Auto Safety Reslolutions To Make This Year!

Safe driving habits are just as important as driving a quality vehicle. Use these tips to help protect you and your family on the road.



Always wear a safety belt. Safety belts save lives and help reduce the risk of serious injury in the event of a crash. Every passenger should wear a safety belt for every car ride, no exceptions.



Only use hands-free mobile devices. This year, vow not to call, text, sort music or otherwise play with your mobile device while behind the wheel. If you must talk on the phone while driving, use a hands-free headset or pull over to a safe location first.

• Keep your cool. Let go of road rage. That means taking a deep breath when someone cuts you off rather than honking your horn or tailgating. It also means slowing down and steering clear if you see a driver acting erratically. Avoiding a driver that is irrational will keep you and your family from being in any danger.
• Follow the speed limit. We know you’re in a hurry, but slowing down could save your life. According to the NHTSA, speeding is a contributing factor in 31 percent of fatal crashes. Male drivers age 15 to 24 are particularly at risk—37 to 39 percent involved in fatal crashes were speeding.
• Stay grounded in a skid. Electronic Stability Control (ESC) applies anti-lock brakes (ABS) to individual tires to help keep your car going straight in a slide. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requires all 2012 vehicles to include ESC, an improvement estimated to save up to 9,600 lives.
• Monitor your tire pressure. Variation of temperatures can deflate tires and reduce tire traction, which can cause you to lose control of your car. But Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS) alert you when a tire loses air on models certain models. Check your owner’s manual.
• Know what to do after a collision. After a crash you should unlock doors, turn on hazard lights and turn off thecar. If you have a car with our Intelligent Crash-Response System (ICRS), [4] it do these things for you—even cutting power to the fuel pump.

 

 

QT Wildcat 300 STR

V8 / 4.601 cc / 282 PS / 289 ft/lb (392 Nm) / AWD / 0 - 62 mph (100 km/h): 5,9 s / Vmax: 120 mph (193 km/h)

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Fat Cyclist: Media Mastermind

If you are sharp of eye and mind you might be thinking "Hey Kent, you got the title of Fatty's book wrong in your review, it's Comedian Mastermind, not Media Mastermind." Well, sharp reader, you're right about the title but I'm not making a mistake, unless the mistake is in calling attention to Elden's vast media empire. And believe me, it's a vast empire. The man has a blog, he has a twitter account, he has a line of clothing, hell he's got a whole team of people who dress like him. And now he has a book and an ebook and who knows what else. I bet he's gonna buy up Google and Facebook next week.

Now if you check the reviews for this book, you find nothing but five star reviews. OK, there is one 4 star review but it's because there is a glitch in the ebook version if you try to read it with a black background. I'm sure Fatty will fix that when he buys Amazon next week. So the book is basically perfect, right?

How is that even possible? I mean, gosh it's basically a rehash of stuff you could read for free on his blog, isn't it?

Well here's the scoop. Yeah, it's a rehash and yeah there's some new stuff. It's got a preface and SIX forwards. The forwards are written by Fatty's friends and guess what? The funny man has funny friends. And about those friends, Fatty got all those great reviews because they are pretty much all written by his friends. Including this one.

Fatty keeps his friends by bribing us. He sent me a bribe to write this. The bribe I got looked like this:

He made sure I couldn't sell it or re-gift it by scribbling in it:

So I read the damn thing. Even the parts I'd read before, on his blog, for free. And it's still funny. Really funny. Shoot coffee out your nose funny even when you know what's coming.

And this is why he's a genius. Because he's not just funny, he's a genuinely nice guy. The kind of guy you'll want to ride with. Because he'll bring snacks. And tell stories. And you'll want to be his friend, cause he's a funny, friendly guy. And then, even though he gave a lot of the great stories away on his blog or maybe he's even given you a copy of his book, you'll buy copies of his book to give to your friends. That's what I did.

And then you'll tell everybody about it on your blog. Like I just did.

And that's why Fatty is a Media Mastermind. He's going to sell a zillion of these damn books. If just each of his friends tells two of their friends...

It's a really good book. Buy the damn thing before Fatty gives you a copy. Or one of his friends buys it for you.

And don't read it while you're drinking coffee.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson

Issaquah WA USA

British Mini Club Show - Bingley 2012

IF YOU liked the Mini gathering in Llandudno a couple of weeks ago then you'll love these pictures from the British Mini Club Show, held yesterday at Bingley in Staffordshire.

While there parts aplenty for the serious enthusiast, and a chance to meet rally legend Paddy Hopkirk, for me the stars of the show came from the seemingly endless rows of old Minis, in every shape, size, colour and condition you could possibly imagine.

Life On Cars took these pictures at the show:


















For more information, check out the British Mini Club's excellent report on all the winners at the event.

Gilda Streamline

AiResearch Jet A-1 Gas Turbine / 70 PS

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Reader ride! 1997 Aprilia RS250!

I've actually seen a few of these stateside that were street legal. I don't often get envious but this might get me there. Congratulations on finally landing you dream ride. What a great bike!

Dear Badass 2 stroke motorcycles,
Wow just run through your blog, I consider myself a 2stroke lover. I always believe 2stroke is the most ideal engine for a sportbike. I think MotoGP made a big mistake by banning the 2stroke to compete. They should have let the 2stroke to compete with what ever type off engine. Anyway I just recently owned an Aprilia RS250 1997 model. This has been my dream bike back then and now I own 1. Riding it takes some time to get use to as this thing has freakish power delivery at ultrahigh RPM.....but ones you get use to the power delivery you would enjoy the superlatively devastatingly fast riding you could ever have imagine. you can even take a very steep angle short corner without any brakes being applied from a very high speed. Of course your feet will be very-very busy changing the gears but it still fun doing it. Anyway this is my picture with I consider my 2nd wife.......she is 1 of my big extended family. Thank you. Hairu Al Akmal

Don't Look Out The Window

Before we get into this post, the title deserves some comment. 'Out of the Window' seems more correct but I've also read you should finish your piece and go back and just remove every 'Of' in the post because it's not correct. Let me know in your comments. We'll expect Paul to be the expert on this.  cm
I started the day by watching a short 30-minute movie about a man who moved to a rural New England community. He was wealthy, unattached and wanted to start a career as a writer. Everything was perfect in his life because he had removed his worries, had no remaining obligations, and by anyone's standards, he "had it made."
He sat down at the keyboard with a cup of coffee, looked out his window at an amazing landscape, cracked his knuckles, put his hands on the keyboard and then it happened, writer's block. He had to pull his hands back to his chest, sat back and stared out the window.
I got to thinking, "This is a really stupid movie for someone to be watching who needs to sit down and write a column."
All was not lost however; the man became involved in his community and got to know a few folks quite well. A few of his new-found friends had some real problems and he helped to resolve them. Unlike real life, it all got wrapped up in a neat package and delivered to the viewer to make them feel giddy about life.
I came upstairs, grabbed a glass of ice tea, sat down to my keyboard and then looked out my window. All I saw was grain bins and a landscape of brown and a sky of icy grey. My mind went to "scan mode," as my kids like to reference that state of my mind when I have about 10 different thought processes going at once.
This is a good example of it. I began wondering about the condition of the grain in those bins, has it changed in the last 10 days, how much lower can the market go, is it low enough yet for me to start selling? If I decide to sell, did I fix that hydraulic leak on the grain vac, and I hope it doesn't get too cold because I think my semi tractor still has No. 2 diesel in it. Oh yeah, the 4630 still has No. 2 in it also and I'll need that tractor to run my vac but I better first put the pto shaft on the new generator I just purchased. And so it goes.
The movie I had been watching reminded me of one of the movies that would get my wife's attention. Marilyn can get hooked pretty easily by movies. I'm not sure what it is that grabs her attention but it happens quickly. She's always been a really busy person who is perpetually "on a mission" but if she walks through a room with a TV playing a movie with, oh, I don't know, the right actor, or music playing, or theme or I don't exactly know what it is, she will stop in her tracks, watch for a moment and like a hungry bass looking at a doll fly, the film reels her in. She isn't just hooked, she swallows the hook.
We're now just past the holidays but she really likes the Hallmark channel especially at night when it gets close to Christmas. I can't seem to get into those kinds of movies because there aren't any cops arresting suspects with blurry faces in them. Yeah, when there are no football games, I'll watch the bad boys get arrested on Cops. I catch a certain amount of guff from the fairer sex here in the house for doing that.
But her films are a bit too predictable for me. I walked in one night near Christmas and found Marilyn watching a Hallmark film about a young doctor who had lost his wife to cancer just a few years prior. He had hired a live-in nanny and the doctor's little girls adored her. She was like a mother to the kids, was a gourmet chef, had rebuilt and painted the doctor's classic car sitting in the garage and she was about 6 foot tall and very attractive and she obviously adored the doctor as well.
I watched for about 30 seconds and said, "Let me guess, the doc hasn't noticed the good looking blond who can cook, sew, mother little girls and clean carburetors."
"Nope, not yet, but don't change the channel I'm going to watch this." Well, I sat down and as I predicted the doctor fell in love with his nanny at the end of the movie. I think it was the six layers of clear coat she put on the finish on the old Ford that finally got to him.
Well now, we're back to real life and must make it up as we go. It's January in Nebraska. Just don't look out the window.

Mercedes-Benz (W116) 350 SE

V8 / 3.499 cc / 205 PS / 209 lb/ft (285 Nm) @ 4.000 / 0 - 62 mph (100 km/h): 10,3 s / Vmax: 127 mph (205 km/h)

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Viral stuff

That Bath video did go a bit viral.

But, to liven up Sunday morning, here's a short take on it.



Made us laugh.

Support classic cars by signing 16,000-strong petition

THE Rover SD1, the Jaguar XJ-S, the Ferrari 512 BB, the Lotus Esprit, the MK1 Golf GTI and a host of other classic cars all have one thing in common.

They're all well over 30 years old but - thanks to laws a new petition is calling for an overhaul of - they're not eligible for any exemptions when it comes to road tax.

Why not? Well, the road tax exemption for old cars goes back to the 1980s, when a rolling rule covering cars over 25 years old was brought in, meaning your car was exempt as soon as it'd survived its first quarter of a century. Unfortunately, New Labour changed the rules in 1998, ending the rolling rule and leaving it so that no classic made after January 1, 1973 was eligible.

I support exemptions for owners of older cars - one of the reasons I can afford to keep a forty-year-old MG on the road is that I'm granted concessions on tax and insurance, in recognition of the fact that classic cars tend to spend their days going to shows and making people smile.

But it's absurd that a new generation of classic cars is being forgotten by this rule, something which at least 16,000 of you have already said you're not happy about by signing the new petition.

As the petition's author, Daryl Davey, puts it:

"History did not simply stop in 1972. These are not cars which are driven everyday but rather on sunny weekends, to attend enthusiast shows etc.

"It is vitally important that we help to preserve this important part of British motoring history."

If more than 100,000 people sign it between now and August 5, the Government will be required to debate the issue in Parliament, giving a glimmer of hope to a new generation of classic car owners.

If you care about keeping a generation of classic cars on the road, sign it now and show the Government what you think...

Lexus LF-FC Hybrid Sportcoupe

No technical specification available

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