Surprise! TTAC didn’t have a single writer at the Mazda MX-5 media preview. Instead, here’s a few different reviews of Japan’s favorite roadster from other outlets and a run-down of what you may have missed over the weekend.
MIATA! MIATA! MIATA!
2016 Mazda MX-5 Review (AutoGuide)
“A smaller Miata is a better Miata.”
2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata 2.0L First Drive (AutoBlog)
“Championing the roadster revolution.”
First Drive: 2016 Mazda Miata (The Detroit Bureau)
“Forward into the past.”
The 2016 Mazda Miata Is Undeniably Fantastic (Jalopnik)
“This car rocks.” Travis says a longer review will be available later this morning. UPDATE: It’s up.
2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata Tested! (Car & Driver)
“The Meta Miata.”
NOT MIATA! NOT MIATA! NOT MIATA!
Lane-splitting for motorcycles is safe, says landmark Berkeley study (LA Times)
Bottom line: riders who lane-split are safer overall and accidents involving lane-splitting are less likely to cause serious injury than other motorcycle accidents. California is on the cusp of making lane-splitting legal.
Revisiting The Cars Of May (Speedhunters)
“With the sixth month of the year now upon us, it’s time to take a look back at the feature cars of May 2015.”
Aston Martin plots future hybrid models (Autocar)
Another builder of sporting GT cars is planning a drive down Electric Avenue. Aston Martin could also see its lineup expand to seven separate models.
Nissan rules out Navara-based SUV… for now (GoAuto.com.au)
Nissan Australia won’t be sourcing a truck-based SUV to go head-to-head with the Ford Everest, Toyota Fortuner and Holden Colorado 7. Australia also won’t get the new Murano even though it’s selling like hotcakes elsewhere.
Challenge Won: We Do 11 Seconds in the Dodge Charger Hellcat (Cars.com)
“We set out to see how close we could get to 11.0 seconds with a factory-fresh 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat and drag strip rental of Byron Dragway in Byron, Ill.”
FIA looking for a new F1 team (AutoBlog)
New team would bring total to 12 with 24 cars on the grid in addition to 2016 entrant Haas.
Tesla loses fight with dealers to sell its cars in Texas (The Verge)
Two bills, which would have allowed direct sales of Tesla cars in Texas, have died on the floor.
Sprint Cup competitors form Driver Council (Motorsport.com)
“We’ve been trying to get all of our drivers together for about a year now,” says Danny Hamlin. Just don’t call it a ‘union’.
Goodwood festival adds drifting category (AutoBlog)
The end is nigh.
Mad Max before and after shots show what’s real and what’s fake (The Verge)
Even without CG, the explosions in Mad Max are still apocalyptic.
More as the day goes on…
[Photo credit: AutoGuide/Adam Wood]
Those who were waiting to grab a deal on the outgoing Miata, now is the time to get your finances in order.
Next time this happens, feel free to send me to the media preview.
That was my roundabout way of saying we didn’t receive an invite.
Considering the love that Mazda gets from the commentariat (apart from the rust crusaders), you’d think they would be a little more friendly.
You’d think…
“The 2016 Mazda Miata Is Undeniably Fantastic”
I can see why Jalopnik was invited. With a headline like that, you know they’re going to get invited to the next one, too.
I’m a long time lurker of this site (years).. but then something happened. It just got WAY too boring. It became some kind of weird soulless blog Id expect from MSN or Yahoo even though I KNOW there are true knowledgeable enthusiasts here.
You can see it in how few comments there are on articles. You can see it in the overall blandness.
I used to love this site, but theres something missing these days.
I’m hoping to change that and there are some plans in place to do just that.
Lane splitting is safe. Now lets hear from all the ragin cagers about that one time they saw a squid lane splitting at 150MPH and how they like to “block” lane splitters.
“The study’s research shows that lane-splitting motorcyclists were considerably less likely to experience serious injury from their accidents than motorcyclists who were not lane-splitting at the time of their collisions”
I’d like to see a little more analysis of this study. I hope the above statement is not the strongest evidence of lane-splitting safety. I’ve said it before- I have no problem with lane-splitters who follow the rules suggested (less than 15 mph above traffic flow and less than 50mph. It’s just that these individuals are in the great minority.
Maybe if motorcyclists didn’t call drivers “cagers,” they’d be less likely to think of them as “organ donors.”
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that non-assholes are the safest demographic.
Question for you folks that see this: what do you think of this round-up format?
What happened to reporting what everyone is driving for the week?
It became a little difficult to sustain and I’m not sure the value is there since we typically run a review weeks or even a couple of months after we drive it, depending on the writer.
Did you add a bunch of stories or am I going crazy?
I like this format a little better with the pictures. This has always had an air of “quick and dirty” which I appreciate since it is just linking to other stories on other sites. This adds a little more visual niceness without overdoing things.
Yes, I added a few.
Instead of trying to cover the whole weekend on Monday mornings, I think I am going to have to pick these out throughout the weekend so the B&B doesn’t have to sit here and hit refresh for updates.
I approve, especially for just a handful of links. Now I have some Miata reviews to read.
Only comment: why on earth does F1 need another backmarker team?
Lane-splitting wasn’t legal in CA already? It’s the only place in the US where I see it All. The. Time. Of course, I guess it’s kind of hard to actually catch lane-splitters, given how they do it in heavy traffic…
I believe they just made lane splitting legal in NM, thought I heard that in a news report. Of course when I got my endorsement back in 2008, that was the first question they asked on the exam…
According to the CA DMV:
‘California law does not allow or prohibit motorcycles from passing other vehicles proceeding in the same direction within the same lane, a practice often called “lane splitting,” “lane sharing” or “filtering.”‘
From: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/about/lane_splitting
I don’t want lane splitting, but not because I hate motorcyclists.
It’s because I always considered the lane all mine, and I’ve been driving for 20 years without paying any attention to someone else in my lane. If someone else is in my lane, it’s now an emergency with honking/braking/swerving/avoiding impact. With lane splitting I need to worry about someone in my blind spot, in my lane. As I’m coming to a stop, now I can’t swerve to avoid a road hazard or maneuver around a semi taking up 1.5 lanes.
I just don’t think it’s fair to ask cagers to suddenly upend a key safety tenet of driving: your business is what’s in front, not what’s behind or to the side.
The motorcyclists get a tiny benefit, traffic decreases by a tiny percent, and in exchange you’re throwing more variability into the equation. The benefits do not outweigh the costs. It’s not a “freedom” issue and minority rights aren’t being violated. Therefore I say we put it to a public vote.
A simple fact is that the likelihood of an accident goes up with speed differential and proximity. That’s just physics. I can certainly believe severity of accidents can be less due to glancing blows or whatnot, and if motorcyclists are at low speed differentials that, too, minimizes the severity of an accident. The problem is when motorcyclists don’t follow common sense and safety recommendations, which, frankly, is far too often.
You seriously don’t think you need to worry about what’s to your side when driving?
If someone veers into my lane right now, I know it’s because of an emergency. Some of what happens next, I can control.
It’s more cognitive load on a cager, without any appreciable benefit on the whole. Lane splitting would increase the need for driver vigilance when it’s already at a premium.
Only 2.2 percent of registered US vehicles are motorcycles. Why risk it? Why increase the risk when the benefit is so small? I could understand if motorcycles were at some disadvantage. But this has no safety benefit for them, no appreciable reduction in traffic, no decrease of risk. Their rights aren’t in jeopardy and they receive a fair share of the road for the license they buy.
The study’s conclusion doesn’t support the adoption of lane splitting. It merely says that those who do (numerically a tiny number) are doing surpsingly well. That’s still not a basis.
Seems the worry over the Miata’s weak hp rating wasn’t quite justified; Car and Driver recorded 0-60 in 5.9 and the quarter in 14.6. That’s pretty much GTI territory from a car in another world of handling involvement. I expect largely positive responses to a brand new remake of a media-darling model from a media-darling brand, but so far it seems this thing truly did nail the mission profile.
Agreed, but I read some of the comments appended to those reviews. The biggest internet gripe is still power, second biggest gripe is lack of PRHT. It’s a good thing internet commentors don’t buy cars. I’m looking forward to seeing these and getting a chance to drive one.
The logic of the lane splitting report fails to make sense to me. 6000 reported accidents. 1000 of which involved lane splitting. Seeing as lane splitters spend the vast majority of their time on the road not actively splitting lanes, this says to me that there were 5000 accidents, and then an additional 1000 accidents caused by a practice which actually takes up a small fraction of a rider’s road-time/miles.
Am I missing something there?
The question to ask: is lane-splitting the main reason for the accident or was it just a “contributor”? Speed gets listed as a “contributor” to many accidents, but it isn’t necessarily the cause.
Motorcyclists–the ones who aren’t jerks– only lane split when traffic is heavy, which tends to be when accidents occur, so I’m not sure the lane-splitting is causing the accidents.
I only lane split when traffic is at a stand still or moving < 20 MPH. Personally, I thing you are asking for it if you are going between cars at normal flow of traffic.
It’s easy enough to overlook motorcyclists as it is… permitting lane-splitting is not going to help. I’ve usually got my left side mirror adjusted further left to help control my blind spot but it leaves a hole in my view into which a motorcyclist on the line could fit.
Managing congestion by permitting lane splitting does not seem like sane practice.
This seems like a bad idea, unless the real intent is to increase the available donor organ pool.
Amen. Congestion can benefit from other things. The fraction of motorcycles on the road is tiny, and the additional risk isn’t worth it. If they’re upset at being at risjk now, just wait until they’re playing with fire in the same lane as a car that doesn’t see them.