Car sharing is a terrific idea – on paper

Richardson, Mark High res Wheels.ca Logo Can this go into Cascade as "wheels.ca logo"? Thanks,- Mark R.

Mark Richardson, Editor

Well, hold the presses. Canadian Tire released a survey today that showed 63 per cent of drivers can’t live without their cars.

Better not tell this to Tyler Hamilton, the Star’s gifted energy and technology columnist, who put forward a thoughtful proposal for organized online car sharing among privately owned vehicles. Such a project would subsidize the cost of owning a car, he wrote, and provide a vast fleet of available vehicles to people who do not want to buy their own car but do want to drive sometimes.

Hamilton makes the point that this is a terrific idea for car-less drivers, and answers the question of insurance by citing a California law that ensures non-commercial car lenders are not penalized by their insurance companies.

He doesn’t answer the question, though, of just how many people would be willing to lend their cars to strangers. Not many, I’m guessing. As Canadian Tire points out, 14 per cent of owners name their cars, with the most popular affectation being “Baby” or “Mon Bebe.”

This is a great idea on paper. Good luck getting it past that.

John LeBlanc, columnist

A recent article at The Truth About Cars revealed that some auto awards simply wouldn’t happen without the financial generosity of car manufacturers.

The TTAC story, via The Wall Street Journal, cites U.S.-based Consumers Digest and its “Best Buy” awards as an example of this questionable practice.

Now please, don’t confuse Consumer Digest with Consumers Reports. The latter is owned by the not-for-profit Consumers Union, purchases all of its test vehicles and refuses to allow its awards to appear in manufacturer advertising.

Similar to CR’s policy, CD has no advertising, relying on subscription income alone. But it does take money directly from automakers via the licensing of its awards for advertising purposes: $35k for the first award; and $25k for each award thereafter.

To further encourage automakers to pony up, CD’s award page lists all winners of its “Best Buy” award but only offers links to models that have paid CD licensing fees.

Here in Canada, we have a similar situation with the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada and its annual Canadian Car of the Year Awards, an event financed in part by automakers willing to pay entry fees.

The fees change each year, depending on the number of entries. But according to two Canadian manufacturer PR types who participated last year, AJAC asked $6,900 for each of 56 entries.

Although AJAC says on its site that its purpose is to “provide consumers with sound, comparative information on vehicles that are new to the market,” not all “new” cars are evaluated.

So, the question is: Should there be a clear separation of church (automotive award organizers) and state (automaker PR departments) when it comes to automotive awards?

Or are you just fine with the financial partnership that’s going on at Consumers Digest and AJAC because of the information they provide to new car buyers?

Jim Kenzie, columnist

Looks like we may have found a way around the entirely pointless hands-free cell phone law now in effect in Ontario.

From my interpretation of the wording of the thing, all you have to do is have your passenger hold the phone next to your ear so you can carry on your conversation. This therefore leaves your “hands free” to drive.

Norris McDonald, columnist

We keep being told that, after the Olympics and the World Cup of soccer/football, Formula One auto racing is the world’s most popular sport.

I’m not exactly sure who started this rumour, but I’d suggest it was Bernie Ecclestone. The world motorsport media just went along with it because if Bernie says something, it must be so.

I was watching the Spanish Grand Prix (won by Mark Webber of Red Bull-Renault, with Fernando Alonso second for Ferrari and Sebastien Vettel third in a Red Bull) when BBC announcer Jonathan Legard said (paraphrase here): “There are more than 90,000 spectators here today, a number approaching the size of a Moto GP crowd.”

What? I knew motorcycle racing (like all motor sport) is huge in Europe and the far east (Larry Tate reports on bike racing regularly for Toronto Star Wheels) but it never crossed my mind that it outdrew F1.

Apparently so.

As I knew there was a World Superbike Championship meet at Monza on Sunday (Tate told me so in Wheels last Saturday), I decided to check on attendance – and get this: Max Biaggi won both races in front of a crowd of 115,000!

Holy cow! And why would this be?

For starters, perhaps it’s because motorcycle racing these days is much more exciting than F1. Moto GP/World Superbike riders trade the lead of a race back and forth half a dozen times a lap, sometimes, in comparison to F1’s frequent follow-the-leader presentations. And the crashes are often more spectacular (yes, there’s no denying that that is an attraction).

Perhaps the motorcycle racing doesn’t have the international television package enjoyed by F1, which allows Bernie and his boys to continue calling F1 the top dog.

But give the two-wheelers similar exposure and F1 could find itself in a real dogfight.

WHEELS BLOGS

The first item this week is an excerpt from “Mark Richardson’s Wheels blog,” which was launched on the home page of wheels.ca a little over a week ago. Want to read his views on the news, or about some of the stranger-than-strange items that come across his desk? Or how about John LeBlanc’s take on the automotive industry? Or Norris McDonald’s motorsport musings? Or Jim Kenzie on – well – whatever’s on his mind that day? You can find them, every day, at wheels.ca

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