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.