, I'm sure he'd have merrily run me over. He was on his cellphone to his darling trophy bitch (whom he was picking up and could have spoken to through an open window she was so close) and between that, the smoked glass and him fiddling with one of the LCD monitors, the actual act of controlling his vehicle was a distant fourth priority.
I wish the police would take more of an interest in people like this, but sadly I suspect they couldn't care less.

Washing the clean part of the car.

With winter in full swing, it always amazes me how many people jetwash the clean parts of their car, and ignore the bits which really need attention. Every sunday I sit behind someone at my local jetwash facility, watching as they hose down all the bodywork, lights, windows, wheels and other parts they can see, whilst failing to notice the salt-encrusted suspension, brake and underside components. Often they will drive away with salt-filled lumps of snow and ice still clinging to the bottom of the car. I don't know if it's that they don't understand, or just can't be bothered. So here's a tip if you drive in icy or snowy environments where the councils use salt, sand, grit and other car-devouring products on the roads : bend over and jetwash the wheel arches and underneath the sills. Wash under the exhaust and engine by aiming the jetwash under there from the front and rear of your car. Getting rid of that crud will help your car's underbelly live a much longer life.

"Smart" parking meters to extract more money from motorists.

The most persecuted sector of the population in England - the motorist - is about to be fleeced once again for even more money, even more efficiently. England is considering adopting "Smart" parking meters from France which can sense the presence of a parked vehicle and automatically alert the police if you overstay your time. Worse still, they can automatically allocated fines to be sent through the post. In the French scheme, motorists are allowed 20 minutes free, then the fines / tickets / fleecing begins. In the UK scheme, you just know that grace period will be wiped out and it will be £ every 15 minutes.

No more traffic wardens is surely a good thing, but Big Brother parking meters - definitely not.

Big Brother Parking Meters

Follow the leader

Some people are just not very good when it comes to being the lead car in a 'follow me' scenario. Case in point the guy I was supposed to be following today. It didn't start well - he turned out of a side road in to heavy traffic without and consideration for the fact that I was following him. It took me another minute or so to get a gap in the traffic by which time he was long gone. I pulled over and called him up. He told me where he was so we met up again, and off we went. It went better this time - we got half a block before he cruised through a red light in front of me. I stopped and this is a particularly long red light. By the time it had gone green again, he'd made his way on to the motorway, so I just gave up and drove home. It took about another 20 minutes before he called me up from 30 miles away to find out where I was.
If you want someone to follow you, give some consideration to that as you drive. Use your common sense.

The 2008 Toyota Camry LE - a PZEV?

I had the chance to drive a 2008 Camry LE over the last couple of weeks and it's an interesting car. A sticker on the rear window claimed that this was a PZEV - Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle. To me that implied it was the Camry Hybrid, which it clearly wasn't. Confused, I did some research. Both the 2.4 4-inline and the 3.5 V6 are now classified as ultra low emission engines (ULEV - Ultra Low Emission Vehicle) because Toyota have fitted the same hydrocarbon-absorbing catalytic converter that's found in the early model Prius. This added constriction in the exhaust system reduces power output from the engine by about 3bhp.

So why the PZEV confusion? Well it turns out there are two classifications of vehicle now. Ultimately, what California wants are ZEVs - zero emission vehicles. Nice idea, but that means hydrogen or electric, which means almost zero vehicles meet that classification right now. As a compromise, the PZEV category was introduced. To classify as a PZEV, a vehicle must:
1. have zero emissions from the fuel system
2. have a warranty that covers 15 years or 150,000 miles
3. meet Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle (SULEV) tailpipe emission levels
Astonishingly, that last item doesn't just mean hybrids, it now includes a whole glut of cars you wouldn't think were particularly green, including (but not limited to) the Toyota Camry and Camry Hybrid, VW GLI, Subaru Forester, Outback and Legacy, Honda Civic GX, most Mazda 6 models, the Ford Fusion, and in California, the Ford Focus.

Weirder still, if you get out of California where they have a cleaner fuel formulation, the Prius doesn't actually classify as a PZEV any more but as a ULEV instead - an Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle. This gives us the bizarre possibility that by the exact definition used, outside California a 21mpg Toyota Camry is classified as a lower emission vehicle than a 51mpg Toyota Prius.

This does smack of deliberately confusing the consumer so that the car manufacturers can get away with ratings they really don't deserve.