smart fortwo

Rented a Smart forTwo from ACE LAS for $11/day earlier this month. This is one of the car I seriously considered as my next commute car. Now I have a chance to a 4-day test drive.

First, it's really not that small for one driver or even with a passenger. Decent storage space in the back for something of that size. Great leg room.

Second, it is very small. I literally sit on the rear wheel. When making a turn, it's like turning around sitting on my office chair. Not so much in low speed, but I did took time to get use to it while driving at 90mph on I-105.

Yes, it's surprisingly stable even when driving at high speed. The fastest I got it to was around 95mph. I didn't know how fast I was driving (I was just following the traffic, officer) until looking at the speedometer. For a small car, the acceleration is not bad. It helped greatly that the car I had doesn't have power steering.

Being a very short car (100 in), it does offer some benefits. First, if you can see the car in the next lane from the side mirror, you can definitely change lane since there's plenty of space in-between.

Of course the greatest benefit is on street parking. Can you image that I was even looking forward to a place that I can park on street in Westwood and Beverly Hills? Since there's always a tight spot nobody else can park into, I was almost certain that I can find free on-street parking in Westwood during lunch hour.

There's one day I was running to a lunch meeting in Beverly Hills, I found a parking spot on a small street off 3rd st. Since it's a very narrow street, I initially try to let the cars behind me to pass first before trying to park into the tight (even for a smart) spot. The two ladies in the car pulled over and told me "we're not leaving, just want to see how you park that little cute thing into that spot."

The pictures below are the parking job. It took me about 3 minutes to get into.

Now here comes the not so great part. The main thing is that the automatic transmission sucks. It's like I was on a car driven by someone trying the stick-shift the first time. I eventually had to switch to the manual-automatic shift.

A minor problem is that one needs to read the manual before getting the radio to work, at least for me.

The small thing was good on gas, but not great. For the 200 miles I drove with mixed highway and local driving, I got about 40mpg, close to the EPA highway estimate, but lower than I had expected for such a small car.

The verdict, a nice alternative to Prius but not such a smart buy right now, at least not until Mercedes fixes the automatic transmission or just offers a stick-shift option.

Red Light Camera

Here's another attack on red light cameras by Patrick Bedard at the Car and Driver: 

The most significant arguments I agree with Mr. Bedard are the following: 

1. You can't force the owner of the viehcle to rat out the actual driver. As long as the prosecution doesn't have sufficient evidence proven it's the driver who was driving, they can't convict the driver. 

2. It's conflict of interests since the evidences are collected by a for-profit organization which makes profit from every conviction. 

3. Red light camera is not about safety, it's about revenue. 

4. Red light cameras may increase rear-end collisions at the intersection. 

Nevertheless, I do think Mr. Bedard needs to provide more details about the studies he cited in his article. There are many uncertainties such as whether the increase of accidents associated with the installation of red light cameras are inline with accidents increase due to other factors such as traffice flow and population increase. 

Robot Revenuing: Shots Were Fired - Column

When the cameras go up, the money comes in: shorten the yellow to boost the take.

BY PATRICK BEDARD
March 2008

"This just in: A red-light camera on Broadway Street in Knoxville, Tennessee, has suffered fatal gunshot wounds. Three bullets struck the device, destroying the lens and rendering it inop. Clifford E. Clark III, 47, holed up in a nearby minivan, was arrested and charged with felony vandalism." 

"Let’s be clear about the tyranny here. This is not about running red lights. Camera enforcement is a revenuing scheme ... "

"Moreover, it’s a robot employed by a for-profit business that makes its profits from guilty verdicts. It makes nothing on innocent verdicts. Such an obvious conflict of interest should bring out allthe rifles." 

"Students: Test your knowledge. Red-light cameras are about (a) the money, (b) the money, (c) THE MONEY." 

"This tyranny will fall as research builds a slam-dunk case that it’s a safety sham. A report last year, funded by the Federal Highway Administration and the Virginia Department of Transportation, said that “cameras were associated with an increase in total crashes.” Six Virginia cities with red-light cameras were studied. Injury crashes were down five percent in one and up from six to 89 percent in the others. Rear-enders were up in all the cities, by 136 percent in Falls Church and 139 percent in Arlington." 

"Crashes were up in Stockton, California, too, from an average of 14 per year before to more than 20 per year in the 2004–6 period, after red-light cameras were installed. Same story in Seattle, where crashes rose from 4.94 per intersection before to 5.25 after cameras were installed at four intersections. Untroubled by the facts, Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske declared complete victory and proposed camera coverage on 14 more intersections."

"If red-light cameras don’t reduce violations, what does? The length of the yellow light is the most important factor, says the Texas Transportation Institute, which studied 181 intersection approaches over three years. Adding one second to the Institute of Transportation Engineers formula cut violations by 53 percent. Conversely, shortening the ITE time by one second hiked violations by 110 percent." 

"As good as it might be for safety, lengthening the yellow is bad for (a), (b), and (c) above. San Diego saw a $2 million increase in revenues in the first year after trimming its “grace period” to 0.1 second versus 0.3 to 0.5 before. In Dallas, 7 of the 10 highest revenue-raising cameras have yellows shorter than the minimum recommendation of the Texas Department of Transportation." 

"When the choice comes down to safety versus the money, safety doesn’t stand a chance."

Copyright ©2007 Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Inc.

Car & Driver / Road & Track Live

This is my Xmas gift: going to the Car and Driver Live-Open Road next summer! Never heard it before, may be it's their first year. This touring event has two parts: On Track and Open Road. As it puts, the On Track events are done in rack tracks while the Open Road is done on regular roads. For both events, there are eight nice sports cars to drive:
Ford GT, Noble M400, Lamborghini Gallardo, Porsche 997 Turbo, Ferrari F430 Modena, Lotus Elise, Dodge Viper, and Chevrolet Corvette Z06.