Road Rules

In a recent—February 2010—TV ad, a young man at the wheel of a ‘hot’ car makes eye contact with a young woman at the wheel of an adjacent ‘hot’ car, after which both of them accelerate rapidly down a straight roadway—a regular roadway, not a race track.  The advertiser might say, “Everyone gets it. It’s just a gimmick.”

Google-ing “jokes about women drivers” retrieves an endless list.  But it appears that these jokes don’t work anymore when we look at who is causing motor vehicle accidents.

It’s difficult to pin down when Toyota’s troubles began.  State Farm, the US’s largest auto insurer said it alerted regulators in late 2007 about reports of unexpected acceleration in Toyota vehicles, while the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says it received similar complaints as early as 2003.  In September 2007, after an NHTSA investigation, Toyota recalled 55,000 Camry and ES350 vehicles to replace floor mats.  Since then the list of Toyota recalls has (shall we say) accelerated:

Child seat belt laws in British Columbia (since July 1, 2008) require:

The Olympics showed us what a difference a hundredth of a second can make—which is mind-boggling to say the least.  Before, whole seconds seemed to race by.  But we know these too can make a difference, and never more so when judging and safely executing a left turn has been a by-the-skin-of-your-teeth scenario.  Every day, all over North America, millions of left turns are executed safely, yet statistically, they are one of the most dangerous driving maneuvers.  At some point in their driving life, most drivers have had a left turn close call caused by a miscalculation that may have involved timing of less than a second.