An English driver reportedly came within inches of driving off of a cliff. His excuse? His GPS unit directed him off the cliff. Although he became concerned when the road turned into a steep, narrow footpath, Robert Jones nonetheless continued to follow its advice.

He is being charged with driving without due care and attention. I concur.

Finally, a state is bucking the red light trend and has actually made them illegal!

The idea behind red light cameras is noble enough - enforcing the law against people who run red lights. But in practice they are a complete joke. Such cameras are ALL about making money, and have nothing to do with safety. Safety is just the pretext behind which officials continue to justify the programs. But studies have shown that red light cameras can actually increase the rate of accidents, or make the accidents more severe even if the overall rate goes down. Much of this stems from the fact that the yellow light duration is decreased. And that is done NOT in the interest of safety (it is actually more dangerous), but rather to generate more revenue.

In the recent opinion handed down to Defendant Michael Cyr, the appellate court upheld is DUI conviction in a 5-0 decision.

This case is troubling because of the facts. Cyr was arrested in February 2005 in a parking lot. He had used his remote starter to turn on his car, then simply sat in the drivers seat, without ever putting the key in the ignition. Although the facts don’t stipulate, he probably was just trying to keep warm, what with the winter and all.

This case is troubling because of the reasoning and precedent that it sets. Chief Justice Chase Rogers wrote, “In starting the engine of his vehicle remotely then getting behind the steering wheel, the defendant clearly undertook the first act in a sequence of steps necessary to set in motion the motive power of a vehicle.” (emphasis added) See any problem with that? Why stop with simply turning on the car? Why not extend to buying alcohol in a liquor store? After all, you have both your car keys/car AND alcohol, both of which set in motion the power to be a drunk driver.

You may dismiss my logical extension, but it isn’t that far fetched. The key is that this case removes that actual illegal act from the equation. In legal speak, this would be called the actus reus - the proscribed act. With drunk driving, the actus reus would be driving, and drunk would be necessary condition along with that. Here, however, there is no actus reus! No act! Instead, you have the path along which the act could occur. Or it could not occur. And therein lies the problem.

The pendulum has swung to the extreme for drunk driving legal interpretations. Perhaps it is time to swing back to a more reasonable level…

Technology Review has a very intersting article on ant traffic. Apparently, the general rules of traffic flow and congestion apply to everything from cars to the internet to ants. The general rule is that below a certain traffic level, there will be no congestion. But hit that magical traffic level and you will start to see pockets of congestion or outright gridlock.

But ants seem to be immune from such congestion regardless of the number of ants in the traffic flow. The trick seems to be that ants never overtake other ants. Instead they trot along mindlessly behind the ant in front of them.

So how can this be applied to traffic on our roads? The short answer is it probably can’t. We humans pride ourselves on being independent thinkers. But in traffic terms, that means we will probably be too smart (or too stupid!) for our own good. You’ll never get people to drive along calmly, at a constant speed, without trying to pass anyone or otherwise show off. But, city planners may be able to take the lesson of the ants into account when designing roadways in the future.

You may remember how English driver Dale Lyle beat a speeding ticket by proving that his Civic’s top speed was less than the 98 MPH he was charged with driving. Well, the “my car can’t go that fast” excuse appears to have worked again.

Tex O’Reilly was alleged to have done 173 MPH in his Lotus Elise along a country road in England. His defense successfully asserted that the top speed of his car was only 127 MPH, and thus he could not have been going 173 MPH. While there was no specific testing of the car as with Lyle, the prosecution accepted the stipulation as fact.

For some reason that I cannot fathom, O’Reilly admitted to driving 105 MPH in his plea. As a result, he was 5000 pound fine (about $7240) and banned from driving for 2 years. Its a good thing he wasn’t going much faster, as the judge said that if he had been going 150 MPH, he would be going straight to jail. I still cannot understand why he would admit to going 105 MPH. I could understand if he was trying to admit some fault in hopes of getting a reduced sentence, but the absurdity of the charge against (being impossible and all) means the entire thing should have been dismissed outright. Afterall, if the only evidence of speeding was the physcially impossible 173 MPH the crown alleged, and that later stipulated as impossible, what exactly is the case against O’Reilly? It is in his admission, silly him!

Also of note is O’Reilly’s attorney’s statement that “They [Lotus Elises] are not built for that speed and the likelihood of one being able to keep control of such a vehicle at that speed is beyond comprehension.” Actually, it may be a handful, but I can completely comprehend such a car going that speed with the right amount of power. Of course, it makes his client’s case sound better when he says that, but that doesn’t mean I can’t call him out!

GM’s troubles and looming bankruptcy is nothing new, but there continue to be developments with how that will affect Saab. GM has stated that it will sell or kill of Saab by the end of the year, leaving the fate of the Swedish car manufacturer in a bit of a precarious position, to say the least. That position was made even more tenuous now that the Swedish Government has stated that it does not intend to come to Saab’s rescue.

So what does all of this mean for Saab and and all the Saab owners out there? At this time, it is hard to say. Even if no one steps up to take over the company, there will still be a huge demand for parts and service of all the cars currently in existence. Someone will probably buy the rights to produce and sell those parts and services if nothing else, so current owners probably will be fine service-wise.

Or not. We’ll just have to see, won’t we?

Unless you spend your life under a rock out in the boonies, you are probably inundated with ad after ad for “cheaper” car insurance. These ads always emphasize their low prices, and how you could save “hundreds” of dollars every year if you switch to them as your insurance provider.

So where does the “myth” come into play? The “myth” is that if you ever actually need to file a claim, you may end up getting less with cheaper car insurance. Remember, insurance is designed to pay to make you as “whole” as you were before the accident/incident. And it is this definition of “whole” that ties in to the myth of cheap car insurance.

Insurance Companies are in Business to Make money
This seems obvious, but most people forget this. Especially when shopping for cheap insurance. And as with any other seller, insurance companies provide a product for less money than competitors by 1) selling in volume and/or 2) providing a worse product. Volume is certainly a suitable tactic, and the bigger companies no doubt can offer lower prices in part because they have a lot of customers. At the simplest level, the greater the pool of people buying insurance, the cheaper it can be for any given individual to buy said insurance. It has to do with fancy things like risk management, the details and explanation of which I’ll leave to more qualified people.

Then there is the issue of quality. Usually you think of “quality” in terms of a tangible product. But the same basic analysis of “what do I get for my money” can be applied to intangible things like insurance policies. Quality in this sense boils down to 1) how much your insurance company will pay you and 2) the ease with which they will pay you.

How much you get paid also needs to be broken down further. This is the part that comes back to making you “whole” - and how you define “whole.” For example, do you get brand new parts or used parts? One could argue that a used bumper from a junkyard is perfectly fine for your brand new M3, and your insurance company may just do that. And what about that custom alignment you just shelled out for? Does your car really need to be aligned again just because you got tapped in the rear? You probably think it does, but do you think your insurance company will?

Dealing with a Difficult Insurance Company
Now we get into the fun stuff: what happens when you disagree with your insurance company? THIS is where that $300/year savings may turn into a several thousand dollar (or more) nightmare. Lets take an extreme example as a hypothetical: your insurance company is refusing outright to pay ANYTHING for your claim. The reason they have refused is irrelevant because your remedy is the same - you drag your insurance company into court. Again, I say the reason is irrelevant because whether they refuse to pay because you had a blood alcohol level of 50% or because they don’t like how you spell your name, you still have to take them to court to get any money out of them. The reason for refusal will go to your likelihood of prevailing. But you only prevail if you go to court.
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There are a myriad of different driving simulators on all different gaming platforms. Some emphasize entertainment over realism, but the Gran Turismo series for the Sony Playstation is probably the most realistic game on the market. My roomate has Gran Turismo 4, and I’ve taken quite a liking to it as practice for actual track driving. Countless other websites go into all the specifics of the game, what tracks and cars are offered, and how to advance through it. That is not the point of this article. Rather, we’ll take a look at just how realistic of a driving experience such games can provide.

GET A WHEEL AND PEDALS!!

This may seem like a no brainer, but you absolutely MUST have a wheel and pedal to get anywhere near to a realistic driving experience. Nobody drives a car with a controller, and thus using a controller in the game will in no way emulate what it is like to actually drive a car. The controller quite simply lacks the nuanced control of a wheel and pedals. The joystick may be analog, but the movement is very coarse and you cannot make fine steering adjustments with it. I’ve found the best technique (for me at least) when using a controller is to rapidly press the arrow buttons fast or slow depending on how much steering input is desired. But this is akin to sawing the wheel violently back and forth. Thisjust isn’t done in any situation, let alone a performance driving situation. The gas and brake buttons also are touch sensitive, but have nowhere near the fine control of pedals.

Some people complain that the steering wheel has a delayed or otherwise unrealistic response. I thought so too at first, but I’ve come around. The key is getting acquainted with the feel of the controls, much like you need to get up to speed with how a go-kart feels compared to a road car. Once you’ve adjusted to that, I’ve found the wheels and pedals to be a natural connection to the game, and very similar to an actual car.

The Lack of G Forces and other Visceral Cues is a Major Limitation

The main limitation of any driving simulator is the lack of g forces and other physical feelings you get from the car and from driving the car. Threshold braking is done almost entirely be feel - both the feel of how much pedal pressure and travel you’ve given and the feel of the g forces the braking induces. I can get get a good sense of the level of braking I am at just by these g forces. All of these cues are absent in the game, and thus there is no practice whatsoever for threshold braking. Just push the brake pedal all the way to the floor and the game sorts it out for you. Not quite what happens in a regular car, though I suppose its akin to a car with ABS.

This same technique comes into play when cornering too. You can get a good sense for how fast and consistent you are based on the amount of lateral gs you feel. You can also get a sense of the balance of the car by how the weight is getting shifted around. Both of these cues are absent in the game because your body isn’t moving.

Then of course there are all of the smaller vibrations and nuances that get communicated to you through the car. Things like general steering feel, slight bumps and variations in the road, and other such nuances simply aren’t present in a video game. This makes the experience much less immersive, and as such it is harder to interact with car and track and to drive your best consistently.
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One of the first things that instructors say to new students on the track is to “look THROUGH the corner to where you want to go.” Invariably this always comes up with my students too. But unlike most instructors, I’m always a bit hesitant as to what to say. You see, for me, I DON’T do my best driving looking through a corner. Rather, I drive best when most of my attention is focused right in front of me, analyzing where my car is RIGHT NOW.

So which approach is best? The answer is that there is no right answer to this question. All that matters is that you take the correct line through the corner AND that you are aware of what other cars around you are doing. Where you look is irrelevant as long as both of these criteria are met. That said, most people accomplish both of these criteria best by looking through the corner, and that is what I have my students, at least at first.

Why Looking Through the Corner is Useful

The main reason why looking through a corner is useful is that people naturally tend to go in the direction that they are looking. Back in drivers ed, your “instructor” (it’s kind of funny to me to call them that, now that I know how much they don’t know) probably told you to look where you want to go, and you will naturally head in that direction. Conversely, you were probably told, “DON’T look where you DON’T want to go.” I.e., if you start to lose control, don’t look at that guardrail you don’t want to hit because if you do, you’ll be drawn right towards it (so that line of thinking goes, anyways). The same logic is also used when teaching people how to downhill ski and ice skate.

So how does that rationale apply on the track? Well, if you are looking through a corner to your track out point, you will naturally be drawn and thus drive your car to that point. The problem with looking right in front of you is that if you are a novice or unfamiliar with the track, you may be drawn to a spot well short of your track out point. This will effectively be an early apex, and that is always a problem, sometimes catastrophically.

The other major benefit of looking through the corner is that you will be more likely to be aware of other cars or hazards that are on the track. If you are looking at the apex 5 feet in front of you, you may be oblivious to the car 100 feet ahead of you that just spun out and is now right in your path. Or you may not see the flagger frantically waving the yellow flag to warn you of a situation just out of your field of view. Read the rest of this entry »

The SCDA has posted their new HPDE (High Performance Driving Event) schedule, which looks to be the most packed season yet. New this year is a “season subscriber” track package, which discounts the cost of attending every event in the season (ahem, Clint). For those of us with cars worth actual money, there’s even available insurance!

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