Archive for 2013
True Road Safety: Where Is The Line Drawn?
Naturally, as part of my role as a vehicle evaluator, I’m out and about a fair bit. There’s smart road rules, there’s smart drivers (well, a couple….) and there’s just way, way, way, WAY too many bad ones. Australian governments tell us all about road safety, with the focus on all road safety deemed to be speed-centric.
I ask you: what’s truly more dangerous: travelling at 115 km/h on a freeway that is zoned 100 or 110 under sunny blue skies OR driving at late afternoon, mid winter, with cloud cover and rain with no headlights on….with your car a silver or dark colour. What’s more dangerous; driving along a straight, rural road, with clear vision, doing 80 and the road is zoned 70 OR being in a small car, changing lanes suddenly so you’re in front of a B double whilst not indicating then jumping on the brakes?
Today I was driving, in the company of a good mate, an example of Holden’s outgoing VE SS utes, the Z series with the dark grey five spoke alloys; the weather was cold but clear and traffic was moving well in all three freeway lanes. I’m in 
the right hand side lane, zoned at 110 km/h and travelling at a tick above that…the middle and left hand lanes were reasonably full and, inexplicably, moving at under the limit. Behind me there’s a flash; thinking it’s a sun reflection off a windscreen, I ignored it. A few seconds later, another. I look and here’s an example of Australia’s Got (No Driving) Talent; bloke gesturing to me that I should move left so he can pass. Completely ignored was the fact that for he to pass me he’d be closer to 120 km/h than I PLUS there was no room at the inn a.k.a the middle lane. Eventually he sidled past, on my left, at least 130 km/h and disappeared. Twenty minutes later, with no variance in my speed by more than a couple of km/h either way, we didn’t merely catch him, we passed him. Two more times, the same thing happened.
On the way back home, earlier than this, we passed a few Highway Patrol cars, with all but one sitting roadside, with an officer holding a radar. There was also a marked police car ahead of one with a Community Police signage….both of these changed lanes without indicating quite a few times. So while you, I and everyone else is being beaten senseless with the message “Don’t Speed”, there’s other avenues of safety being forgotten, or, possibly, exploited. Let’s not kid ourselves; safety in most states really is driven by revenue and is coated in a sickly sweet road safety sugar to make it easier for the populace to swallow. In real terms, the road toll is fairly static compared to the amount of extra drivers joining the road each year. Let’s also not overlook how many cars there are, on our roads country wide, that are equipped with ABS, airbags and so on. So our roads are becoming more cluttered, the cars we drive are far more safe yet two things stay the 
same: we’re being told that speed kills and no one mentions these two words….”driver training”.
If speed kills, there’s an awful amount of ghosts driving cars. If speed kills, then Craig Lowndes, Mark Winterbottom, Mark Webber, etc, must be bloody lucky. What’s that you say, they’re trained drivers? Thank you sir, my point exactly. And then there’s this: http://news.drive.com.au/drive/motor-news/1000km-at-130kmh–and-still-alive-20130620-2ok2x.html
In Australia’s capital cities there’s plenty of driver training companies; In Sydney, for example, there’s Ian Luff’s Drive To Survive. Brissie has SDT Safe Driver Training. Victoria picks up the Australian Driver Trainers Association whilst companies such as adrenalin.com.au run advanced driver training courses at racetracks, including Perth’s Barbagallo. Says a lot, doesn’t it, that companies such as these have to work over the entrenched attitude the government says we should have whilst forgetting the simple, the basic fact that better drivers drive better…..
Holden Out On Cuts For The Long Term
Today’s (June 18, 2013) announcement from Holden has sent another collective shiver through the automotive fraternity; with the feeling from many that the request for staff (and, allegedly, not including management) to cop a pay cut to reduce costs is a prelude to Holden announcing it will, like Ford, cease local manufacturing. Holden’s chief honcho, Mike Devereux, is quoted as saying that it costs, in Australia, $3750 more to build a car, than anywhere else in the world. The cut for workers, in the two plants Holden operates (Elizabeth in South Australia and Port Melbourne, Victoria), is said to be in the order of up to $200 per week, a substantial dent. It’s in order to continue and reinforce the building base Holden has, but it is more far reaching than that. Should Holden up stumps, it effectively condemns Toyota to do the same, as one local manufacturer simply cannot sustain Australia’s part supply industries. Devereux also said that some workers aren’t being paid what they’re worth, with many at management level not receiving a pay rise for over three years.
As always, there’s two sides to every story; it’s rumoured that some Holden execs that have been with the company for less than two years are said to be on wages of over four hundred thousand dollars. That’s a fair bit of coin, considering Australia’s Prime Minister isn’t being paid much more. Having said that, if an average worker is being asked to cop a pretty decent pay cut and the subsequent adjustment to their living conditions, one would think it’s only fair that a commensurate reduction in wages and lifestyle adjustment be applied to the higher end of the ladder.
Bundled in with all of this is more human cost; around 400 workers at Elizabeth and 100 at Port Melbourne are scheduled to be made redundant, with the company hoping most will be from a voluntary basis. To add to the dilemma is the mooted reduction of automotive manufacturing support, by a half billion dollars, should the current Tony Abbott led Coalition win, as expected, the September Federal election. All politics aside, any reduction in support is a ludicrous idea; what should be scrutinised is Holden’s and the government’s business model. Coming off a loss of $152 million for 2012, it’s all well and good to look at the simplest form of saving money. Holden’s operation structure, its operating costs and just WHY it appears that Australia’s manufacturing costs are so comparatively high would, on the face of it, bear some deeper investigating.
Some of the blame for this may, in truth, lay within General Motors and Holden; with the rise of Hyundai and Korea, plus the dominance of brands such as Mazda, is it possible that Holden hasn’t reacted quickly enough to change the cars that people once bought to be the cars that people WANT to buy? Is it a form of hubris; Australia’s own, immortalised in the jingle “Football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars” felt that people would buy a Holden BECAUSE it was a Holden? Advertising a car as world quality doesn’t necessarily mean that it is world class. The Cruze, as good a car as it is, does fall short against some of its opposition such as the Mazda3 or Hyundai’s i30, for example, and the Commodore can be said to have failed to match the Mazda6 or the i40. Large car sales have fallen, too, leading to Mitsubishi and Nissan closing their doors for local manufacturing, in part. Ford’s recent decision, although not unexpected, has the potential for Holden to mirror that. Regardless, today’s announcement is something Australia’s struggling car industry both needs…..and doesn’t.
Information Overload!
Does this sound familiar? I’m doing the Mum’s Taxi thing, picking kids off and running them down to after-school activities like the typical parent these days. It might not be a long drive, but the amount of signage that I go past is fairly large.
You’ve got the school speed limit sign complete with the times that these apply. You’ve got a roundabout or two to go through with all the signs associated with those (at least they’re not multi-lane roundabouts). There are a handful of Give Way signs on the way, a couple of Children Crossing signs, a No Parking sign outside the school and some Bus Stop signs on the way to the activities. I’m lucky that the route I use doesn’t involve traffic lights with all the umpteen different signs that are involved there depending on the lane that you want to go to. Signs everywhere – flashing, in some cases.
But those aren’t the only signs I see. Thanks to an acute outbreak of road works by my local council, I’m coming across the “road works” signs (once known as Men At Work signs), plus road cones and people in high-viz vests putting up bright coloured barriers to stop people driving/walking/biking into the hole they’re trying to dig.
On top of all this, you’ve got all the advertising material and the signage to tell you that you have actually reached the gym or wherever you need to go. Signs, signs, signs. And in a few places, you’ve got the signs for cyclists and pedestrians into the bargain.
It doesn’t get much better once you get into the countryside. Not only do you get the boards telling you that you’ve got XXX km to go until you get to the city where Grandma lives and signs telling you to watch out for horses/wombats/strong crosswinds/railway crossings, you also get the signs telling you about the intersections you can expect ahead of you. These include my candidate for most pointless sign: the one about falling rocks. OK, it’s kind of handy to know that there might be a rock on the road ahead of me, but you can get debris on the road anywhere, so I’m usually scanning the road for hazards. But if a rock falls when I’m driving through the area, I never know what I can really do about that. Second on my list of “statements of the blinking obvious” is the one about a railway crossing ahead complete with “prepare to stop” emblazoned on it. Really, I’m going to drive out into the middle of the intersection in front of an oncoming train without that sign, aren’t I?
Signs might be all very well and good, and they do serve a useful purpose. However, if we are continually confronted by signs left, right and centre (and let’s not even start on the information provided by in-car information systems at the same time), we become blasé about them and start tuning them out. It certainly doesn’t help when businesses decide to make their signs look rather like road signs. Sometimes, the powers that be up the ante by adding brighter colours and flashing lights. But then everyone starts doing it. And then we tune out the new level of attention-grabbing signage and the cycle continues.
I can just remember when the local fire engine had just one or maybe two red lights and a siren. Now, every emergency vehicle seems to flash like a Christmas tree on steroids and sounds like it’s doubled the decibel level of the sirens just to cut through all the other flashing lights and sounds around us. Yes, it’s important to see emergency vehicles, but is it really necessary to go to these levels? Just think how quickly people respond when they see those little red and blue lights mounted discreetly on a Holden Commodore letting them know that they’ve just lead-footed it past an unmarked police car…
I sometimes wonder if the information overload actually contributes to road safety rather than addressing it. I’m not alone in thinking this. There are Austroads research publications about this and there have been those campaigns about the dangers of distracted driving. However, the billboards reminding us not to drive distracted are themselves distractions…
Going to California: Holden Malibu
Holden has always had a contender for each of the categories that make up the Australian automotive landscape; some work (Commodore, Barina) and some don’t (Epica, Viva). Since the, well, epic failure of the Epica, the red lion’s presence in the medium car segment has been lacking. Cue, the Malibu.
It’s a physically large car, not far off Commodore size at 4865mm long, 1855mm wide and 1465mm wide and will come with a choice of two engines; a 2.4L petrol with 123kW/225Nm of torque or a 2.0L diesel (117kW/350Nm) with no choice for transmission 
but a six speed auto, with gear ratios adjusted to suit the different engine characteristics, with towing capacity at 1200kgs. There’ll be two trim levels and keeping with the majority of the Holden family nomenclature will be called CD and CDX. In reality there’s very little to differentiate between the two, with LED tail lights, some leather trim, fog lamps and rain sensing wipers the main standouts however the CD will get electrically assisting steering while the CDX gets hydraulic. The CD will roll on 16 inch wheels with the CDX getting 17s. As expected, safety is not compromised, with the usual suite of passive and active electronic aids, such as curtain airbags and traction control plus the new MyLink integrated entertainment system.
Under the long and shapely bonnet, the 2.4L aluminuim block gets noise reduction engineering and oil cooling jets on the pistons to aid in longevity whilst the German sourced diesel is refined and quiet, with a particulate filter standard to reduce emissions. Although a world car, the Malibu copped a substantial amount of Australian input, to deal with the variable quality roads (suspension) and driving requirements (engine and gearbox mapping) plus specifying tyres for our right hand drive environment. Even in the styling, Australia’s own had significant input, with Michael Simcoe (the Monaro from the early noughties) overseeing the project, including the fact that the Malibu’s rear end styling was originally slated to be used on the forthcoming VF Commodore.
Prices will start from $28490 plus ORCs for the CD up to $35990 plus ORCs for the CDX diesel; with deliveries to Holden showrooms due to roll out by month’s end, this could be a worthy contender in the medium car segment, up against the Camry, Mazda6 and, Kia Optima, Hyundai i40 and Mondeo.
Go here for more info: http://www.holden.com.au/cars/malibu
or here for Paul Gover’s review: http://www.carsguide.com.au/news-and-reviews/car-reviews-road-tests/holden_malibu_v_mazda6_v_kia_optima?utm_source=carsguide&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=carreviewsroadtests
Level 2, 9 Help Street