Responding to mounting calls for action to stem South Africa's horrific road carnage, the government has decided to crack down on motorists who fail to pay their fines. The Times reports that only 20 percent of the Republic's 180k motorists fined each month pay their penalty. The government will now go all out to get the money: blacklisting miscreants' credit, seizing scofflaws' "movable" assets after 30 days and/or suspending their license. The Republic of South Africa (RSA) will also spend R72m to computerize collection, including hand-held computers. Transport Department Spokesperson Collen Msibi– last seen denying reports that 80 percent of RSA's vehicles were unsafe to drive and promising a crackdown against testing station corruption— justified the move as necessary to road safety. “Habitual offenders make our roads unsafe and they need to start complying with the rules. This is why such harsh measures were considered." While cynical observers might see the move as a simple cash grab (that opens the floodgates to yet more corruption), this may be an example where government greed and public interest intersect. Given that the RSA has the world's second worst road safety record (after Botswana), something is better than nothing. 

As automakers continue their relentless pursuit of refinement, there’s precious little “magic” to be had behind the wheel of a new car. Sit down, and you instantly know where everything is and how to operate it. Start it up and drive and few sensations are overly vivid. In short, most new cars are about as surprising as a toaster. Ford’s Mustang Shelby GT is the un-toaster. I recently braved the perils of California’s Mojave Desert (e.g. bad road food) to sample the Shelby at the Willow Springs Raceway. The experience was not bland. On the contrary, it was, erm… memorable.

I don't normally read Car and Drivers' letters to the editor section. But the sub-head over a readers' missive caught my eye: "Is our BMW Bias Showing?" I'd just finished editing a comment accusing Justin of anti-BMW bias in his Infiniti G37 review. As a matter of policy, I delete any and all accusations of brand bias against TTAC from our comments' section. Although I recognize the importance of this issue (which a new writer will address in an editorial on Monday), these comments inevitably lead to rancor and flames. I always email the offender and invite them to discuss the issue via private email. In this regard, Car and Driver enjoys the luxury of both quarantine and unnatural selection; they publish what they like, edit it as they please and respond at will, without any chance of reprisal. So anyway, subscriber Dave Kress makes his case and asks "Were you guys born BMW biased or do you work at it?" Instead of denying the charge, it's "We work hard at it– Ed." Jim Lucas then chastises Car and Driver for not highlighting the new M3's high price. "Our job is to tell you how the car performs. Your job is to figure out what you can afford– Ed." Greg Williams upbraids C&D for inconsistencies in the mag's M3 stats. "Sounds like we've stumbled ino the Nerd City Internet Chat Room." And there I was thinking (some? most?) car dealers are the only auto biz folk who still treat their customers like shit. 

Well neither does the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration, apparently, as it's not going to issue a safety recall for the 3.5 million full-size GM pickups and SUVs built in 2003 and 2004 at risk of speedo failure. GM says it will repair faulty units– as long as the trucks so afflicted have less than 70k miles on the [hopefully functional] odometer. KXAS-TV tells the tale of a GM customer who disagrees– but can't do a damn thing about it. "The speedometer in Sonia Martin's truck makes her look like a speed demon. With her husband on disability, Martin said she can't afford the $400 it would cost to fix it. 'I didn't have that kind of money, and I took it to two different dealers… You have to hope and pray you're not going to get a ticket or get in a wreck or get run over by a semi.'" After learning that Ms. Martin's truck is only 1k over the limit, GM told the TV station that dealers can make free repairs in cases where the mileage is close to the limit. So… why didn't they? Once again, GM and its dealers show their true stripes. 

When it comes to creating reporting wild ass merger rumors, The Detroit News says game on! The latest chorus of "Daimler and blank, sitting in a tree" would have the artist formerly known as DaimlerChrysler selling 20 percent of itself to… BMW. Sussex scribe Neil Winton dutifully, perhaps even exhaustively lays out the rationale. "Audi is owned by German mass car maker Volkswagen, and Lexus by Japan's gigantic Toyota. This means that the cost of many basic components like engines, transmissions and components, which are used under the skin of ordinary as well as exotic machines, can be spread over huge numbers of vehicles allowing the interlopers what could be a killer long-term cost advantage." It's a simple if bogus premise: Mercedes and BMW could share parts and platforms to compete against Audi and Lexus. (Strangely for the home town paper, no mention of Cadillac.) It's also not Winton's idea. The entire story is based on a report written by Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley. To be fair (why not?), Winton unearths a coherent naysayer in the form of Professor Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, managing director of B&D Forecast. "The only thing that makes sense is that Morgan Stanley as investment bankers is going to make strong profits if they can sell someone a merger." Which makes the whole thing a bit of a non-story, don't you think? 

Mr. Avarvarii emails: "From the spy photos I've seen, it seems like BMW are cooking a spicier version of the X5 (hotter than the 4.8 iS). I don't know if it is going to be an actual 'M' model; after all the naming is just marketing. But I'm pretty sure they won't be calling it MX5 ;) As I haven't seen any rendering of the thing around the web yet (nobody was brave– or dumb– enough), I felt obliged to give it a try. You can find the result attached as TTAC's first 'exclusive image.'" To which I can only add a simple question. While I understand (if not approve of) Bimmer's perceived need to carve-off a bit of the Porsche Cayenne's extreme SUV market, why would The Boys from Bavaria M-up a truck before breathing their performance-related magic on their already sublime handling 7-Series? With Mercedes S63, Audi's S8 and Porsche's forthcoming Panamera, you'd think an M7 would be the safer– and better– bet.  

[For more Avarvarii photochopistry, click here.] 

Thanks to its penchant for regulating (and taxing) every human activity save respiration, the UK is often called "The Nanny State." While The Daily Mail is the newspaper of record when it comes to overly invasive legislation, the Chester & District Standard brings us news that a cycling police officer's accidental death has led Cheshire Police to ban officers from riding bicycles on "health and safety grounds." Instead, "the police and community support officers are using cars and even public transport." Even? Nice. And I'd like to see evidence of that claim. Anyway, the chairman of the Alderley Edge parish council is outraged. "Because one person has been knocked off and killed they withdrew them and they all have to go on cycling proficiency tests which is totally unbelievable. Health and safety is going absolutely mental in this country. When officers crash police cars do all other drivers have revised intensive tests?" No, but this is not the first time UK police imposed a cycling ban on their officers. In September, Greater Manchester Police put their officers' mountain bikes in storage after bicycling PCSO Christopher Maclure was hit killed by a lorry.

As much as TTAC likes to make fun of, well, everyone, we tend to focus our rhetorical cannon on auto-related hypocrisy and cant. Not so The New York Times. The Old Gray Lady's LA Bureau Chief Jennifer Steinhauer decided to smack down the California Department of Motor Vehicles' (DMV) perfectly understandable, in fact laudable decision to put driver training videos on YouTube and create its own myspace page. Steinhauer starts off nasty ("As YouTube videos go, Kyle’s driving test has nothing on Gizmo, the toilet-flushing cat") and gets nastier ("Since the department’s effort at youtube.com/californiadmv began last month, some of the clips have been viewed nearly 5,000 times. In comparison, “Gizmo Flushes” has been viewed 3.4 million times over the last 18 months"). Other than the fact that nobody's visiting the site and page– an issue that the snarky article helps rectify– her main complaint seems to be that the content is, as the Brits say, naff. "There is abundant instruction on the meaning of dotted white lines, parallel parking and blind spots, much of it set to music apparently performed by an ’80s glam rock cover band." At the risk of sounding hopeless web 1.9, the DMV is not supposed to be cool. It's supposed to be effective.

"The new Chevrolet Malibu has topped General Motors Corp's sales expectations in its debut month on the market by a wide margin, a senior GM executive told Reuters." Ironically enough given his moniker, this piece of good news arrived courtesy Maximum Bob Lutz. GM's Car Czar revealed that the artist formerly known as the world's largest automaker blew-out its 500-car sales target for the new 'Bu by 2500 units. While the numbers call into question (again) the wisdom of launching a $150m ad campaign for a new car without any "boots on the ground," why that's 300 percent better than [GM's] expectations! Bob reckons this is good news because "most Chevrolet dealers do not have a car because they're selling as fast as they get them." Or, alternatively, GM didn't make enough. And speaking of bad planning… "Lutz said GM had misjudged the relative demand for two new crossover utility vehicles built on the same platform: the Buick Enclave and the Saturn Outlook. 'It just shows you how the best laid plans go awry,' Lutz said. More specifically, "The Saturn Outlook has been a little slower than we expected. I think that's partly because there aren't enough Saturn dealers, and secondly, there isn't the brand awareness for Saturn." Not enough Saturn dealers? Wow.

Daniel Howes thinks Detroit is jinxed. In his latest column, “Automakers vexed by external forces,” the Detroit News scribe suggests that The Big 2.8 are latter day Joe Btfsplks, doomed to walk through life with a dark cloud hanging over their collective heads. Just as they're improving their products and cutting production costs, the domestic automakers have become hapless victims of slowing economic growth, rising oil prices and a soft housing market. It's the "Motown curse." Or, as I like to call it, another peg upon which a loser may hang his hat.

Thanks to the parity between the Canadian loonie and U.S. greenback– and carmakers' failure to lower their Canadian prices to compensate– our neighbors to the north are flocking south to buy new and used vehicles from American car dealers. The Toronto Star finally puts numbers to the trend: Canadian cross-border shoppers imported 24,873 cars in October. That's double the previous month's total (12,289). It seems the trade is having a ripple effect on the entire industry, as savvy buyers wait for automotive prices to drop. To wit: Canadian new car sales declined from August's 158,394 to October's 121k. The toll on "domestic" used cars could be even heavier. However, as we've reported, the entire trade has just fallen afoul of federal regulations requiring Canadian-spec, manufacturer-approved, anti-theft immobilizers. With over a thousand imported cars in limbo, the resulting confusion and outrage is certain to create some major political blowback– especially with as Transport Canada admits some of those cars may have been purchased between Sept. 1, when the new regulation came into effect, and the time when the agency posted the list of prohibited vehicles on its website. Oops. 

Speaking to Automobilwoche, consultants A.T. Kearney predict that Ultra-Low-Cost cars (ULCC) will be the industry's next Next Big Thing. We're talking simple, robust, safe, easy to repair vehicles costing between $2500 and $5k. Kearney reckons the cars will find favor with millions of middle class buyers. In 2005, Indian had about 391m inhabitants who could afford a ULCC. The number will grow to 628 million by 2020. Companies such as Tata, Mahindra & Mahindra or Maruti are chasing the dream of 24 percent yearly growth rates. Meanwhile, the LCC (Low Cost Car) market is already booming. Production of the Renault/Nissan/Dacia's €8k Logan is expanding to South Africa. And just in case you take a dim not-to-say Freidman-esque view of third world auto emissions, a tuned version of the Logan won second place at the yearly Challenge Bibendum. A diesel Logan bettered 72 other entrants by logging a parsimonious 2.72L/100km (86.5 mpg).

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Ford invited its forgotten domestic offerings for a feast of promises and not much else.  Car and Driver reports that Ford's Mark Fields won't send Mercury home hungry, but "we have higher aspirations for Lincoln." So Mercury still sucks and Lincoln will suck less. Even better, freshly-minted marketing maven Jim Farley reached higher by saying Lincoln must "take advantage of new overseas markets in countries such as China, India, Russia, and in the Middle East." With what? An old Volvo chassis and no V8 engine? But wait, there's less! Ford invited their red-headed stepchild for dinner, proclaiming the long-dead SVT brand is still part of the family. Note to Dearborn: the proof is in the pudding and we're still hungry. Happy Thanksgiving!

Nationally syndicated radio talk show host Michael Savage makes no bones about his antipathy towards, uh, well, I better choose my words carefully here. Because no matter what you think about Savage's views on American attitudes and policies towards Muslims, both extremist and otherwise, both here and abroad, one thing's for sure: he's got some extremely well organized opponents. To wit, The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has members throughout the U.S. listening in to his show to identify Savage's local advertisers, as part of their ongoing campaign to pressure the show's sponsors to withdraw. Automobile recently published CAIR's most recent press release, which takes AutoZone to task for allowing ads for the chain to appear on The Savage Nation. Apparently, it was a slip-up. A spokesman declared that "AutoZone has a 'Do Not Air' policy against the Michael Savage show and that has been in place for over 6 years now." When TTAC contacted CAIR and asked what automotive-related companies advertise on the program, they named Hyundai, Tom-Tom GPS and GM's OnStar. We'll see if CAIR's campaign forces a retreat…