Oil prices have once again topped $80.00 per barrel, so if history is a good indicator, we’ll soon be paying $3.00 per gallon at the pump. Despite what the tiny ads in the back of Popular Mechanics claim, you can’t double your fuel mileage by magnetizing your fuel line. You can’t ‘grow your manhood’ by taking pills, either, but that’s a topic for a different blog.
Money’s tight for all of us these days, and you can only cut back on your driving by so much. Want to keep a little bit more green in your pocket? Follow the advice below, after the jump, and you’ll see a noticeable reduction in your weekly fuel bill.
Just in case you’ve never heard of the film, “Rendezvous”, I’ll recap it for you: it’s nine minutes of pure mayhem, as an anonymous driver hauls ass through the deserted streets of Paris in an unseen Mercedes. A Ferrari was later dubbed in, since the Mercedes was deemed too boring.
Jay Leno decided to pay homage to the original film with a politically-correct-but-still- above-the-speed-limit run down Mulholland Drive across Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles. It’s worth watching, but nowhere near as good as the original. I suspect Jay Leno would prefer to avoid jail time and felony convictions.
And Jay, if you’re reading this, some of your lines through the corners were a little sloppy. Give me a call and I’ll be happy to work with you.
Want to learn how to heel toe shift? Better do it soon.
The Toyota unintended acceleration debacle has lawmakers pondering ways to keep our highways safe from flaming death. Most obvious is mandating a brake override system on all new cars sold in the United States, currently under consideration by the FHTSA. Just in case you’ve been living in a cave for the past six months and haven’t heard about brake override systems, they eliminate throttle any time the brake is applied. Put another way, the brake pedal takes priority over the accelerator whenever it is depressed.
Writing a “How to Drive” series is like trying to write a “How to Skydive” series. What sounds easy (jump out of the plane, count to ten and open your parachute) is really quite difficult. Many of the things I could teach you about driving require practice under the eyes of a trained instructor. You cannot learn threshold braking simply by reading about it; likewise, if you aren’t doing it properly, all the practice in the world will do you no good. Also, I can’t give specific advice unless I know what you’re driving and what your expectations are; therefore, I’ll need to make this as generic as possible.
This video shows why you should invest in a good set of winter tires if you live in snow country. It also demonstrates the differences between locking the brakes, threshold braking and ABS; the effect speed has on stopping distance and why you should never mix all season and winter tires on the same vehicle.
I live in Florida now, but spent better than 25 years driving in snow country. I’m a huge proponent of winter tires, and can tell you from personal experience that they do exactly as their manufacturers claim. A good set of winter tires, on a set of steel (or cheap alloy) wheels, will probably set you back less than the cost of your insurance deductible. I say it’s money well spent.
Cars have gotten good, maybe too good, over the past few decades. Skills that were essential even twenty years ago have all but been forgotten. Who needs to check tire pressure when you have sensors to do this for you? Who wants to learn to drive a manual when there are so many good sequential automatics to choose from, some that even shift faster than a trained racer? Who needs to worry about oversteer when you’ve got yaw control on your new car?
The correct answer to all of these questions is, “you do”. Why? Because you just never know what life will throw at you. Let’s say you’re on your first business trip to Europe, and you go to collect your rental car. Chances are good that it’ll be a manual transmission, so do you really want to demonstrate your driving fail to your new colleagues?
Autoweek is running the above ad in the February 22 issue of their magazine. Developed by Coyne Communications as a public service ad, I think it’s right on the money. First, every single person with or without a license thinks their driving skills are better than they actually are. Second, there are more cars on the road today than ever before. Finally, there are more distractions within our cars (uber-wattage stereos, video navigation, a dozen cupholders, etc.) than at any time in the past. I say we all take a step back and think about this for a second.
I see dozens of examples of bonehead driving each and every time I get behind the wheel, and a cell phone is usually the common denominator. Is any conversation important enough that you need to risk your life, the lives of your passengers and the lives of complete strangers? I’m going with “no” on that one.
Because the weekend’s almost here and because I’ve got this weird fixation on Sabine Schmitz, I give you a lap of Germany’s famed Nürburgring Nordschleife at the hands of the world’s fastest taxi driver.
In case you don’t know who Schmitz is, she’s the ex-BMW factory racer who runs tours of the ‘ring, at speed, in a BMW M5. She’s faster than you are, smoother than you could ever hope to be and probably easier on the eyes. She also came damn close to breaking the ten minute barrier on the ‘ring in a Ford Transit van. No, that’s not a misprint; I did say Ford Transit van.
I spent some time as a driving instructor, and I wish any of my students were as smooth as the driver dissed in this video. Maybe the guy didn’t have all the lines nailed, and maybe his shifting could have used some work, but I didn’t see anything I’d call dangerous. The primary job of an instructor is to instruct, and I sure as hell I didn’t hear any of that going on.
The video has a happy ending, though: the assnozzle instructor is now unemployed and presumably looking for something better suited to his temperment. Like being a clerk at the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles.
Excuse me, but you seem to have left your turn signal on.
I live in Florida, aka the “Gunshine State”, where anyone with US citizenship, no felony convictions, a few hundred dollars and an afternoon to kill can get a license to carry a concealed handgun. Based upon what I see every day on the roads down here, the requirements for getting a driver’s license are even more relaxed. I’m thinking that licenses come on the back of specially marked cereal boxes, because we’ve got some of the worst drivers in the world down here (and yes, I’ve driven all over the world).
Road rage is all but unavoidable on today’s crowded highways. More drivers, more cars, more stress – ultimately, something has to give. Most road rage incidents are prompted by a victim’s action: perhaps they cut someone off, weren’t going fast enough or didn’t signal. Maybe it’s just because the victim was driving a red car and the rager just shot himself full of ‘roids. You can’t eliminate all the psychopaths on the roads today, but you can minimize your chances of pissing one off. Here’s how:
