When I purchased my beater, a used Nissan Sentra, it came equipped with a high-tech deer diversion device. This device is known to the masses as a “deer whistle.” When the car is in motion, it emits a sound so vicious that any deer within 1/4 mile cower and hide whenever I drive by. As you can see from this picture, there is now a slight difficulty with my deer whistle:

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I’m not sure what kind of adventure this car rental place had in mind, but seeing this sign on a Camry, the car built to be as bland, as vague, and as disconnected as possible, was beautifully hilarious irony. If this is the vehicle of an adventurer, I’d hate to see the sign they’d put on my VR4.

It occured to me, as I was looking at this adventure-mobile, that a great deal of tourist- and travel-related advertising is exaggerated in the worst way. When I was in the US Virgin Islands, I went on a “snorkeling and boating adventure”. One of the perks was being able to drive my own little boat to the snorkeling area. And, fool that I am, I thought to myself, “Perfect, they’re going to give me a little boat and I’m going to rip that little bastard all over the place, break off from the group, and be a general terror.” When all the other snorkeling and boating adventurers and I arrived at the dock, the tour guides explained that we were to pilot the boats in single file and that we were not to pass. Failure to adhere to these rules, of course, would revoke our driving privileges, and I would have to suffer the embarrassment of having the tour guide commandeer my tiny, underpowered boat.

Automotive advertising is similarly exaggerated. Every year, Mazda runs “Rev It Up,” a traveling autocross event where you can drive one or two of their newest cars. The flyers and brochures make it look like you’re entering a serious racing event. When I went, however, I think I spent more time being told not to execute any e-brake turns than I did actually driving the cars.

Am I surprised? Was I let down? Not really. At least I got to drive the Mazda 3. And, I’ll admit, there are worse things than driving a small boat through a Caribbean lagoon. And both of these are worlds better than any adventure I’d have in a Camry–back seat included.

We’ve all seen people do some pretty bizarre human behavior in the street. Drivers stop in the middle of the road to read a sign, check a map, or have a conversation with someone on the sidewalk. Someone does 20 under because he’s lost when he could easily pull to the side of the road. Pedestrians saunter in crosswalks, somehow confident that the “Stop For Pedestrians” sign is legitimate protection from a daydreaming motorist. Parents let their children play on fairly major streets. Bicyclists—the same ones who, if you asked them, would say they have as much claim to the road as a car—run red lights and stop signs and fail to yield. People fail to signal and fail to comprehend center turn lanes. They talk on the phone while driving. They freeze at intersections, wait for a large opening in cross-traffic that will never come, and hold up traffic. And, on top of it all, every driver, regardless of how he drives, considers his driving to be best and appropriate and flawless and proper.

Though it seems that driving brings about a bizarre transformation, the reality is that these behaviors are fundamentally human. They are general, not specific.

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We were driving along in a major snowstorm the other night in Chris’ car, and saw what looked like a giant ball of snow in the road. Chris proceeded to drive over it, since balls of snows always lose to cars. The ensuing BANG told us that we had underestimated this object. It turned out to be a chunk of cement, and it took its anger out on Chris’ exhaust:

I can only imagine the series of maneuvers that led to this hubcap design.

Darkness, the flickering of snowflakes in headlights, a tumult of emergency flashers, scraping plows, gruff men in insulated pants bent against the wind: Through this brunt emerges a beacon, a carbon-shimmer of style and speed and je ne sais quoi.

Such must be the attitude of whoever installed this preposterous ricer wing on his mid-90s Honda Civic and then went out into the blizzard we had last night. The car also featured a quad-exit exhaust and the requisite shizzy wheels and poorly-chosen suspension. It was crawling along the highway behind a plow crew. We were tempted to pass it (sideways) but instead elected to capture the locus of its failure (or, if you prefer simpler terms, the thing that made the car look the stupidest).

Similar observations will be the subject of the new weekly column “On Patrol,” which will appear on Mondays.

So you might have thought putting a nice shiny 4-point harness (or 5-point, or 6-point) in your car was the right thing to do. Maybe you just bought some sport seats and the old buckles are still attached to the factory seat. Maybe you realize that being firmly fastened into the car allows you to keep your hands light on the wheel, and promotes good driving technique. Whatever the reason, there are some potential drawbacks you should know about.

1. Installation must be perfect. Mounting points must be very secure in the direction of tension (impact forces over a ton), and belt angles are critical. Typically the shoulder straps should be close to horizontal and the lap belt straps should be at a 45 degree angle downward (often a bit more). Expect to lose the use of the seat behind the driver.
2. Any harness must be very tight on the hips. It should be what most people would consider uncomfortably tight, or it is very dangerous to wear. This makes driving with a full bladder painful, but the lap belt pulling even an inch or two above your hips in an impact will literally crush your internal organs, which is a very bad way to die.
3. Consider the time it takes to snug a harness down properly. if you think you’d be inclined to get lazy and not wear it occasionally, or not quite tighten it all the way, don’t bother installing one. If you skip wearing a seat belt sometimes, this is definately not for you.
4. Four-point harnesses can be unsafe by design. A “crotch strap” in a 5/6-point harness actually exists to oppose the upward forces on the shoulder straps in an impact because the lap belt is at an angular disadvantage in doing so.
5. 3″ webbing (and probably 2″ as well) can cause severe neck lacerations in an impact. Racing suits have fabric reinforcement to resist this, but wearing a t-shirt and a harness could be a recipe for a severed carotid artery (also not a great way to die). Seat belt pads aren’t just for ricers in this case, and might reduce impact to the clavicle too.

I installed a harness in my beater because I don’t trust the stupid early-nineties “automatic seat belts” to not kill me. I weighed the risks and the inconvenience of having a harness in a commuter car, and you should do the same — after all, it’s your life.

One word: RELIABILITY.

We finally had a warm day here in Boston today, and I felt like taking my Miata out for a spin. I turned the key and she started right up. No hiccups, no pauses, nothing. It was as though I had turned her off 10 minutes before. Mind you, it has probably been a good month or two since the last time I started her.

Reliability is by far my number one criteria for any car, including a sports car. A car that doesn’t run when you want it to is no fun at all. In fact, it turns into a paper weight, and I hate paper. Do I love insanely fast, heavily modified cars? Of course, but never at the expense of reliability.

If you’re like me, you would want everything on your car to best for driving on the track. Then when you are driving on the street, you have an uber-performance oriented car that is over-prepared for anything you might encounter. This approach works perfectly for suspension, engine mods, and virtually everything on your car EXCEPT for brake pads.
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