By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

The recent launch of the BMW 3 Series Gran Turismo proved to be my first time in Italy, which obviously is on any car-nut's list of places to go. But not on the mainland where Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati ply their trade, but in Sicily. Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean, and has a pretty amazing history and mix of cultures and architecture styles thanks to several very different groups of conquerors over the years.

But one thing Sicily is also known for is the Mafia. La Cosa Nostra.

So when one of the other Canadian journalists on the trip mentioned there was actually a Mafia museum around, I figured great, but probably too far away from where we were staying. Turns out the Museo Della Mafia is in the town of Salemi, which our route was supposed to pass closely by on the second day. Everyone agreed it would be worth the detour, especially since we weren't in a rush to catch a flight at the end of the day.

Salemi is the very definition of old European city with tiny spiderweb of streets, alleys, walkways, staircases and more. After fighting our way to the city centre and - miraculously - finding a parking spot, it still required plenty of walking around and wrong turns to find the place.

The Mafia exhibit was a part of a local museum that focused more on the region's history, and once upstairs where the above photo was taken, we certainly were in for a shock. One curator (through the rough translation of our colleague) said that there was no romanticising here. No Godfather or Goodfellas. Just mini-documentaries (unfortunately in Italian, but general enough to get the drift), and a maze-full of walls covered in reproduced front-page stories from some of Sicily's important newspapers.

The photos weren't glorified, nor censored. Just as true a depiction of how the island's suffered under the Mafia for hundreds of years. A pretty humbling way to spend a couple hours, but I would have felt like I'd missed out otherwise.

Have you made similar trips or out of the way discoveries? Given that it's almost road-trip season again, do you have favourite places to visit that you'd recommend? Let us know in the comments!

By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

The general trend towards rising beltlines in new car designs has taken its toll. My daughter, who turns four this July, finds seeing out the rear windows while strapped into her car seat extremely challenging. She's not the biggest child at her age, but eight times out of ten, she won't be able to see things off to the side that we're pointing at from the front seat.

Excuse my poor skills at photo editing and cropping, but you get the general idea. The top photo is of the current Kia Rondo, a design that's been out since 2007 or so, while the bottom shows the new Rondo that'll be coming as a 2014 model. Much less glass in the new one, a higher window line, all in the name of following Kia's corporate design themes.

(Watch for a first-drive of the new Rondo coming early May...)

Don't get me wrong - I like the styling of the new Rondo much more than the old, so I understand why Kia's doing it. But it's once more a case of function following form and one less car that kids are more able to see their surroundings. I suppose it's safer in a collision, putting more body structure between them and whatever's trying to invade the passenger compartment, but surely there are better ways of accomplishing that goal?

When I was younger, staring out the window and watching the world go by was one of my favourite things to do. Sure, I'd read a book if I got bored, but otherwise just feeling curious about seeing new places to visit or the cars on the road. Maybe because kids can't see what's going on outside the vehicle is why all these in-car entertainment systems are becoming so popular. I'd imagine I'd get cranky if all I could see was the interior door trim, a little bit of sky and not much else for hours on end.

And don't think I'm picking on Kia. Other recent comments in a Mazda CX-5, a new Lexus ES 350, Hyundai Sonata, and plenty more, show it's an industry-wide phenomenon. The only two I can think of off the top of my head where she had nice things to say include the aforementioned original Rondo, and a pair of Fords: a Flex and F-150. But Ford's not excused either since a recent Fusion rental while on vacation suffered the same fate.

What do you think? Is it better to have the children more protected and cocooned by new vehicles or should they try and accommodate rear passengers as nicely as those up front? Let us know in the comments.

By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

This is the kind of story that should warm the hearts of any driver who's ever been caught behind a left-lane bandit and wished the police were around to see. A woman in Maryland was given a ticket by police for doing 63 mph in a 65 mph zone, but as you might have guessed, she'd been in the far left lane - i.e. the passing lane - at the time. 

The woman, who hasn't been named, said that she'd slowed down because it was very windy at the time, which the NBC affiliate who reported the story confirmed. There were apparently wind gusts up to 40 mph at during the day.

Both a retired police officer and a spokesman from the local AAA affiliate both support the woman's case that the ticket probably won't stand up in court and that it sends the wrong message.

However, if the woman had simply moved over to the right lane to slow down, there wouldn't have been a problem. The left lane is the passing lane, plain and simple. It's not there to cruise in, to travel in. It's there to help pass other drivers. Sure, if you're driving in bumper-to-bumper rush-hour traffic, that fills up pretty quickly, but in normal conditions, get out of there.

I'm guessing the judge will probably throw it out in court since apparently the law in Maryland says that you can drive in the left lane provided you're doing the limit or not impeding people by doing 10 mph under. That seems like legislation designed to breed left-lane hogs since there's no real incentive for a driver to move back over. Regardless of how it plays out, I'd love to shake the initial police officer's hand for acting in the first place.

What do you think? Do you agree with the police officer's actions in ticketing the driver? Should he have been more sympathetic given the conditions? Let us know in the comments.

By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

Ever had one of those heart-stopping moments that so quickly resets your thinking about something? That moment happened to me just yesterday in the most innocent circumstances.

I was taking my three-year-old daughter to a dentist appointment and she was in the back seat, her car seat installed directly behind mine. We weren't more than a couple minutes into the journey when all of a sudden, I heard some wind whistling. Reflexively, I figured that she'd opened the rear window, but after pulling the switches and the noise not abating, I absolutely knew what she'd done.

She'd opened the door.

Now, to preface this, she's ridden in just about every press vehicle that's rolled through here in her short three years, and while she has occasionally and accidentally tugged at the handle before, the other vehicles - for whatever reason - withstood her prodding.

Now, the car we're driving now, the really quite excellent Volkswagen Golf R, was pretty innocent in this whole thing. My daughter is getting older and bolder, and really, it's my fault for not activating the simple child locks equipped in every car sold today. That alone would have saved my embarrassment for being so ignorant of just how quickly she's growing into a fully-functioning adult!

Thankfully, the story ended safely. It took me about 10 seconds to find an appropriate place to pull over, lock the door, admonish my daughter and myself, then get back into the car and leave. One of the easy life lessons that experienced parents love to laugh about... So now my wife and I are going to laugh - but I'm also locking the rear doors, just in case.

Tell us about your experiences either growing up or with your children in the comments below!

By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

For whatever reason, the current provincial government in New Brunswick has decided to backtrack a bit on its current efforts on keeping newer drivers safer behind the wheel. Like many provinces, NB uses a graduated licencing system that limits where and when those new drivers can get behind the wheel. One rule that both level 1 and level 2 licence holders are required to follow is that they aren't allowed to drive between midnight and 5 a.m. because night driving can be challenging for even very experienced drivers.

Apparently, that very rule is the one the current government wants to repeal saying it's proving to be a hardship amongst New Brunswickers and there was no evidence of improved safety.

Both the ex-Premier Shawn Graham and the CAA are up in arms over the plan, saying that the current rules already provides exceptions to novice drivers who are required to drive during those hours if required for school or work. 

Steve McCall, president of CAA Atlantic agreed, saying, “The current legislation already includes a provision for exemption as a result of a requirement to drive to school or work. Not only is a change unnecessary, it would be a giant step backward in safe driving and would put these already vulnerable young drivers and other motorists at significant risk."

We're still figuring out who is nagging the current government to get this law changed because so far no one has stepped forward as a glaring example of hardship.

What do you think? What if your province decided to start repealing laws like this without public consultation?

By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

I've been changing over winter and summer summer tires for a few years now since having a bigger garage to store those extra sets was part of the attraction of moving to the Maritimes.

My wife's aunt brought over her brand new Kia Rio5 that we'd already bought separate generic steel wheels and winter tires for earlier in the fall when they were on sale. Things were going pretty smoothly, all things considered. The four-bolt wheels on her Kia were significantly easier to handle than the ones on her old Mazda3... Smaller, lighter. Figured I'd be in for an easy morning.

Put on all four new boots, triple-checked the nuts were all torqued properly, cleared all the tools and stuff out of the way, fired it up and put it in reverse to back out of the garage. It didn't take long to find out something was wrong. It didn't roll freely in gear, so I gave it a little gas and all I heard was a low metallic shriek.

Uh oh.

I initially thought I hadn't disengaged the parking brake properly or perhaps it had gotten stuck, but that seemed not to be the case. Didn't take long to figure out that the front brake calipers were catching somehow. Took them all off, checked the inside of the new front wheels and sure enough spotted a thin but noticeable gouge in the paint where they'd made contact. Hmm. 

The store we'd bought them from didn't seem shocked by the 'revelation' and for the most part was pretty apologetic about the situation. 

Obviously, 'universal' never really is 'universal'. For one wheel to be designed to fit all the new models out there with as few alterations as possible is near-impossible to acheive. We've just been lucky in all our other dealings with new wheels and the like.

As a consolation to our Aunt, her Kia dealer did have a comparable set of winter tires with steel wheels (that would fit!) and had them installed for only $40 more than she'd paid just for the package at the parts store... So much for the rule that dealer service is always more expensive.

Photo courtesy Eastop from sxc.hu

By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

For such a relatively small city, Fredericton, NB has some pretty terrible drivers. There's a complete lack of signalling; few actually turn their lights on at night, let alone during bad weather; and they continually drift into the outside lane when turning through intersections. It doesn't help that the routes around where most of the new development is occurring haven't seen similar growth; the infrastructure plain sucks, leaving many in huge lines of backed up traffic around a few of the city's key intersections and causing major delays and flared tempers.

According to the CBC, Fredericton's mayor, Brad Woodside, has been after the provincial government to change the Motor Vehicle Act for years, which has been the major stumbling block in getting red-light cameras installed in the city. Apparently this has been going on since 2007, but keeps passing from committee to committee. Finally, the department involved promises that the results will be made public sometime next year.

The CBC also quotes a 2011 study of Winnipeg's introduction of red-light cameras by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation that found a 46 per cent decrease in "severe right-angle crashes" and a 24 per cent decrease in overall injuries due to crashes. However, there was a 15 per cent increase in rear-end crashes, which is attributed to more drivers stopping sooner after the cameras were installed than before. However, the rates of collisions and injuries in Waterloo apparently haven't improved in the five years cameras have been in place.

The general sentiment is obviously split between those who believe red-light cameras can make drivers think twice about running red lights and those who worry that the system would simply be viewed as anther form of revenue generation. There have been plenty of cases in the United States and Canada where the yellow-to-red cycle has been shortened in order to issue more tickets.

If installing red-light cameras was the absolute last resort for keeping pedestrians and drivers safe in Fredericton, I'd be more supportive. But police already have plenty of 'tools' in the existing laws that can be used first. Improving driver training and licence requirements, having fewer ticket-generating speed traps in safe areas instead of focusing on school zones or high-risk intersections and actually having the police act as responsible role models instead of setting poor examples for other drivers.

What do you think? Are you for red-light cameras or against? Are they a legitimate way to improve safety or just a way to bring dollars into local coffers? Let us know in the comments.

By Dutch Mandel, AutoWeek

Close your eyes. Imagine you're at the turn of the 20th century. A favorite broadsheet tells you that these new-fangled automobile gadgets are dangerous rattle traps that foul the air and that they are singularly profound failures!

These “auto-mobiles” are powered by steam, electrics or gasoline! They terrorize the very horse-drawn carriages that have been the backbone of American transportation for hundreds of years! They are a costly new technology with no place on our roads. Bah-humbug.

Move forward to just a few weeks ago. The august voices of Washington Post editors pronounce the Chevrolet Volt a failure. As evidence, they say its technology has not been wholly embraced by consumers and its per-unit cost is extraordinarily onerous.

Obviously, it must be a failure.

By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

It's that time of the year... Once again members of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) will be assembling Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario for its annual Test Fest. The week-long event sees its members - including yours truly - drive and vote on cars, trucks and utility vehicles in a variety of categories to determine its overall Car and Utility Vehicle of the Year awards. 

What makes AJAC's process unique is that in order for a member's scores to count, all the vehicles in the category must be driving on the same day, ideally in the same conditions. Each route is between 35-45 minutes and includes either on-track testing for evaluating acceleration, braking and handling, or a shorter off-road segment for the SUVs and crossovers. 

This year promises to be the biggest, both in terms of voting members and vehicles to test, in years.

The categories are:

- City Car (mainly for electric vehicles)
- Small Car Under $21K
- Small Car Over $21K
- Family Car Under $30K
- Family Car Over $30K
- Luxury Car
- Sports-Performance Under $50K
- Sports-Performance Over $50K
- Prestige-Performance Over $75K
- SUV-CUV Under $35K
- SUV-CUV $35K-$60K

The largest category is the first Sports-Performance class with 10 cars ranging from the Chevrolet Sonic RS, Fiat 500 Abarth, to the Hyundai Genesis Coupe, Scion FR-S/Subaru BRZ twins and Volkswagen Golf R. The smallest is the all-new City Car class, which features two new electrics for 2012, the Ford Focus EV and the Mitsubishi iMiEV.

This year's must-watch categories include Family Car Under because it has four of the new-generation of mid-size sedans (Chevrolet Malibu, Ford Fusion, Honda Accord and Nissan Altima). The other hot one will surely be Sports-Performance Over where the crazy Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 faces off against the Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 for muscle-car supremacy... oh, and the Mercedes-Benz SLK 55 AMG and new Porsche Boxster will try to keep up.

Testing takes place from first thing on Monday, Oct. 22 to noon on Wednesday, Oct. 24 when the voting tabulation takes place. A press conference in the evening of Thursday, Oct. 25 will reveal the category winners, leaving Friday, Oct. 26 for those of us who haven't driven the winners to do so. Then another round of voting takes place for the overall Car and Utility Vehicle awards, and those results will be announced at the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto, ON in February of next year.

MSN Autos Canada will have a number of writers on-site and we're hoping to relay daily updates here on The Passing Lane along with in-depth coverage of the categories themselves and anything else that pops up in the meantime.

By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos

We're all excited by the prospect of a long weekend filled with family, friends and lots of food. Thanksgiving means lots of turkey, potatoes, stuffing, gravy and all those other things that make you feel pretty full and relaxed by the end of the evening. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has 'Turkey Pants' that sit a little looser around the waist.

But, let's be smart here: no drinking and driving. That's just stupid, not to mention selfish too. Find a designated driver, take a cab or transit. Whatever. Just be safe.

And the same goes for those of us who might be face-down in the sweet potatoes from exhaustion... driving tired is just as dangerous as driving impaired. Find a couch instead.

Anyway, enough preaching. Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy your weekend.