Looking for $300/OBO. I’d like to get them out of my garage.

The eastbound entrance ramp to the Thurway at Exit 49 (Depew-Lockport-Route 78) will be temporarily closed from 8 p.m. Wednesday until 6 a.m. Thursday, due to a maintenance project, the state Thruway Authority announced.

A signed detour route will be in place for motorists planning to travel eastbound. That route will direct traffic west at Exit 49 to the westbound Thruway to Exit 52 E (Buffalo-Walden Avenue) and back to the eastbound Thruway.

The authority will activate portable signs and Highway Advisory Radio 1610 AM to advise motorists of the closure.

Umm… what? The Thruway Authority wants traffic heading eastbound on I90 from the Transit Road ramp to go west all the way to Walden to turn around and then head east? Does that make any sense at all? Here’s their suggested route:

13.4 miles gets you… right back where you started, and makes no progress towards your destination.

Here’s an alternative route. I don’t want to confuse anyone with it, but it consists of a grand total of 3 turns:

Take Genesee (NY-33) to NY-77 and you’re on the Thruway at Pembroke (the next exit eastbound on I-90). Only 19.1 miles and you’re well on your way to wherever you were headed.

And if you prefer an even lower mileage route (which I estimate to be a bit slower)…

Transit to Main (NY-5) to NY-77 and you’re there in only 17.5 miles!

So what possible reason could the New York State Thruway Authority have in sending you the “scenic” route that takes you at a minimum 11 miles out of your way? They get to collect $.15 from you for sending you westbound, and then $.85 for sending you back east! Yes, that’s right, not only are you saddled with the inconvenience, but they’re also going to charge you $1.00 for it.

Incredible.

Despite the safety claims, study after study shows they are an ineffective safety tool and increase rear-end collisions at intersections. The National Motorists Association has compiled a collection of studies and written a large collection of articles on the subject. Some communities that have installed red light cameras have also tried shortening yellow light times to increase tickets, as well as various other frauds that were introduced. Ticket cameras also ticket the owner of the car, not the person driving, which gave some enterprising pranksters the idea to simply print out their own fake license plates with the number of someone they had it in for, and then tape it over their own license plate and proceed to drive through some red lights. Funny! Unless you’re on the receiving end and now have to waste your time trying to fight the ticket.

There are far more effective ways to improve safety and traffic flow at the same time, such as synchronizing lights in the city. But those don’t have the appeal of being a new revenue stream. Think I’m wrong? Take any article written about the red light cameras and show me where the politicians trying to bring them in talk about a target number of reduced accidents instead of a target amount of dollars they’ll bring in.

For those opposed to the idea of red light cameras in Buffalo, there’s a group on Facebook that is planning a protest in front of City Hall Thursday May 21st at 3:00pm.

In the near future, Ford vehicles may fire back a retort if you get cheesed off enough to yell at the car. According to the details of a patent filing, Ford is working on an Emotive Advisory System (EAS) that simulates emotions when interacting with occupants, and may also use an avatar to express itself.

The EAS also uses sensors to detect the emotional state of occupants and generate responses based on that data. We all tend to forge some kind of bond with our cars, but it’s a little too fantastical and hilarious to imagine rocking down the blacktop in a new Taurus SHO and having the car say “You don’t need to drive like a jerk just because you’re mad at me.”

Personally, I think there is something even more sinister behind this than big brother in your car. Follow this line of thought with me – Ford worked with Microsoft to develop SYNC. Microsoft already rules your home computer and your work computer, so SYNC is Microsoft’s back door into that small portion of your time they don’t own – when you’re in your car. And what will they do once they have their software in front of you 24 hours a day? The unthinkable.

The return… of Clippy.

Be afraid.

Courtesy of Mr. P

Interestingly enough, I decided to check KBB to see the value and it’s placed at $9895 for private party sale. That’s gone UP about $800 since the beginning of the year. I’m attributing this to the fact that it has relatively low mileage for a five-year old car (just turned 50,000) and the fact that small cars are all the rage right now.

Today began the process of waxing the WRX. I can’t imagine how crappy of a job something like a Delta Sonic 15 minute wax job is. My timeline went something like this:

1. (Yesterday) Wash car: 1 hour
2. Clean door jambs, sills, engine bay, floor mats, cargo tray, wheels: 1 hour
3. Apply Meguiar’s Deep Crystal Paint Cleaner to get rid of all [some] of that caked on road crap: 3 hours
4. Apply Meguiar’s Hi-Tech Yellow Wax #26 – 1.5 hours
5. Clean glass, vacuum, reinstall floor mats, etc.: 30 minutes

That’s 7 hours I put into getting my car back into shape, and I barely did anything with the interior. What did do when I was finished? Rain. Figures. Don’t even get 1 day to enjoy it.

and here’s the version that would have been a real attention grabber:

Find more videos like this on AdGabber

Thanks Autoblog

Gas

Gas prices are ever increasing and I drive a lot. I’m projecting putting about 20,000 miles this year on my car, and Amanda’s will probably see 8-10,000. How to ease the pain at the pump? A gas station credit card. Now, I’ve always charged my gas, usually to my Discover card which generally gets me 1% cash back. However, I’m in a unique situation where I almost always go to Sunoco to get gas for my WRX, since it will take 91 octane, and Sunoco is generally the only place around that carries it. Putting in anything higher than what the manufacturer recommends is a waste of money. I realized that instead of getting the measly 1% back on my Discover card, if I signed up for a Sunoco card I could bump that up to 4%. I’m not one to sign up for every credit card that comes along, but there was a real benefit to having this card. Starting in July, Discover offers 5% back on gas purchases, so I’ll switch back to using that card for a couple of months to maximize the rewards.

Maternity Clothes

The reason I love my Discover card so much is that whatever Cashback bonus awards I get from using it can generally net me more savings if I turn them into gift cards for various retailers. Frequently, you can cash in $20 to get a $25 card, for example. The terms vary by store. In the past, we’ve used them for Bed Bath and Beyond, Sunglass Hut, and Omaha Steaks. But what has really been a big help lately has been redeeming them for Motherhood Maternity. We cashed in $80 in rewards to get $100 in gifts cards when Amanda had finally ran out of things that fit her, and she got to go on a mini shopping spree. This eases some of the mental pain as well of spending money on clothes that you know are going to have a short usefulness to them. Today, a flyer came in the mail reminding us that Motherhood is moving out of the Galleria and down the street to a new Destination Maternity supercenter store, so another $50 card is on the way.

If you can use credit cards responsibly, there’s lots of ways to maximize their benefits. Just don’t succumb to “debt disease“.

Occasionally, I miss my old Eclipse. But the WRX is far more suited to my current driving needs. Out here on these country roads, every day seems like a drive on a rally course. I just hope I never end up like these WRX rally drivers.

I’ll even supply my own vehicle. I don’t think they have any rally edition Subarus in their rental shop.

OK: “There’s an on-ramp ahead, I’ll keep left so merging traffic can join the flow easily.”
Not OK: “I’m already going n miles per hour over the speed limit, and that’s fast enough for everyone!”
OK: “There’s nobody behind me for at least a mile.”
Not OK: “The car behind me hasn’t rammed me yet, so I’m free to putter along.”
OK: “The plow only cleared the left lane, and there’s 8′ of snow everywhere else!”
Not OK: “It’s snowing! All rules of the road are immediately suspended!”

The last point in particular was directly from today’s drive home. The 190 right around downtown was seeing some snowfall. Somehow, the term “lake effect” translated to “I must drive 40mph in the left lane while everyone passes me on the right but it’s ok because it’s snowing.”

No, it’s not.