Results tagged “driving”

Effective Monday, October 26, it will be illegal to operate any handheld device while operating a vehicle in Ontario. Following years of studies demonstrating that holding a phone to your ear while driving shows a similar level of impairment as driving drunk [PDF], the province has banned any handheld electronic device that takes a driver's attention away from the road: no dialling, no talking, and—we can't believe we have to say this—no texting or emailing. And this should be obvious, but if you're behind the wheel and need to call 911, call 911. Tickets won't be issued during a three-month education period (though police can still lay charges if talking on your beloved BlackBerry leads to other violations), but after that, it's handsfree or hands off. Recent evidence seems to show that even taking a call on a Bluetooth headset might pose a similar risk to holding a device, so expect to be entirely incommunicado on wheels some day.

       

On Tuesday's World Carfree Day, a parade is gathering in Trinity Bellwoods park. The day is—according to the event's hand-drawn poster—"celebrated by 100 million people across the world." The contribution from this parade currently stands at around fifty people, mainly on bicycles.

With rights come responsibilities. That was the refrain, over and over and over again, from councillors who spoke at the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee yesterday in favour of a motion by Michael Walker (Ward 22) to develop a cyclist licensing program. According to Walker, "licensing would provide for more effective enforcement of the applicable laws and clarify collision situations" [PDF]. Though the debate was largely framed as stemming from concern about cyclists' well-being (given that cycling does come with dangers, said several, it is incumbent upon the City to do its level best to mitigate those risks through a programme of education and regulation), underlying it was palpable anger and frustration on the part of at least some councillors with regards to how cyclists comport themselves on our city's streets. "Licensing is a barrier to entry," protested Yvonne Bambrick, executive director of the Toronto Cyclists Union, and we got the impression that that was exactly the point.

Zombies, beware! Shannon Larratt doesn’t take kindly to the roaming undead in these here parts. After seeing a similar paint job on the internet, Larratt, a long time zombie aficionado, decided to send Toronto’s zombies a message. "I was inspired by a girl in Pittsburgh that did up her car in a similar fashion," Larratt told Torontoist. "As soon as I saw her car, I knew I'd eventually do it—even though it took me a few months to get around to it."

* Kei cars are street legal in Canada, and can be purchased right here in the GTA from a few dealers including this great little place out in Scarborough.

Louise Garfield is taking her love of art to the streets. As executive director of Arts Etobicoke, she is collaborating with Lakeshore Arts, her sister organization, to display new works across Toronto. But these pieces won’t be seen on billboards or in other traditional outlets; instead, they will be featured on the side of travelling motorized vehicles for a new project titled ART ON THE MOVE.

Wiggles the Pig is having both a bad and a good day—bad because she fell off a moving transport truck on the 401, but good because she's been saved from becoming someone's dinner.

In its cover story this past Sunday, the Toronto Sun took a hammer to City Hall's transportation plan, slamming it for waging a "war on cars" and for having an "anti-car strategy" that leaves the issue of traffic congestion by the wayside. Prioritizing public transit, cycling, and pedestrians ahead of autos, the Sun claimed, is leading to serious economic and social consequences for both drivers and Toronto as a whole. Has City Hall taken a wrong turn? Should the municipal government make the expansion of automobile infrastructure a priority?

Fiat has been in the news headlines regularly lately, thanks to its proposed alliance with ailing automaker Chrysler. Half a century ago, the Italian auto giant tried to woo buyers in North America with compact cars like the Fiat 1100 in an age when bigger was better for domestic manufacturers and consumers.

One of the largest concerns about Google Street View, a concern echoed here now that the search giant continues to collect the photos they need to roll out a comprehensive street-level map of our city, is privacy. What if Google catches you with someone you don't want people to know you were with? What if Google catches you coming out of somewhere you don't want people to know you were inside? Or what if Google catches you in one of your lesser moments: throwing up at the side of the road, say, or, God forbid, appearing to break the law, your image preserved online for all eternity? Sure, faces and licence plates will get automatically blurred out, but that feature has proven a bit dodgy, and someone's face and licence plate aren't the only way to identify them.

Photo by functoruser.

So, your buddy just flew in from his exotic, six-month trek throughout Thailand. You're at work when he lands, so you send your older sister to go pick him up (she owes you a favour, as per usual). She drives to the airport, picks him up, and he returns, full of coconut curry and stories of full-moon parties. He doesn't bring back any drugs, or snakeskin shoes, but on the ride back he buys your sister a coffee to say thanks. He's definitely just done something illegal. Can you spot the crime? We sure don't. And neither does PickupPal.

Four children aged approximately 8 to 9 years old were taken to hospital yesterday after ingesting or coming into contact with a pool cleaning agent—believed to be muriatic acid—at a Royal Canadian Yacht Club swimming pool yesterday. For those of you unfamiliar with the name "muriatic acid," you will be relieved to find out that it's just another name for plain old hydrochloric acid. Aren't you relieved?

The McGuinty government is preparing legislation to combat "driver distraction," which will likely mean no more hand-held cell phones, Blackberries, Gameboys, iPods, or other "electronic distractions" while you're at the wheel. So much for the Torontoist mobile Wii tennis tournament.

Poor Acura.

Ontario will spend more than $2 billion this year to improve provincial roads and highways, widening the QEW and 401 and repairing over 450 kilometres of highway, as well as building and repairing over 100 bridges. In related transit news, the government is spending $5 million on a commission that will study exactly how much cooler cars are than nerdy bicycles, and how many more chicks a guy driving a car gets as opposed to some cycling dork.

Photo by Lex in the City.

In one of the more surreal moments from Streets are for People’s Tuesday visit to Queen’s Park, Rosario Marchese, the NDP MPP for Trinity-Spadina, donned Captain Planet–style superhero digs, made with a few go-get-’em words about public transit, and took flight into the Legislative Assembly’s inner chamber to save the known universe.

It is, right now, just after midnight. It is very, very, very cold outside. And Ryerson's Engineering Student Society is currently in the thirteenth hour of shoving a Volkswagen Beetle around their quad, with more than ten very, very cold hours left to go.

Photo by Thomas Hawk.

Imagine what the Caddy would think of this month's snowfall. The car wouldn't bother waiting for a driver to take in the greyhounds before the next storm strikes.

Good news, everyone! If you got a traffic ticket recently, and you planned to fight it in court, you can go ahead and rip it up right now. Yep, tear it right up, and throw it in the garbage. Actually, you should probably check the date you're supposed to appear in court first. If it happens to be February 18, 2008, you're in luck. If it's not on February 18, well, you still have time to dig that ticket out of the trash, garbage-picker.

In the battle of who owns the roads, cyclists and motorists are frequently at each others' throats. Over the last few years we've seen a heated altercation in Kensington Market and another that resulted in a motorist being stabbed with a screwdriver. It seems that the threat of a streetside melee is always looming.

Good newspaper headlines are concise, descriptive, clear, and––occasionally, just occasionally––nothing short of genius. And then there's "Man who stole car with baby faces more charges."

The Auditor General's report notes that drivers who graduate from Ontario's volunteer driver's education program have a much higher accident rate than motorists who don't. Stay out of school, kids! Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said his government will restart the Chalk River nuclear power plant, in spite of a warning from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission that such a move poses an accident risk until needed safety equipment is installed. To minimize the...

Road rage in the city is nothing new. Torontoist covered incidents of road rage violence between motorists and cyclists in 2006 and 2007, and the Sun reported on Monday that a cab driver was shot at in a road rage incident. Most coverage focuses on road rage and adults, but new research from Ontario suggests that adolescents are more likely to be victims of road rage. In a study recently published in the Journal...

The status quo for cell phone-using motorists in Toronto won’t be changing in the near future. Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty has decided not to follow Quebec’s lead in banning the use of cellular phones while driving. This despite warnings that driving-and-dialing is a dangerous distraction. Whether you’re walking, biking, driving, or taking the TTC, be warned, Toronto. There’s a cell phone driver out there with your number! Illustration by Kevin McBride....