KeriBlog

Cars, Security & a Peek into my Life

Understanding ‘Car of the Year’ Testing & Results

AJAC – Auto Journalist Association of Canada – hosts this annual event, ‘Test Fest.’

They bring in 180+ new model vehicles, and auto writers from across Canada, to the Niagara Falls Drive Centre, for a full week of testing and voting to determine ‘Car of the Year‘.

(read my original ‘Test Fest’ post here)

This is the vehicle I’m driving in the video, the all-new Mercedes B250.

Nice car, it is a Mercedes, and note the asterisks:

That’s how you choose drive, park, neutral; different eh.

It’s billed as a “family car”, but I don’t understand where all the stuff goes, the stuff that comes along with a family. This car would work best if your family also had a van, too.

As a new auto journalist, this was my first time at ‘Test Fest’, and was blown away by the logistics, and high level of authenticity of it all.

So I wrote about it for this week’s ‘Keri on Driving’ column.

(read it online here)

Favourite Line:

The last one – “Even I wouldn’t listen to me”

29 years of results are posted http://www.AJAC.ca. Go search your car, see how it fared.

***

Back to ‘Keri on Driving’ – Index

 

 

Hey Car Companies – Send me Your Hats

I wear a hat, a LOT.

You can go back years and years online, sometimes too much maybe.

Hey auto manufactures – send me yours, to add to my collection.

The above is signed by Alex Tagliani.

One time in the summer, I arrived at Honda Canada to pick up a car, and he was hanging out.

Hat preferences:

– baseball style only

– black, ideally

– no trucker hats

– full back

– size small

 

 

 

My Own Private GO Bus Ride

This afternoon, I returned the Honda Civic in Markham. If you’re not living here, that’s 2-hour a train, bus, then subway, to get home.

My bonehead cab driver, dropped me off at a train station that had no trains going to. So when I saw a GO bus pull in, I ran over, oh this was its last stop of the day.

So I’m standing at a normal bus stop, hear a whistle,

“let’s go!  I’m going downtown, and got clearance to take you along.”

COME. ON.

Now I’m cruising down the DVP, hanging over the front railing, enjoying the view; nice big wide windshield, and sight lines. Bus Driver Jim and I spent half the drive putting the world to rights, and the other half talking cars.  So much fun.

Thanks Bus Driver Jim!

Keri

(note: I just accidentally deleted the other photos… of the bus, the view of the road.  I have never done that before. Heavy sighing is happening, stomach dropped, some swearing)