Equipment

One of the loneliest books in the world might just be your vehicle's owner's manual. Consigned to the glove box, many never see the light of day until they find a new home in the recycle bin. That's a shame because the manufacturer of your vehicle has put a lot of thought and important safety information on those pages.

I met a new Canadian yesterday, in his large car, and the visor was SO low that there is only (what looked to be, I didn't go over and measure) like 2 feet from the hood to the bottom of the visor. I understand the benefits of a drop visor, but this is taking an aftermarket improvement, to the absolute extreme.

I remember when I was a teenager working in my father's service station. On the day of the first snowfall our customers would be lined up in the driveway to have their winter tires installed when we arrived to start the day. We did nothing but install winter tire after winter tire and our air compressor didn't get any rest until after we had shut the bay doors and left for home.

I was thinking of getting a stubby bumper for my Jeep and the MVA says:

"...and where a replacement bumper has been installed, it shall give substantially the same protection as the original bumper."

Q: I have a question about legality around modifying the exterior of my car. I have seen many modified (often lowered suspension as well) cars with front lip spoilers/splitters and I was wondering around the legality of them for a street car.

A lot can happen to a trailer while it sits idle waiting to be useful again. Lighting connections corrode, tires lose pressure, reflectors are broken, brakes need service along with many other possibilities for wear and malfunction. That's where the pre-trip check comes in.

In my time as a driver I've seen headlight technology progress from tungsten filament glass sealed beams to quartz halogen, high intensity discharge and now LED and even laser. There is more light on the road today from the driver's point of view than there has ever been. While that can be a good thing if all that light is coming from your vehicle, it might not be so great if you are the one facing it.

I am trying to get confirmation on the law regarding chain requirements for a BC commercial 55 passenger bus for winter driving.

The wording of the law is ambiguous. It states that school buses must carry chains and Commercial transport trucks must carry chains when driving on the highway, but that passenger vehicles are not required to carry chains.

I saw many things over the two decades that I spent in full time traffic law enforcement. Some of those things left me shaking my head wondering why the driver ever chose to leave the driveway! If you don't value the life of other road users, surely you value your own.

Today's high tech cars have centre console mounted displays that allow anyone (including the driver) to play around with while in motion; should be against the law. Some cars even need to have the driver touch a screen to change the radio volume or station; a dangerous practice. Older car radios you can FEEL the knobs without taking your eyes off the road. I think vehicles are going the wrong direction these days with their gadgetry.