Saab owners needn’t sob anymore: the brand is saved (maybe)

By David Menzies

Christian Skovbjerg is probably thinking of buying a lottery ticket these days. After all, the super Saab fan feels like he’s already hit one jackpot.

Skovbjerg is a member of the Saab Club of Canada and is owner of an auto repair shop in Oakville, Ont. that specializes in Saabs. Last weekend, behind the wheel of his snazzy blue 1974 Saab Sonett, Skovbjerg was part of a convoy of more than 100 Saab owners who descended upon GM Canada’s headquarters in Oshawa. They were there to protest GM’s plans to mothball its Swedish automotive division.

In truth, last weekend, the idea of Saab being saved by anyone looked about as likely as the rebirth of the Pontiac Firebird. After all, in recent months, various would-be buyers for Saab turned out to be commitment-shy tire-kickers.

But a few days ago, GM announced it had reached an agreement to sell Saab to the Dutch sports car manufacturer Spyker Cars NV. Once the deal closes (it’s expected to be finalized around Valentine’s Day), Skovbjerg’s Swedish love affair with Saab will continue.

“Saabs are great cars, and Spyker is a good fit as an owner,” he says.

That would be in stark contrast to GM, which didn’t seem to know what to do with Saab. For starters, the General was inept at marketing these fine cars (hands up anyone who can recall a noteworthy Saab ad campaign in the last 15 years?) In fact, Skovbjerg contends GM really only wanted Saab for its technology and research and development.

Here’s your traffic ticket, ma’am. Will that be cash, Visa or sex?

 

By David Menzies

What do you get when you cross “Ponch” (Erik Estrada’s character from CHiPs) with Tiger Woods?

It would probably be someone who very much resembles Florida Highway Patrol trooper Wilfredo Bennett.

Alas, Wilfredo apparently fancies himself as a Latin lover. In fact, it’s a shtick he was employing to a somewhat unacceptable extreme with traffic code violators assuming said violators were: A. female; and B. hot. At least one such motorist was given the option of getting out of her traffic ticket… as long as she agreed to hook up with Officer Feel-Good after hours.

Court records show that following a 2008 crash investigation, the 39-year-old Bennett informed Donna Michelle Herbst that he wouldn’t bother showing up for her court date if she contested the ticket.
The catch? She had to make dinner for him. Oh, and Bennett was interested in some dessert, too. Indeed, Herbst told investigators she had sex with Bennett on 20 occasions – sometimes when he was still on duty.

Incredibly, a police officer conducting himself in such a fashion is indeed against the rules when it comes to enforcing the Florida Traffic Code.

Bennett is accused of betraying his oath to uphold the law in return for regular sex. He has pleaded not guilty and faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

Toyota temporarily stopping sale of recalled vehicles

By MSN Autos

Toyota is suspending the sale of eight models sold in Canada and the U.S. to fix a sticking gas pedal in a recall announced last week.

The Japanese automaker is recalling approximately 270,000 vehicles in Canada to fix the accelerator pedal on the following vehicles:

Geriatrics slug it out over parking spot

By David Menzies

A tale of two New Yorkers getting into an altercation over a parking spot is about as newsworthy as reporting there’s a lot of cold, salty water in the Atlantic Ocean.

Then there’s the bizarre case of Gersh Gofman and Steve Pulwers – two Big Apple geriatrics that went at it hammer and tong over street parking.

The problem began when Gofman, 83, parked his car in front of the driveway outside of the house belonging to Pulwers, 99.

Pulwers, who lives above a doctor’s office, said he was putting out the trash when the doctor returned from an emergency call. The doc couldn’t get into his driveway and began to honk his horn in an ill-fated attempt to get Gofman to pull ahead. That’s when Pulwers began knocking on Gofman’s window. Apparently, everybody got tired of waiting for Gofman.

“I say, ‘Gentleman, the doctor wants to go into the garage,’ Pulwers told the New York Post. “He did not answer.”

Well, actually, Gofman eventually responded – with his metal steering wheel lock. Junior got out of his car and soundly clubbed Pulwers with The Club.

The near-centenarian was knocked to the ground and pinned. Pulwers said he tried to use his coat to defend himself, but continued to suffer repeated blows.

Winter’s most dire road hazard: laziness

By David Menzies

Ah, motoring in the good ol’ wintertime. Black ice, zero visibility, frigid temperatures, poor traction ... what’s not to love?

Yet, who would’ve guessed that of all the various winter road hazards, one of the most dangerous is something that rarely gets any publicity: sheer laziness.

A recent international survey has found that one-third of motorists fail to properly clear their windshields before hitting the road, the most common excuse being they were in “too much of a rush.”

The survey, conducted by Continental Tyres and involving approximately 4,000 European drivers, found that one in three drivers failed to fully clear their windshield before driving off. Of those drivers, more than 50% believe such neglect is wrong… yet didn’t stop behaving this way nonetheless.

“Men appear to be worse offenders than women, and are a staggering 129 per cent more likely... to have had a near-miss on the roads in the winter because they set off before clearing their windscreen properly,” says Tim Bailey, Continental’s head of safety.

Regina man harvests fur from road kill

By David Menzies

Espousing the mantra of “waste not, want not” Gerry Armsworthy is amassing a fine collection of fur hats, mittens, slippers and even Scottish regalia these days. Better yet, his material costs are precisely zero. The reason: Armsworthy doesn’t purchase farm-raised minks nor does he hunt game. Rather, he harvests his fur from road kill.

According to a CBC report, the Regina man says there’s an excess of raccoon, fox and badger pelts to be found on Saskatchewan highways thanks to a surplus of animals that gambled poorly when crossing the road.

“Nobody's using them [dead animals] for anything,” says the self-proclaimed road kill specialist. “They get hit by 16-wheelers and they’re good for nothing. So these little foxes get rolled onto the side of the road and I thought I could do something with them.”

Armsworthy notes there’s a right way and a wrong way to harvest road kill.

“First thing you have to do is you don’t pick road kill up until it freezes,” he says. “I drive a Cadillac and everyone says, ‘You mean you throw those dead animals in the back of your Cadillac?’ And I say, ‘Well, I put them in bags first.’”

A matter of life and death? Tell it to the judge…

By David Menzies

In the world of law enforcement, there are rules. And then there’s that intangible commodity known as “officer’s discretion.” Officer’s discretion is essentially code-speak for a judgment call based upon common sense.

Sadly, there was precious little common sense on display last week when a speeding Toronto cardiologist was pulled over by a police officer who had the emotional acumen of Robocop.

Every lead-footed motorist has a reason to speed. And most of the reasons tend to be lame excuses. But in Dr. Michael Kutryk’s case, he had the best reason of all to put the pedal to the metal: he was trying to save someone’s life.

The details: Upon getting an emergency call from St. Michael’s Hospital, Dr. Kutryk bolted from his home to save the life of a patient who had just suffered a massive heart attack. Alas, the doctor was pulled over by a policeman toting a radar gun near the intersection of Bayview and Moore. Dr. Kutryk was allegedly driving 75 km/h in a 40 km/h zone.

The good doctor frantically explained to the police officer who he was, where he was going and the fact that every second counted. Anyone who’s heard anecdotes of such life-and-death scenarios knows what’s supposed to happen next: the police officer jumps into his cruiser, activates the light bar and siren, and proceeds to give the doctor an escort.

Tim Hortons: Idling is good for the environment

By David Menzies

Idling is good for the environment.

Oh, you didn’t know? And to think just about everybody had it wrong all these years. Imagine that: letting the engine rev while going nowhere is actually a chic green strategy.

Surely this is an inconvenient goof? Not according to Tim Hortons and its rent-a-scientist, Mike Lepage with Guelph, Ont.-based RWDI.

At issue: Tim Hortons is running into resistance from various municipalities that aren’t keen to approve drive-through lanes for the java juggernaut.

Still, Nick Javor, Tim Hortons’ senior VP, Corporate Affairs, had more than one eyebrow soaring skyward when he made the groundbreaking idling-is-good pronouncement.

Adds Lepage: “Generally, the preliminary results show that banning drive-throughs does not provide significant benefits (reduced emissions) to the environment. The study directly compares restaurants with and without drive-throughs.  A number of factors affect the findings. These include the burst of emissions from engine starts, the amount of idling that occurs in parking lots due to individuals who leave their engine running while in the store, the amount of  ‘crawl time’ that occurs when looking for parking spots and the need for larger parking lots if drive-throughs don’t exist.”

But an analysis of Lepage’s statements would appear to fail the sniff test.

Ford wins 2010 North American Car and Truck of the Year awards

By Justin Couture, MSN Autos

To say that the past year and a half has been a busy time for Ford could quite possibly be the biggest understatement of the decade. The roll-out of its revised global strategy is well underway, which will include numerous international products such as the Fiesta, the C-Max compact minivan and the European-market Focus arriving in North America. At the same time, Ford’s R&D teams have launched the powerful and efficient EcoBoost powertrain lineup, and refreshed icons such as the Mustang and Taurus. Keep in mind that all of this went on during the global economic recession and while its cross-town companions entered bankruptcy.

Ford’s hard work has paid off. Its sales are healthy, and its revitalized product range is picking up awards left, right and centre - the most recent of which involved a clean sweep of the 2010 North American Car and Truck of the Year awards which were presented this morning at the 2010 North American International Auto Show.

Child car seats might not be as good as we think

By David Menzies

It’s conventional wisdom – not to mention the law in most jurisdictions – that if you plan on hitting the road with a kid in the car, then Junior better be strapped into a child car seat.

Yet, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner appear to have compelling evidence suggesting that child car seats don’t really do as much good as we’ve been led to believe.

Levitt and Dubner, authors of the recently-published Super Freakonomics, examined decades’ worth of data and even conducted their own experiments to debunk the premise that child car seats are a safety panacea when it comes to collisions.

The duo examined data amassed by the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, a compilation of police reports from all fatal crashes in the United States since 1975. As the authors note in Super Freakonomics: “A quick look at the FARS data from nearly 30 years of crashes reveals a surprising result. For children two and older, the rate of death in crashes involving at least one fatality is almost identical for those riding in car seats and those wearing seat belts.”

Indeed, Levitt and Dubner found that in certain types of crashes – rear-enders, for instance – car seats actually performed worse than seat belts.