RideLust

Image: Clarita Natoli

The 55 mile per hour speed limit is long buried in our past, alongside other great ideas like prohibition and the metric system. Today’s drivers can legally motor along at speeds ranging from 65 to 80 miles per hour, but sadly Montana has done away with “reasonable and prudent, “ since that was far too open to interpretation. Still, a posted speed limit of 70 miles per hour generally means you can get away with nearly 80 in most locations, but don’t blame us when you get written for 76 in a 70. Read More…

Ever try to find entertaining roads if you’re new to an area, or just passing through? You could try to hit up locals, but that takes time and research. You could go to Google Maps, but that doesn’t tell you much about road conditions, speed enforcement or even average traffic volume. It certainly doesn’t rate the roads on their entertainment value, which means you’ve got to eat a lot of soggy, tastelessly sweet popcorn before you snag a prize. Read More…

Ferrari's all-weater FF. Image: Ferrari

The words “Ferrari,” “driving” and “winter” had probably never been uttered in the same sentence, at least before the launch of Ferrari’s Grand Tourer station wagon, the all-new FF. The FF is unique in a several ways: it’s the first “shooting brake“ (station wagon) body style that Maranello has ever built, and it’s the first prancing horse to feature all-wheel-drive. Ferrari even launched the car atop a glacier, just to prove you really could drive it on surfaces other than asphalt. Read More…

Since my last post, the AMG Driving Academy has put out three more videos on technique. The first one, video number five, covers how to pick a line through a corner on a racetrack, while the next in Mercedes-Benz specific and covers their stability control programming. Finally, the last video is an introduction to drifting, which Tommy Kendall describes as requiring him to “unlearn” everything he’s ever learned about going fast on a racetrack. Read More…

I’ll be honest with you: most of the “how to drive” videos I’ve ever seen are absolute crap, either slapped together by amateurs who don’t know what they’re talking about or filmed using pros who fail to explain exactly what they’re doing. Worse, some of these videos make track driving look deceptively easy. Which it is, until it very suddenly isn’t. Read More…

Image: Shino

Let’s face it: if you drive with your significant other in the car, sooner or later you’re going to piss each other off. Maybe it’s the whole enclosed-space thing, or the men are from Mars and women aren’t thing, but in any case, you can plan on an argument sooner or later.

A recent study from the UK documented the most common causes of in-car arguments for couples, and although the data reflects British drivers, I’d say it applies to drivers on this side of the pond as well. In fact, I don’t think I’d even change the order of the list, which just goes to show that the Americans and British are more alike than we think (except for the British driving on the wrong side of the road, that is). Read More…

Staten Island at night. Image: Doc Searls

Here’s some free and unsolicited advice: if you live in NY or NJ, don’t even think about evading tolls on a regular basis. Alfred Buono of Staten Island recently learned that lesson the hard way: for evading 998 tolls, Buono owes $5,254 in past-dues tolls, plus $24,950 in “administrative fees.” That totals out to $30,204 for now, but since interest is added, that amount is only going up until Buono pays it off. Read More…

Two hundred and thirty five years ago, a group of people signed their name on a document that was a single-digit salute to the status quo. Since then, our country has had its ups and downs, and I’d really like to think that the worst of the current down is behind us. Still, I can’t help but think that our founding fathers would be pretty appalled at what they see today, since politics now is more about “what’s in it for me” than “what’s best for the country”. Read More…

A friend of mine had his brand new Mazdaspeed3 totaled on Friday night. He hadn’t been drinking, he wasn’t racing and it had nothing to do with conditions. Turning left at a four-way intersection, he had the misfortune of being the first car in line. An oncoming Volkswagen Tiguan, driven by a 23 year old unfamiliar with the vehicle, ran the red light and broadsided my friend’s car somewhere north of 40 miles per hour. Thanks to the design and construction of the Mazdaspeed3, he walked away from the crash with a sore ankle. I don’t have all the details yet, but I’ll assume that there was driver distraction involved. Read More…

My God, we sent these to Europe? I'm so sorry. Image: Ruben de Rijcke

Back in the days when I worked for big companies, business travel was a way of life. I spent a lot of years missing birthdays and anniversaries, and I’ve driven hundreds of rental cars in the United States and Europe. Most are just like the hotels you stay in on business, and by that I mean over-priced and utterly forgettable. The days of scoring a rental car that your co-workers will envy are long in the past; these days, you lucky if you get a rental car that’s been vacuumed since entering the fleet. Read More…