The good oil: Best of 2010

70m is not a safe following distance in 100km/h traffic claims a UK study. Photo / Bay of Plenty Times

NZ road toll worse than Portugal

Reader Francis would like to remind drivers that around 70m is not a safe following distance in 100km/h traffic. This in response to a Good Oil piece comparing the considerate behaviour of drivers in Spain and Portugal with the example of three trucks on Auckland's Southern Motorway, hogging lanes one, two and three at 100km/h in wet weather and forcing following motorists to hang back 70m or so to escape the blinding spray. Francis goes by the book, quoting data from the UK transport research laboratory. "In the dry at 100km/h it recommends (a following distance) of 77.7m. In the wet this almost doubles to 122.6m." Francis also says Portugal "has an horrific road toll, as far as I can remember." Portugal's road toll in 2009 was 738. It has a population of 10.6 million. New Zealand's road toll in 2009 was 384. It has a population of 4.3 million. You do the sums.

Bit of a getaway giveaway

Welshman James Snell had planned the bank robbery down to the last detail: the nondescript clothes and disguise, the colour and make of his getaway car. That's why he was surprised when police in Cardiff quickly closed in on him. Snell had used his own vehicle - with the personalised numberplate "J4MES."

Speed traps spark court drama

At last count Jericho, Arkansas, had 184 residents, including seven cops and a handful of volunteer firemen. That was before the town's fire chief went to court for the third time to complain about the cops' speed traps. The mayor and all seven wallopers were there, too. A brawl broke out. Somebody pulled a gun ... and Jericho joined the pages of good ol' boy folklore: The fire chief was shot, wounded, taken to hospital, charged with resisting arrest, and sacked. Jericho's firemen quit in protest. The mayor called an emergency meeting. The county sheriff arrived, cut it short and fired all seven policemen. Ain't nobody yet knows who pulled the trigger.

Toyota boss bows to critics

Toyota president Akio Toyoda finished his apology to the carmaker's customers with a deep and proper bow. His message: he is truly sorry for the recalls. The art of apology is an intrinsic part of Japanese culture. It is as common as saying please and thank you. It is a way of maintaining harmony in social situations, writes NBC news producer Kiko Itasaka. If you are the first to leave work in a Japanese office, you say "Osaki ni sitsuree simasu," which means: "I commit the great rudeness of leaving first."

Coitus interruptus ...

Californians Tasha Silva, 30, and her boyfriend Marcus Schulze got such a rush joyriding in a stolen police pick-up that they stopped to have sex. They left the engine idling for a quick getaway ... but the truck ran out of gas before Silva and Schulze ran out of things to do. They parted when police arrived, Silva bare-legging it in one direction and Schulze in another. Both were later reunited - in front of a judge.

Women get help to reverse park

A city in China has come up with "women only" parking spaces - designed to meet females' "strong sense of colour and different sense of distance." The spaces in industrial city Shijiazhuang (meaning "stones village"), 320km south of Beijing, are a metre wider than regular parking spots and painted pink and purple. "Trained" attendents are on hand to "guide" women into parking spaces.

Place to meet a new flame

It's billed as the Knob Creek Gun Range Machine Gun Shoot - and there's a 10-year waiting list for the most coveted spot, "The Line". That's where 60 people get to fire their machine guns into a field of cars and boats, using up to $10,000 in ammunition.The annual weekend shootout, in West Point, Kentucky, is America's largest. Critics call it a "gang bang". It even has a competition using flame-throwers. One man said he met his future wife at the event, impressed that "she could accept flame-throwing as a hobby." Said another: "This is one of those times when you know (America) is the greatest place on Earth."

Merging? Zipitty do-dah

Dennis writes that he is tired of being "squashed from two lanes to one" in Auckland traffic. This in response to a piece about how the right-turning rule and the "merge like a zip" code both intimidates and aggravates drivers. "The law on overtaking is quite clear," says Dennis. "You cannot overtake on the inside, at all, ever." Very little else is clear, Dennis. On merging, the New Zealand Road Code says: "The best way to merge is like
a zip - where a vehicle
from the left lane goes and then a vehicle from the right lane goes, and so on. As you merge, let one vehicle from the other lane go first, and then go." Translation: "Just go for it."

Talk yourself into a safe distance

On overtaking, the Road Code says: "You can only pass on the left when there are two or more lanes on your side of the centre line and you are able to pass safely by using the left-hand lane." Yeah, right. On following distance, it advises drivers to talk to themselves: "To check if you are travelling two seconds (in normal conditions) behind the vehicle in front: watch the vehicle in front of you pass a landmark - such as a sign, tree or power pole - at the side of the road. As it passes the landmark, start counting "one thousand and one, one thousand and two" ... If you pass the landmark before you finish saying those eight words, you are following too closely - slow down, pick another landmark and repeat the words to make sure you have increased your following distance." If it's wet, says the book, add two seconds: count "one thousand and one, one thousand and two, one thousand
and three, one thousand and four."

Car sales show Tasman difference

All that talk about New Zealand catching up with Australia on wages and such? Sydney to the bush it'll never happen, unless we are sitting on an undiscovered mineral crucial to the future of man. New Zealand has lagged too far behind for too long. Take the new car market as a barometer of sorts. New Zealand will sell around 77,000 new cars and commercials this year. Australia expects to do more than one million.

Not so slow on uptake

Reader Pat is confused about the meaning of "inside" and "outside" lanes on Auckland's motorway network. He writes: "I have worked out that 'inside' and 'outside' are the reverse of what many people like myself understand those words to mean. Why not instead describe the lanes by number: the left-hand lane is 'lane one', the one next to the medium (sic) barrier is 'lane three'." Under Pat's process, the middle of three lanes would
be called 'lane two.' Pat says radio reporters "got into trouble because they were calling lanes 'slow' and 'fast', which confused motorists who found that these descriptions were often the opposite to the actual situation, when they reached the point of the incident being reported on."

Overtakers' free-for-all

In Pat's motorway world, therefore, the road shoulder is the outside lane; the lane next to the median strip the inside lane. A car on Pat's left is on his outside; a car on his right is on his inside. Others in right-hand-drive vehicles know different: a car on the left is on the inside; a car on the right is on the outside. The road shoulder is pretty much known worldwide (LHD or RHD) as the inside, or slow, lane and the one next to the median strip as the outside, or fast, lane. On a three-lane motorway, traffic in most countries will stick to the inside and middle lanes. The outside lane is the fast, or overtaking, lane. In Auckland, all three lanes are overtaking lanes.

Traffic cop's novel excuse

Former Massachusetts police officer Aaron Yeo, fired for sleeping on the job in his patrol car and lying to dispatchers about his locations, challenged the termination, claiming through his lawyer that he had declined to reveal his locations only because he was "watching for terrorists".

The Good Oil will resume on January 15. Have a merry Christmas and a happy new year. Drive safely. Remember the late motorsport champion Ashley Stichbury's advice: "Only when you have found your way out of a corner have you found your way into it."

alastair.sloane@nzherald.co.nz