Category: Road Sage

So, I plan to give it to my oldest daughter, who is getting her licence. It seems the natural course of action. After all, I’ve been on the receiving end of a few old beaters.

As a kid growing up in the 1970s, I was addicted to the show and mesmerized by the car. The infatuation never subsided. In the 1990s, when I was starting a career as a freelance writer, I watched the show on A&E and Jim Rockford seemed like the champion of self-employed writers everywhere.

I’ve made it my personal mission to combat these vile driving practices. I devote a column every year to lamenting such poor driving. I have to admit that, so far, I’m failing badly at my mission.

Doug Ford is missing a golden opportunity. His Progressive Conservative government announced that it is replacing Ontario’s “Yours To Discover” licence-plate slogan on commercial vehicles.

California pioneered environmentalism, gave birth to the hippie movement and is home to Silicon Valley. The Golden State is forward-thinking. Maybe it’s the time difference. You get the feeling that Californians treat the east the same way parents treat a toddler. Once they’re put…

He was a Mini Cooper convert, a zealot. After owning a Nissan Maxima, and prior to that a Buick Park Avenue, my father-in-law bought a Mini Cooper in 2012 and has been smitten ever since. He lives in western New York and wanted a…

As mayor, it’s hard for my constituents to understand what I do. Is my job ceremonial, they wonder, like the Queen’s? But when they see me taking on potholes, it’s very clear that I am a man of action. I’m a problem-solver. Got a…

Midwinter means lane-shrinkage. Thanks to snow accumulation, two-lane streets become one-lane streets. One-way streets become no-way streets. The result is the automotive version of the February blahs, a situation that can bring out unseemly aspects of the human character.

At first, shop and restaurant owners worried that the pedestrian-only zones would be bad for business. This doesn’t seem to be the case. These areas are crowded with people enjoying a customary evening passeggiata (from “passegiare” which means “to stroll”). They stay busy late into the evening, window-shopping and going for supper.

I never had a minivan crisis. I’ve driven a Dodge Grand Caravan since 2005 and fail to understand the anxiety. I always expected to one day become a dad and I always expected, as soon as the metamorphosis was complete, to become a sock-and-sandal-wearing doofus embarrassment. And I was right.