Four Wheel Drive Amusement

The last few days may have been warm enough to melt the snow banks, but the huge ones that the snow plows created in the parking lots, still have a solid ice base under them. I discovered this today when I tried to skirt around the edge of such a snow bank. The part I aimed for was less a foot high and, using the proper "one wheel over the obstacle" technique, I assumed that the melting snow would just collapse under the tire. It did, but as soon as the rear tire hit the sold ice underneath, I was going nowhere. Engaging four wheel drive got me out of course, but it was mildly annoying that I needed it on a very bright sunny day in a bloody grocery store parking lot! At times like this, I really miss the limited slip rear differential I had in my previous truck. Oh well, at least I entertained the store employee who was gathering buggies. He found my excursion highly amusing for some reason. ^_^

Driving And Mobile Phones

In Ontario, for almost a year now, it's been illegal to drive and use your mobile phone unless it's a hands free device. You'd never know such a law even exists, judging by how many people I see ignoring it. The problem is that it's impossible to enforce such a law. The police simply can't watch every driver in every car all the time.

It's typical of how laws are made. From a politician's point of view, a problem disappears once it is governed by a law. Are the roads any safer? Of course not! But we got a law now, so we can pretend that they are.

They Are In The Car

So a study finds that a small percentage of the population can talk on the phone and drive at the same time. I'll bet that everyone in the pro-talk-and-drive camp thinks that they fall in that category. Despite the discovery of these unusual "supertaskers," the study found nothing to disprove that driving while conversing on the phone is bloody dangerous for the majority of us.

The talk-and-drive camp usually ask but what about talking to passengers? This article mentions another study which included that very question in the research. They found that while talking to passengers is definitely distracting, it isn't anywhere near as bad as talking on the phone. Why?

It's simple. They are in the car with the driver where they can tell that he is busy, and will shut up while he deals with the situation. A person on the other end of the phone conversation won't know why the driver has gone silent, and will probably talk at a crucial moment.

Ontario's hands-free-phone-only law is really toothless. There's a fine but no demerit points, even though it is moving violation and is as dangerous as drunk driving.

New Year's Day Incident

By some combination of driving skill and some luck, I escaped what I shall euphemistically refer to as "The New Year's Day Incident." On the one hand, I hope I didn't use up all my luck for 2010 already. On the other hand, the rest of 2010 can only get better now.