Insurance discounts coming for winter tires
Ontario motorists who use winter tires will receive a financial break in the form of mandatory insurance discounts, thanks to a new initiative by the provincial Ministry of Finance.
On Wednesday morning, Minister of Finance Charles Sousa held a press conference at the Canadian Tire store on The Queensway to make the announcement that all insurance companies in Ontario must provide a discount for drivers who use winter tires, beginning Jan. 1. There is no mandate of how much that discount must be. This is being left up to insurers. There is no indication that the discount given will offset the cost of installing winter tires.
It apparently does not apply to motorists who already own winter tires.
Advocates of the use of winter tires in Ontario for safety reasons should note that this is an effort to make car insurance more affordable rather than to mandate that all vehicles on the roads use winter tires. This despite Sousa’s acknowledgement that, “We have known for a while that those cars that are equipped with Winter tires by far outperform the others.”
When I asked why the emphasis was on the cost of insurance rather than actually moving to make Ontario’s roads safer, Sousa responded that because there are some individuals and businesses who do not use their vehicles all-year long, “We want that decision to be at the discretion of the individual.”
Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame inductee Ron Fellows was on hand to guide Sousa through a series of driving exercises to showcase the performance difference between all-season tires and winter tires in adverse conditions.
While this program is definitely a step in the right direction to keep our roads safe when the temperature drops below 7 C, it is still falls short of the money that could be saved by making winter tires mandatory, as is the case in other provinces.
Rally star Crazy Leo to host new event Many of us who are passionate about performance rallying believe it is the most pure form of motorsport. Real cars, being driven as fast as possible, on real roads.
But the nature of the sport means it must happen on closed roads, well away from the city and away from the attention of potential participants who are outside of the rally community.
Some, such as Canadian rally star Leo (Crazy Leo) Urlichich, believe that this is part of the reason that event entries have been on the decline in recent years.
Urlichich, who competed in the World Rally Championship in 2014, has conceived of a program that might just change that.
Aimed at car enthusiasts in general, as well as lapping day participants, Urlichich has created Race Lab to expose those who love driving to the excitement of the sport.
The main focus of Race Lab is the Shotgun Ride, where participants spend an afternoon learning about rally, competing in virtual rally races and taking hot laps in a real rally car with Crazy Leo.
Race Lab is based just west of Toronto at the Rockton Fairgrounds. Visit racelab.co to learn more. Ontario gives autonomous cars the green light Toronto Star Wheels has been sharing stories about the ongoing development of self-driving cars for a couple of years now, but for the most part these stories have originated on the streets on California and Sweden. Soon, there will be sightings of autonomous vehicles on Ontario’s roads.
At a press conference at the University of Waterloo on Tuesday, Steven Del Duca, Minister of Transportation, announced a plan to allow the testing of automated vehicles on public roads in this province beginning Jan. 1, making Ontario the first province to allow such testing.
With close to 100 businesses and institutions working with this technology in this province, that puts Ontario at the leading edge of this important research along with about half-a-dozen U.S. States led by Michigan, which uses the University of Michigan campus at Ann Arbor as a test track.
The finish line The past week has been a sad one for those in the Canadian automotive community.
83-year-old John Mackie passed away in his native England last week. The president and CEO of Jaguar Canada for 20 years, Mackie retired from that post in 1996.
Mackie was instrumental in creating the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) Journalist of the Year Award in the late1980s. ( See obituary, Wheels Page 21)
Long time motorsports photographer Joe Hamilton, passed last Saturday in Toronto following a twoyear battle with cancer. Hamilton was a regular sight at race tracks across Ontario.
He is remembered by many for his passion for racing and wonderful sense of humour.
James Calder, better known as Mac to most of us, was an active part of the Canadian motorsport community since arriving from his native Scotland in 1974. Mac raced a variety of machines from karts to cars over the years.
I first met Mac in the late 1980s when we were both competing in autocross events.
The Scot would regularly beat the times of high powered sports cars in his Mazda MPV minivan, much to their chagrin. In recent years our connection continued as Mac and my daughter would share time on ice together helping at winter driving schools.
Calder died suddenly Monday at age 65. Freelance writer Gary Grant is a regular contributor to Toronto Star Wheels. Write him at wheels@thestar.ca and put his name in the subject line.