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Companies seem to always be looking for new ways to integrate technology into products. The reality though, is that there are some types of products that are better suited and some that are worse off with the increased inclusion of technology. The automotive sectoris a prime example of an industry that, on a multitude of levels, is not yet ready for this increased level of technological integration.
Although the mechanical, and even stylistic, aspects of luxury cars often age quite well, making them usable for many years, the technology being integrated into the dashboard of these cars shows its age very quickly. When moving between provinces one would expect there to be at least a very basic level of government and administrative interoperability. Unfortunately, when it comes to moving a car between Ontario and BC there is little evidence of any interoperability or administrative forethought in regards to facilitating people moving between provinces.
In order to register a car being moved from Ontario to British Columbia the car is required to undergo a safety inspection similar to the one that is performed when you sell a used car to someone else within a province. As part of my recent process of renewing the registration on my car I encountered a major flaw in the Ontario Drive Clean program. This issue is a common but mostly overlooked problem encountered by anyone with an older car with the high possibility of failing the emissions test.
When I investigated what the options were for keeping the car on the road I was astounded at the blatant conflict of interest in the system. Vancouver, with its lack of highways, is one of only a few cities which rely exclusively on surface streets. This fundamental difference makes analysing the effectiveness of some of their transportation infrastructure choices very interesting.
The heavy reliance on a grid roads to move traffic around makes the effectiveness of intersections extremely important. There are three types of intersections used in Vancouver which warrant discussion: four-way signal-controlled intersections, two-way signal-controlled intersections, and pedestrian crossings. For as long as my family has owned our 1998 Honda Accord my dad has been recording the fuel use and mileage at every fill-up. Since buying the car in 2000 we have amassed a huge collection of driving data that for the most past has not been put to use.
This data is actually extremely useful when looking at the overall cost of the car, how well it is faring, and whether it is in need of a replacement. For two months at the beginning of the summer I worked as a detailer at a car dealership. My responsibilities included cleaning up used cars that had been traded in and needed to be cleaned before being sold again as well as preparing some of the new cars that were going out for delivery. This position meant that I dealt with nearly every used car that came though the dealership for the two month period that I worked there, something which gave me a rare behind the scenes look at what goes into preparing a used care for sale.