Drive smart: Don't brake.

Look, everyone makes a mistake now and then. Who hasn't cut someone else off, be it deliberate or accidental? These mistakes are generally forgivable- even the aggressive ones. Nope, the problems are the people that brake.

Sure, there are lots of reasons to brake- an animal approaching the road, an upcoming stoplight, or a patch of ice are all great reasons to brake. However, braking is far too common, and braking leads to jammed traffic.

The braking epidemic stems from this: drivers today cannot respect adequate following distances. Driving courses today teach two or three second following distances, and those distances are pretty ludicrous given the congestion in today's urban traffic. There are simply too many cars on the road today to respect those guidelines. An alert driver in a capable vehicle probably doesn't need to be so conservative for safety's sake. However, short following distances lead to traffic jams, and that is a problem drivers should not ignore. Packing more cars onto a highway doesn't help its capacity if traffic slows down!

The scenario plays out like this: driver A is driving with the flow of traffic, maintaining his or her speed. Driver B is doing the same, keeping just a few car-length's behind Driver A. However, neither are using cruise control, and so there speeds vary a small amount. Driver B finds him or herself needing to slow down, and since they have such a small following distance, they need do it immediately. So what happens? That person brakes, suddenly. Perhaps they only slow themselves down 1mph, or perhaps they slow themselves down 10mph. Driver C, following driver B, doesn't know how much the car in front is braking, and that person has to brake at least as much to avoid the chance of a rear-end collision. This chain reaction continues until a driver with a sufficient following distance is able to watch the driver preceeding them vary their speed without requiring any significant variation to his or her own speed. If the road is too crowded with non-existant following distances, the chain reaction will continue until a car ends up stopped.

The other cause of traffic comes when a driver has too large of a following distance: they're not going fast enough. This causes road rage, irrational thinking, and competition for the passing lane. When drivers get too aggressive in the passing lane, we get the same problem as in the first situation.

So while both overly aggressive and under-aggressive drivers can be blamed, the common element is this: braking is bad. Braking on a freeway is almost always the result of driver error, be it your error a person ahead of you. Braking is an admission of failure. When you're brake lights illuminate, it's a waving flag to the driver's behind you reading, "Look at me, I'm part of the problem!"

Braking not only causes traffic congestion, but it's purely wasted energy. Your brakes convert your vehicles energy into heat that will never be recovered. For every little bit you brake, that's work your engine did for nothing. Wasting energy seems pretty silly with gas prices being such a popular topic nowadays, doesn't it? Learning to drive for good gas mileage means learning to drive without braking. To that extent, I do find it quite inconsiderate to the drivers behind you to brake going downhill- regardless of the posted speed limit (residential/unsafe areas excluded). You're essentially forcing them to waste gas too.

Traffic only moves as fast as the very slowest car in that lane. By respecting a reasonable following distance, you will find yourself better able to maintain a constant speed. If you do need to slow, you will be able to do so more gradually so that the drivers following you will not need to react in panic and overcompensate. The reality is that you won't get where you're going any faster (since you can't control the car in front of you), but you'll be doing your part to help all the frustrated drivers behind you.

Drive smart. Look ahead and plan ahead when driving. Don't brake.

Must sporty and practical be oxymorons?

Don't get me wrong, there are many great cars out there. I just haven't found one I want to live with.

I like sports cars. Sure, there are many sports cars out there- just about every manufacturer has produced one as an icon car. Honda has the S2000, GM has the Corvette, and BMW has the Z4. I'd absolutely love to own any of these cars, except there's room in my stall for only one car, and those aren't versatile enough to live alone.

I'm not asking too much. I want a sports car that can haul me, my wife, a dog, and a suitcase. A two-seater with a reasonable hatch would suffice, but as it turns out, finding such a car has been very difficult!

May cars appear to fulfill this demand. The Acura RSX, Volkswagon GTI, Mazda3, and countless other cars try to market themselves as practical sports cars. They're not. Underneath their sporty skins lay nothing more than an economy commuter car chassis featuring McPherson struts, an open differential, and front wheel drive. Not sporty. These cars can be entertaining commuter cars, but their inherent limitations are difficult to ignore as they interrupt spirited driving. Nope, I want a practical sports car, not a poser.

Because marketing departments have totally butchered the significance of the word, let me clarify what a sports car is. I would define a sports car as a car that has been engineered with the capabilities of a race car in mind. The car must be built with the purpose of being fast, and that rules out front-wheel drive. A sports car has aggressive caster and camber curves, a low center of gravity, and a limited slip differential. It should offer good driver feedback through the suspension and steering while always keeping the driver secured in a well-bolstered seat. Physics require that sports cars be small and especially lightweight, and that means sacrificing at least some practicality. After all, common sense says that a large car will fit more than a small car. Realizing that most sports cars are shorter than a Honda Civic, I use the term "practical" relative to the car's size. That does not mean, however, that a small sports car cannot optimize its space and use it wisely. Sport and practicality need not be mutually exclusive.

Mazda's Miata may be the finest driving car I've ever had the pleasure of racing. I love the Miata- it's an absolute joy to drive. It exemplifies all sports car qualities marvelously. Yet, as much as I want one, I know I couldn't live with one. It only comes as a convertable. I can't live with the limited utility of a convertable, and that unfortunately rules out Honda's steller S2000 too. Why is there not a hard-top, hatchback version of these cars? They were the rage in the 90's: the Mazda RX-7, Nissan 300zx, and Toyota Supra were all hatchbacks.

The Nissan 350Z had promise with its two-seater hatch configuration, but has a suspension brace in the trunk so large it overwhelms any utility that portion of the car might have had. How necessary is that huge bar, and why couldn't the bracing have been incorporated into the nearby seat-backs?


Speaking of seat-backs, the Subaru WRX STi is a suped-up four door car with a reasonable trunk. Based on Subaru's Impreza small car, it will still haul four adults and some bags. However, in upgrading the suspension, chassis, and engine to its tuned state, Subaru removed any sort of trunk pass-through. Was there a reason for this? Likewise, the less extreme model, the standard WRX, has only a tiny trunk pass-through. The wagon version of the exact same car is the only model to get proper fold-down seats. Why? Surely if the wagon can use the fold-down seats, the stiffer sedan frame should be able to accommodate them too. Subaru seems to think that the faster the car gets, the less practical it should be. How am I to haul four racing tires to the track without a fold-down seat? Suburu had a great opportunity to make a truly practical sports car, but they chose otherwise.

This seems to be a trend. Mitsubishi did the same in their Lancer Evolution and Mazda in the Mazdaspeed6. In the Mazdaspeed6, the same fold-down seats are actually installed but with no lever mechanism to actually allow the seats to be lowered! Why must sporty and practicality be oxymorons?

Sports cars can be designed with practicality in mind. They have before, and I believe they will again. Behold what I consider to be one of the greatest cars ever designed: the BMW Z3 Coupe.

The Z3 Coupe was based on a covertable, but BMW realized a drop-top does not work as a single car. They added a fixed roof in the form of a hatchback, and in doing so added nearly 10 cubic feet of cargo space- not bad! See- sport and practicality need not be mutually exclusive!

Not only did the car have some semblance of practicality, but the addition of the roof made the chassis stiffer and therefore the car actually outperformed its roadster sibling. BMW made the car more practical AND improved its performance simultaneously. Why didn't other manufacturers do this too?

Many sports cars were hatchbacks in the early 90's. Those sports cars strangely disappeared and nowadays impracticality and short-sightedness seems to be the trend. I'm happy to report this trend appears to be dying it's rightful death. BMW is introducing the tiny four-door 1-series as a driver-oriented, rear-wheel drive alternative to the economy-based hatches from Volkswagon, Mazda, Honda, and more. Unfortunately, it's price matches its performance, but BMW is a marque substantial enough to start a trend. BMW is also introducing (finally!) a Z4 Coupe, a replacement for the above Z3 Coupe.

Mazda is taking the concept of a practical sports car much further. The Kubaru concept may become the Mazda MX-3, and it has a cabin layout unlike any other car... ever. Mazda calls it 3+1 seating, and it features three full size seats and a fourth tiny fold-down half-seat. All but the driver's seat fold flat for further versatility.



This car is based on the Miata's chassis: it's rear wheel drive, lightweight, and nimble. The addition of the strength-adding roof may prove allow this versatile four-seater to outperform its parent. An engineer commented that despite the four seats and lengthened wheelbase, the Kabura may actually weigh less than the Miata, delivering many inherent benefits. It's a win-win-win design.

So why did the market become so void of these clever designs? I can't fathom choosing a slower, heavier, less versatile, less secure, and less interesting roadster over its sister coupe. I can't be alone.