December 25, 2025 • 38 mins
Automotive Expert Craig Fitzgerald joined Bradley with information about what’s ahead for the auto industry in 2026! Listen as they discuss auto dealer consolidation, EV sales, tax credits, new driving laws, and more!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Night with Dan Ray on going you Mazy Boston's
News Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thank you, SuSanA's Night Side with Dan Ray and Bradley
for Dan tonight, and we have a Christmas Eve Quig
Fitzgerald our car guy, but so much more in tonight.
I guess Christmas was burned out quickly.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
It was.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It was a morning affair today and we were pretty
much everybody was kind of napping by about one o'clock
this afternoon, So thanks for coming in. It just so
happens there. There was a new year, by the way, yeah,
with it a lot of new year automotive stuff such
as EV sales, tax credits, driving laws. There are new
laws all over the place, correct, and we need to
see if anything's changed in our region. But first, as always,
(00:45):
let me ask you what are you driving tonight? Craig
gets cars not given but loan to him so he
can check them out and write about that, correct, And
what are we driving today? What kind of review do
you give it? So?
Speaker 4 (00:58):
I drove the Hunt Day Palisade, which is the same
vehicle as the Kia Tell You Ride, which I liked
a lot. I like the styling of the Tell You
Ride a bit better. But they're essentially the same vehicle.
They work the same same powertrain and everything.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
What's the of it again?
Speaker 4 (01:19):
This is a Hyundai Palasadde, which is the eight passenger
full size suv three rows. Very high end, but significantly
cheaper than you would spend on something.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Like a Tahoe. When you say high end, what do
you mean?
Speaker 4 (01:33):
I mean high end materials, like quality materials, nice leather interior,
you know, touchscreens all over the place, flat screen panels
for Apple car Play, and all of that which you
to expect.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Now.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Good heated seats, by the way, really warm heated steering wheel.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Those are things we would have poop pooed in the past,
but now they're here. They were luxuries are thing now necessities. Yeah,
I mean the.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Power windows there, yo, I mean power windows, heated seats,
all of that. That's almost like opening ante. Now you know,
air conditioning, You've got it. Like, you can't sell the
car with any without any of that.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
See. I've never felt the need for heated seats, but
when somebody has them, I say, what's going on? What's
going on down there?
Speaker 4 (02:17):
You get really quickly, you know, And and I actually
I was out with my daughter this morning and she said, geez,
I wish I had a heated steering wheel in my car.
And I said, you know, I never really thought about it,
but once you have.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It, it's that exists. Heated steering wheel.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty nice and it's not it's not hot,
but it's just warm enough.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
That you don't need to wear your gloves right away.
Let's say you're in the thinking tank. Yes, sir, what
are you going to come up with next?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Well?
Speaker 4 (02:47):
See, so this is the issue in the industry is
all of these things have now filtered down to the
cheapest car that you can buy. So you can buy
a relatively inexpensive you know, Ford Ford Escape, which they're
going to discontinue next year.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Uh, that's got.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
All of this technology and all of these nice features,
even in the mid trim level, which which is nice
for somebody who doesn't want to spend a ton of money.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
You need to come back with this, You need to
come up with some new novelty that might become a necessity.
Have any ideas?
Speaker 4 (03:23):
I don't, so, so something now we're now down to
like massaging.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
I was gonna say massages or pedicure, right, So this
has massaging seats in it which turn on auto that
it does, so you you know, and this used to
be exclusively for like Mercedes and BMW and the S
class of Mercedes, not you know, your your regular you know,
run of the mill Mercedes.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
But you know it comes on automatically when you've been
in the car for say half an hour. It turned
on on the way here coming in from Holliston, and
it's it's kind of nice. I wouldn't buy or not
buy a car based on whether it had it or not, though,
so so I think all of the things that people
really wanted, heated seats, air conditioning, power windows, that's that's
(04:10):
all done now.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
At one point there would be nothing more you cant right, correct,
And what happened I don't know. I don't know, and
I don't know what happens when all of you used
to see these things, you know, like you would drive
an S class and you'd go, oh, heated seats is
pretty nice, you know, or uh, you know, the first
(04:32):
cars that had power windows were you know, it wasn't
the Chevyes, it was the you know, it was the
Cadillacs and power windows.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Yeah, but but now you know that's that's you can
you basically cannot find a car without those now, So
it's what what's happened is it's come to the point
where economies of scale start to work for you where okay,
well the switches are cheaper than a window crank and
you know, yeah, we have to put a mode are
(05:00):
in it, but we're gonna put motors in every one,
and there's no point in having two vehicles on the
line that one has a power window motor and one doesn't.
So you start to get these things, all not for free,
but it just comes as part of the base package
of the vehicle.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Well, I guess one of the things that could come
next would be, I mean, where you're gonna go except
for on a uh self driving.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Yeah, to be it, which is already you know, yes,
so that's a technology that is in its infancy at
the moment.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
It's not really self driving. You used it and it worked, Yeah,
I like it a lot, really, so I use both.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Blue Cruise, which is of Fords, and Super Crews, which
is Chevy's version of this. It's not self driving. So
what it is is basically a really intelligent cruise control.
So it's it's you know, monitoring the distance of the
vehicle in front of you. However, it'll also change lanes
(06:04):
for you and you don't need to touch the steering wheel,
which is pretty nice and I liked it. I enjoyed it,
but it doesn't drive the car like if you know,
what I think of as self driving is Okay, I'm
starting out in Hartford, Connecticut, and I want to get
the Boston and I want to you know, check out
(06:24):
behind the wheel and just get me there. I put
in the address and you just drive me there. That's
we don't have We're not even close to that yet.
Do you think people really care about safety? And the
reason I asked you ask this is if safety were
a true priority, wouldn't at some point we have cars
and roads that are like slot cars. Basically you can't
(06:46):
get in an accident because the car, even the road,
even the intersection won't let your car go right through
it if there's a car coming the other way. So
you have there's two questions there. One, do people really
care about safety?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Again? And the answer is yes, right so they It
used to be prior to.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
The nineteen eighties, you basically just drove what the auto
manufacturer gave you you didn't care. It's uh cool, it's fast,
it looks good, whatever. No head ress that was the
fow aaddress. No collapsible steering columns, no seatbelts like, all
of that stuff was mandated in nineteen sixty seven. Then
all of a sudden in the eighties, safety became something
(07:32):
that a manufacturer could market. So they Volvo they they're
a manufacturer that that really invented safety marketing, and then
Mercedes did it, and then SUPERU did it, and they
all realized, like, the average person who buys our car
is not an enthusiast. They're a mom or a dad
(07:53):
who's carting their kids around and they want to keep
them as safe as possible. So if a manufacturer can
then and say, hey, look our car performs better and
crash tests than card B and C does, that's a
that's absolutely something people are interested in.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
But do you think they would be interested in cars
that could not crash and intersections that would not allow
you to go through if there are a car coming
things like that? And speed limit your car simply can't
go faster than speed speed limit. They can up the
speed limits right like now it's sixty five, you go
seventy four, right, just make it seventy five? Car just
(08:32):
won't go any faster than that? What about that?
Speaker 4 (08:34):
So there have so I think the the in let's
get you right, Let's get the answer to that.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
After this got it all right, let's take a break
here on WZ.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Night Side with Danny and Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
That's right, Bradley Jay and for Dan tonight, this says
night Side, we're with Craig Fitzgerald. He's our car guy.
And I was asking Craig about safety and whether people
really cared about safety, whether it's kind of just theater, right,
I don't you know, I feel they don't really care
about safety. It would be safer to have automated enforcement
(09:15):
of traffic laws, but nobody's I don't think anybody's interested
in that. As a matter of fact, I might bring
that up as a topic later on. I think I
have a way that people would like. But any address,
you were talking about Volvo safety, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
So what we were talking about the second part of
your question was about do we actually make it impossible
to run a red light?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Right?
Speaker 4 (09:40):
So, is there's a technology that would that exists that
would like a stock Chira. So part of this is
an infrastructure problem, which we know we're not going to
spend bazillions of dollars on infrastructure.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
We're just not going to do it.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
I mean, it's hard enough to get a bridge replaced,
let alone, you know, and who's going to be electrification
of the I.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Was going to be the first manufacturer.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
I can't go right, right, So so but there's there's
a lot of what's happening now is a lot of
what's called V to V, which is vehicle to vehicle communication.
So vehicles will be able to communicate with each other
and know where they are in an intersection and avoid
(10:22):
each other.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
So you eliminate the middle yes person, yes, right, your
car consensus a car that you can't see coming down
Oak Street.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
And you're starting to see that now with like, you know,
your car is modern enough that it has lane keeping
assists and also let you know when somebody's in the
blind spot next to you, so blind spot monitoring.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
GIST and my favorite thing, the fancy adapted cruise control
is the greatest, right, So all of those things, they're
kind of like the precursor to what exactly what you're
talking about. So I would.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
I'd be willing to bet that twenty twenty five years
from now, you're going to have exactly what you want,
which is, you know, you're not able to blow a
red light anymore.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
So. So the other thing is this vehicle to vehicle
communication and this vehicle to infrastructure communication, which is there's
a red light, that red light is communicating to the
cars that are coming up to the red light to
let them know it stopped and they will not be
able to go. You know.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
There there probably is some manual override for that, but
you'd need to stop first, you'd you know, So this
is theoretical at this point, but vehicle to infrastructure technology
is absolutely coming.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
So you could have a red light that made your
yes car stop. Yeah, that.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
With you know that that would start out by alerting
you with an audible and a visual alert and then would.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Stop the car, just like adaptive cruise control stops you correct. Correct.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
So that's all know in the books. Now that's all happening.
All right, Let's talk to Bob in Tewkesbury. Bob in Tewksbury,
kielieving Merry Christmas is happy Holidings to everybody.
Speaker 5 (12:11):
How's ever were doing out there.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Howat I'm having.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
A wonderful Christmas. I've been watching some basketball, but I
want to talk about public safety. There's a couple of
things I like to share with the public, and that
is that back in the nineteen eighties, my two cocks
cast a law Mad Mothers again drug driving. People should
wear their seatbelts and their chosen to keep the public safe.
(12:38):
Because I care about public safety, I never had a
driver's license. I've always taken public transportation. I went to
driving school when I was a young man in high school.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
But I.
Speaker 5 (12:51):
Didn't have the opportunity to have account because I always
rely on public transfer or taxis. They share more taxi
services for people. But there's another thing too. Make sure
you tell the public and the people to have smoke detectives.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
The Okay, thank you very much, Bob. I appreciate that
we're kind of talking about cars and us.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
But so the the point here is is, you know,
like in the eighties, I pay pretty close attention to
the number or the rate of highway deaths every year.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Right.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
So there's a really good list that comes from Nizza
that's on Wikipedia that'll show you the rate of highway
deaths every year from nineteen twenty four on.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
And as as his thing, his name was Bob Right.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
His point was, in the eighties we started paying attention
to this stuff. We passed stricter drunk driving laws. We
started to pass we had to do it twice here
in Massachusetts, a seatbelt law. And when we did, you
can see those that death rate start to plummet. So
we went from somewhere around five per hundred thousand or
(14:08):
sorry cer per trillion vehicle miles traveled, that's around five
deaths per and we're down now to like one point three.
We cut that number by five because we were we
got really serious about safety in this country.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
And what were the major changes.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Nineteen sixty seven was the most responsible before that drop.
Most responsible for that drop is a nineteen sixty seven
we we enacted federal motor vehicle safety standards, right, so
they were there were something like thirteen of them. That
was like, literally, the car has to have seatbelts in it,
it has to have a collapsible steering column, you have.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
To have headdress, right.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
And then from there we started getting seat belt laws,
We started doing really strict drunk driving enforcement, and you
and then once you got into the nineties, ABS air bags,
and then beyond that traction control and stability control. Those
(15:11):
things all together have just it's a precipitous drop since
the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Are there any numbers that compare the deaths per trillion
to the rate of traffic enforcement? Use? Traffic enforcement for
a number of reasons is significantly down. Correct in Massachusetts anyway,
And I was wondering if accidents start to edge up
(15:41):
when enforcement goes down.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
I haven't seen those two things put together. One thing
I will say is that one thing I was most
wrong about in the last decade or so was during
the pandemic, when highways for about six months were largely empty.
Traffic was way down, we were driving last I anticipated
(16:07):
that you were going to see a really significant drop
in highway deaths.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Didn't happen.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
And one of the reasons for that is because people
started driving a lot faster when there's no traffic on
the road. They were just wailing it and there was
no enforcement happening at that point. That that I was
surprising to see that we are our miles traveled for
that year dropped, and just highway deaths didn't at all.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I see enforcement in place on the highway in New
Hampshire but not Massachusetts. No, And I kind of I
like driving in New Hampshire. I like seeing the state
ee yeah on the road there.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Yeah, they're they're always, I know, they're always right after
the tollbooths and they're pulling people over like they're they
don't fool around there.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
I'ven't been on ninety three up there in a while.
I don't know what the enforcement's like there. I feel
like drivers and I'm not even going to start on scooters.
Actually I may start on them later, but automotive car
drivers seem to now know that there's no, there's not
a lot of enforcement. Oh there, let's say there's less enforcement.
(17:16):
And I was in an uber going from my house
to a fancy hotel for my birthday and it took
I don't know, almost an hour to go like three
miles up Boilston traffic in this city, and people are
(17:36):
blocking the box. The traffic cycles over and over and
no one would go, couldn't go, and and people got
out of their lane and it started to look like uh, saigone.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Or yeah, I don't know what's going on in this
city now where rush hour starts at two o'clock in
the afternoon.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
I don't know, it's it's brutal trying to get out
of here. Also, I try, I try to go to
New Hampshire early in the morning and yeah, beat the traffic.
And I don't really, but I am thunderstruck when I
see the traffic coming the other way at six am.
It's already there's a traffic jam from the Tobin t yep.
(18:21):
Pretty close. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
My wife imagine when she she comes into into town.
She works in government center, goes in there twice a week.
She leaves the house at five thirty in the morning.
I'd rather avoid the traffic.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
I'd rather live in town with some strange roommate. Yeah
than drive. Make that drive. Yeah, it's help us drive.
Justin will talk to you right after this break on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
You're on night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
That's right, this is Nightside with Dan Ray. Some of
you may be saying, that's not Dan Ray. Who is
that guy? Well, my name's Bradley J. And if you
want to know a little bit more about me, you
can just do Bradley J. J A y dot Orgus
B I a dally Why Jay dot o r g
our guest is Quig Fitzgerald. I call him the car
(19:12):
guy because that's really what he is. I could get
into what he does for you write for a See,
I should have just said, kick Fitzgerald, what's your job
in where I am A I'm a senior editor with
a with a company called DCI Marketing out in uh Mission, Milwaukee. Yeah,
and uh I write a lot for Subaru, I do
(19:36):
some work for Kia. I do some a bit for GM.
I used to be one of the editors at Haming's
Motor News. Contributed to the Globe for a long time. Yeah.
Also very funny. Well thanks, I follow you on LinkedIn. Yeah,
it seems to be where you hang. That's where I
hang mostly now.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
I tried to get off of the meta platforms and
you are, I guess one of the funniest people on there. Well. Thanks,
that's really nice to hear. I was a who posts.
So how do they find you? Just search Craig fitz
John Lincoln.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Sure, Actually, you know you find you on there, You'll
find me because I'm connected to you.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
All right.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Now we're talking about what's new or what's what's going
to be new and out of motive area stuff stuff
for twenty six. Well, actually we've gone out before further
than twenty six here into one hundred years from now.
But we'll bring it back to that and get into
the new laws which will become effective this upcoming year.
(20:31):
But first we have Justin Justin and Marlborough.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Hi. Justin, Hi, Hi glady. I always enjoy you hosting
the show and you always have a nice guess. I
have two things I want to bring up about driving,
and this first one combines Christmas. The Massachusetts Tirewood Department
does a pretty good job and promoting drivers to not
(20:58):
drive drowsy. Yes, and I with society would do more
of an effort. And I commend society in chastising trunk driving.
But drowsy driving is almost is just as dangerous in
my opinion.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Definitely is, definitely is. And interestingly, as Bradley and I
were talking about this Hyundai Palisade that I'm driving in
a lot of you know, cars from the twenty twenty
six model year there these cars are now smart enough
to monitor whether or not you're paying attention.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Do they count your eyeblinks?
Speaker 4 (21:35):
They do, so they start to count your eyeblinks. They
start to count your how often your eyes wander and
whether they close, the length of the blinks, and it
will alert you with an audible warning and then a
flashing warning to say, hey man, it's time to.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Pull over and get some rest because you're you're starting
to fall aside. So that's sensitive. Do you think soon
they'll be able to tell if you're lying or not? Yeah?
And I would imagine. Well, I mean it's it's not
that much of a jump from a polygraph to that, right, right.
And if they can tell if you're lying or not,
the car can ask you before you start it if
you've been drinking, right, or if you're tired, right right? Okay?
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Yeah, So justin good point there, And yes, there is
technology to try to keep people more aware of their
their tiredness behind the behind the wheel.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
So you had two points. What was your I think
he had too. What was the other one?
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Yes, my other point is somewhat driving related, but I
miss it. But I understand society not wanting people to
do it. But when I went to high school, I
was in the family of eight children and it was
a three mile walk. My mom says, since you're walking,
you might as well hitchhike. We have a good chance
of getting a ride. And I enjoyed doing that. But
(22:51):
I can see driving nowadays it's not safe to pick
up hitchhikers. But yeah, I got the chance.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Is it really more dangerous or is it that everybody
knows when the bad things happen? Are people worse now?
Speaker 3 (23:05):
I don't think so. But I just like to play
a lot with society.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Honestly, much worse, much worse now, I you know, I
don't know, like and you know, I think the idea
of hitch hiking, uh really turned off a lot of people,
I think. And after so we went through this whole
period in the nineteen seventies and eighties with you know,
stranger danger and serial killers and all this kind of
(23:33):
stuff where it was like people were just looking for
this stuff behind every shadow, you.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Know, And I preceed h stranger danger. No, I didn't
learn that. I did for sure in the eighties growing up.
For sure, stranger danger. No, that was like it was
like you never take a ride with somebody you don't know,
like the well yeah exactly exactly, so you know, like
I wouldn't advocate anybody hitchhiking, but I have hitch before
(24:00):
in my past, and I have lived to tell the tale.
Would I pick up anybody at this point? No, I
would not, No way, because all they would have to
say is that you did something right right the chart,
which brings me to knowing all all of this the
only person. Probably back in the day it was much
(24:24):
more of an easy going thing so that but it's not. Now.
Everyone's so petrified that only a you know, dangerous person
would pick anybody up. The chances are getting picked up.
There may not be more dangerous people, but the chances
that of one of them is going to pick you up,
I think are greater because everyone else is too freaked
out to pick you up.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Well, you know, I've stopped to help people that that are,
you know, stuck beside the road right and even then,
like I want to I want to identify who I am.
I don't want any discomfort about you know, like I'm
not I'm here to help you. That's it, you know,
like I don't want anybody to feel about them. I
(25:04):
am taking advantage of No, not really, I mean, I'm
gonna tell him my name. I gotta tell him who
I am name. Yeah, sure, why not?
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Like, if I'm there to help somebody, I will do that.
I would. I'd give a fake name. You wouldn't even stop,
would you. I It depends on the situation. I drive
by and see if it looked like they were faking. Yeah,
I can't. I'm a sucker. A few Christmas as ago,
there's a Christmas Street place on Harvard Street by O'Brien's
the Bar, yep, and by a Modell Model hardware yep.
(25:35):
There's a guy giving me a SOB story. There's a
moment in the car and he's out there talking about, Oh,
I need to get money for getting back to Worcester,
my wife is et cetera, blah blah blah. And I
walked on for about twenty steps, and I, you know,
my Christian upbringing made me turn around and get the
(26:00):
guy twenty bucks right then and there. Not too long
after that, I told somebody about that, and I said, oh, yeah,
that guy, he's always out there.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
So yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
I mean, you keep you keep talking about society justin
why don't you give me a grade our society A B,
C or D or e F F. How would you
judge our society?
Speaker 3 (26:26):
I'd like to give them like an eighty two, eighty.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Two, that's like a that's like a B plus pretty good,
pretty good.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
And I want to leave you at the chuckle. So
I had a neighbor chastised me for hitshaking. She says,
I'm going to tell your mother, And I told her,
I said, who do you think came up with this idea?
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah, I don't think anybody's all right, justin thank you, thanks,
I appreciate it. Yeah, I don't think anybody's mom is
giving him advice to hike. Now, you know what, I
love that he gave such a very very careful and
eighty two. He could have said abc D exactly. He
could have rounded it off to eighty eighty two, not
(27:14):
eighty three, not eighty one. He ran maybe he checked
with Chad GPT, could have or something. Who's running a survey. Okay,
you know we still have to get to the new laws.
So let's start that. After this break on WBZ, it's.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Night Side with Dan Ray on wb Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
It is Nightside Bradley Jay for Dan Ray against is
Craig Fitzgerald. And now we're gonna finally after having a
lot of farm get into some upcoming driving rules laws
for this next year. Now does this for the state
or is it? Are there any local ordinances?
Speaker 4 (27:56):
So so what I did was take a look at
all of the new laws pertaining to driving in the
six New England.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
That's beautiful.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
So you know, this is the time when you know
there's a lot of you know, ballot initiatives and stuff
that you can talk about and then you kick in
at the first of the year.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
And and the thing is it surprises people every year.
It's like, oh, I didn't know this.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
So in Massa choose it's really the only big one
is Massachusetts was one of the few states that required
rental car companies to ensure their own vehicles. Right, so
if you rented a car from enterprise and you chose
not to take the insurance and you've got an accident,
(28:38):
they were going to eat the cost of that.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
At the end of the day. They would come after you,
they'd try to come after you, but at the end
of the day they were going to eat the cost
of that. In twenty twenty six, now the primary insurance
holder when you rent a car is going to be you.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
It's going to be the renter. So the companies off
the hook, right, the company is a bit of the hook.
Now the was so so it's this way in most states.
It's like, we're one of ten states that didn't do
it that way, you know, And it makes sense. You're
responsible for the car, you're renting the car, you're but
but what happened.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
The argument was that.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
Rentals in Massachusetts were more expensive than they were another.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
It's they're going to pass the savings onto us. They
are not. They are not. Did never never, any company
ever never passed the savings on They're never going to
pass the savings onto you. You're never going to go
in there done it. And so it was the lobby,
insurance lobby, that's well, it was a rental car lobby.
That was you know, whoever that is, I don't know,
(29:43):
you know that they got a hold of somebody and said, hey, look,
you know we do this in forty other states. Why
are you the exception?
Speaker 4 (29:49):
Because we want to be, because we want to be
because that's why the right and at the end of
the day, you know, as a as a consumer, that
is protection for you. Yes, all right, you know, if
I chose not to get the insurance and I crashed
into you know, or somebody rear ended me.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
It's not my fault. Why should I be responsible for that?
Speaker 4 (30:12):
Even if I didn't take the insurance, now you're gonna
be Now that's gonna go to your vehicle insurance as
primary coverage. So you know, I understand it to a degree,
but I also don't think it's a consumer protection at all.
I think we're a little bit worse off you.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Oh would I would say, yes, Now, what do we
do to protect ourselves? We just got to make sure
that we are I have some special level of insurance, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
My insurance. You know, you got to check with your
insurance company. You just got to make sure that your coverage,
you know, will transfer to a to a rental car,
you know, which.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
It always does.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
And then you know things like where else do I
have insurance my rental car or my credit card company
provide level?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
They say that, well, they do.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Anyone ever really been covered? They will anything, They will
cover you. But the problem is that and you know,
I worked at enterprise for a long time when I
was in college, and what we used to tell people is, yes,
your car insurance will cover you. Yes, your AARP or
triple A will cover you. However, we're coming after you first,
and you're gonna have to pay for the damages and
(31:24):
then you go after you must have been a heck
of a salesman, right, I mean the way it is,
that is how it works, right, So we're gonna come
after you if you don't take the lost damage waiver
or whatever it is, the minimum coverage.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
You know, that is the case that they're gonna. They're
gonna come after you.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
They're gonna present you with a bill that says this
is twenty thousand dollars worth of damage, whether it was
your fault or not, and you're gonna have to go
after your insurance company.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
When you read the carge and you take photos of
it before you're I don't, and I'm sure I should.
I thought you would say that I was being no paranoid. No,
I think you're right.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
And I'll tell you where it is especially important is
on wheels because every wheel is curbed like everybody runs
in north curve with something. So it's important to actually
walk around the car when you pick it up, see
if there's any damage on it and report it and.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Do a video and if there's some something inside that's
out of whack, take a picture of it or sure,
or go to it and say give me another car. Yep, yep.
So that's the only big thing in Massachusetts this year,
and in New Hampshire the big thing is that they're
no longer going to do safety inspections after the first
of the year, which is huge, and that kicks in
(32:43):
on January first.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Yes, so we've talked about that and you and I,
and it was interesting to hear from the listeners that
most people thought that that was a bad idea.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
You know, we can ask that question again right now, Yes,
six ten thirty. Would you like to see Massachusetts adopt
the New Hampshire way of doing things and not have
to have an annual an annual inspection or wherever you
are doesn't have to be Massachusetts. Would you like to
see your state be free of the mandatory inspection rule?
Speaker 4 (33:18):
So interestingly, in New Hampshire, I think the thought was, well,
we're going to be saving fifty dollars a year or
thirty five dollars a year or whatever not having to
do these inspections. And simultaneously what happened was they increase
every transaction that you make at you know, when you
go to register car, when you go to get a
(33:39):
driver's license, when you go to get a title, like
all of those fees increased. So the state's going to
pull in an additional projected thirty one and a half
million dollars from from fees rather than an actual safety
You know, those New Hampshire numbers, the future New Hampshire
numbers regarding how many people get the inspections anyway, well
(34:00):
say a little bit.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
About how much people care or do not care about safety?
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Right right?
Speaker 4 (34:05):
So I remember back in the eighties Rhode Island, eighties,
early nineties, Rhode Island didn't have a safety inspection or
it was like this weird like voluntary safety inspection program,
and every car down there looked like it was out
of a Doctor Seuss book, you know, like it was
like what is going on to cars with busted windshields
(34:25):
and you know, wheels falling off and fenders falling off
and everything. I don't know if that's going to happen
in New Hampshire, but it'd be interesting to see because
it'll be the only state in New England that doesn't
have a safety inspection.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
So what is likely to go wrong if you don't
inspect your cars, tires not rusting it. We used to
be rust. Rust used to be a big thing. Rust
will be a big thing still. Really, I thought there
was better metal, more plastic on cars.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
There is more plastic, but things still rust and it's
it's always a problem, so you know, And what it
affects mostly is trucks and cars from the mid two
thousands or early two thousands that are still out driving
on the road that now have no rocker panels, no
indo fenders, no you know, they're rusted out completely.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
So if you're side view America's knocked off, you don't
have to there's no you know, you could that could
be a that could be a primary reason for a
state trooper to pull you over or a town cop
to pull you over. But the safety inspection isn't going
to catch it. So no emissions, no ball, tire inspection,
(35:36):
no no lights, nothing. Do you think people will let
their tires get really bald? Yes? I know they will.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
They do now when you like if when you do
inspections here in this state, and I've you know, worked
at a shop that does inspections, half of the cars
coming in knowing full well that they're going to get
picked up at Bald Tires.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
I don't know what happened to me as a child,
but I really hate ball tires. Man. As you know,
I will just friend picks me up. I'm not testing
them out or anything, but I just I will randomly
stick my finger in the tread when I'm getting in
the car, not to see if it's safe. I just
love one and I love to tread, so I bald tread.
And if they have good tread, no, I'll get in
(36:17):
the car and say nice tread.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
Bald tires and tires from brands that I have never
heard of before. That throws me off. So I was
actually I was looking at a truck this week. I
was looking at eighty two uh Ford F one fifty
that I want to buy, and it had and it's
a brand new tires, and I looked at the tires.
I was like, I have never heard of this company before.
I have no idea where they're from. I don't know
(36:40):
if these things are any good or not. So that's like,
that's a reason not to buy that truck.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Remember Retreads, Yes, when did they go in nineteen sixty seven?
Speaker 3 (36:51):
That? No?
Speaker 4 (36:51):
I remember Retreads? I mean, you can still get retread out,
and they're sore for heavy trucks like and which is
iron because they should not be driving around with retreads.
But yes, you can, you can still get retreads on.
But what happened was it was the shift from biased
ply tires to radials that really made you know, retreads kind.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Of not a thing.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
You know.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
When I was a younger man, I had an incident
on Route ninety three involving a retread. It was, you know,
it's pretty high speed limit up there. Yeah, seventy five
going by Tilton and starting to go up this big
long hell pass just past Tilton and right front pal, Yeah,
and I'm dragging me right into the right I was
(37:37):
pretty sure that's an eye opener. Sure it really is.
I had two tires in the span of two days
blow out on me like that. All right, Well, we're
gonna keep Craig for another hour because we haven't even
come close to getting all the information that he has
to offer. So we'll do that. The number here six, one, seven, two, five, four,
(37:58):
ten thirty. This is nice side would ray Dan's off tonight.
I'm Bradley J. Filling in for Dan, and I mentioned
it earlier and I realized some of you, many of
you may not know anything about me, So if you
want a little background, visit my website bradleyja dot org,
b r A d l E y jy dot O
r G. All right, and again love to have you
(38:21):
join us. We're here to sort of talk about cars,
but mostly to have fun and and entertain each other.
Six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty is w
b zy
It's Night with Dan Ray on going you Mazy Boston's
News Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thank you, SuSanA's Night Side with Dan Ray and Bradley
for Dan tonight, and we have a Christmas Eve Quig
Fitzgerald our car guy, but so much more in tonight.
I guess Christmas was burned out quickly.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
It was.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It was a morning affair today and we were pretty
much everybody was kind of napping by about one o'clock
this afternoon, So thanks for coming in. It just so
happens there. There was a new year, by the way, yeah,
with it a lot of new year automotive stuff such
as EV sales, tax credits, driving laws. There are new
laws all over the place, correct, and we need to
see if anything's changed in our region. But first, as always,
(00:45):
let me ask you what are you driving tonight? Craig
gets cars not given but loan to him so he
can check them out and write about that, correct, And
what are we driving today? What kind of review do
you give it? So?
Speaker 4 (00:58):
I drove the Hunt Day Palisade, which is the same
vehicle as the Kia Tell You Ride, which I liked
a lot. I like the styling of the Tell You
Ride a bit better. But they're essentially the same vehicle.
They work the same same powertrain and everything.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
What's the of it again?
Speaker 4 (01:19):
This is a Hyundai Palasadde, which is the eight passenger
full size suv three rows. Very high end, but significantly
cheaper than you would spend on something.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Like a Tahoe. When you say high end, what do
you mean?
Speaker 4 (01:33):
I mean high end materials, like quality materials, nice leather interior,
you know, touchscreens all over the place, flat screen panels
for Apple car Play, and all of that which you
to expect.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Now.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Good heated seats, by the way, really warm heated steering wheel.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Those are things we would have poop pooed in the past,
but now they're here. They were luxuries are thing now necessities. Yeah,
I mean the.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Power windows there, yo, I mean power windows, heated seats,
all of that. That's almost like opening ante. Now you know,
air conditioning, You've got it. Like, you can't sell the
car with any without any of that.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
See. I've never felt the need for heated seats, but
when somebody has them, I say, what's going on? What's
going on down there?
Speaker 4 (02:17):
You get really quickly, you know, And and I actually
I was out with my daughter this morning and she said, geez,
I wish I had a heated steering wheel in my car.
And I said, you know, I never really thought about it,
but once you have.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It, it's that exists. Heated steering wheel.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty nice and it's not it's not hot,
but it's just warm enough.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
That you don't need to wear your gloves right away.
Let's say you're in the thinking tank. Yes, sir, what
are you going to come up with next?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Well?
Speaker 4 (02:47):
See, so this is the issue in the industry is
all of these things have now filtered down to the
cheapest car that you can buy. So you can buy
a relatively inexpensive you know, Ford Ford Escape, which they're
going to discontinue next year.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Uh, that's got.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
All of this technology and all of these nice features,
even in the mid trim level, which which is nice
for somebody who doesn't want to spend a ton of money.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
You need to come back with this, You need to
come up with some new novelty that might become a necessity.
Have any ideas?
Speaker 4 (03:23):
I don't, so, so something now we're now down to
like massaging.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
I was gonna say massages or pedicure, right, So this
has massaging seats in it which turn on auto that
it does, so you you know, and this used to
be exclusively for like Mercedes and BMW and the S
class of Mercedes, not you know, your your regular you know,
run of the mill Mercedes.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
But you know it comes on automatically when you've been
in the car for say half an hour. It turned
on on the way here coming in from Holliston, and
it's it's kind of nice. I wouldn't buy or not
buy a car based on whether it had it or not, though,
so so I think all of the things that people
really wanted, heated seats, air conditioning, power windows, that's that's
(04:10):
all done now.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
At one point there would be nothing more you cant right, correct,
And what happened I don't know. I don't know, and
I don't know what happens when all of you used
to see these things, you know, like you would drive
an S class and you'd go, oh, heated seats is
pretty nice, you know, or uh, you know, the first
(04:32):
cars that had power windows were you know, it wasn't
the Chevyes, it was the you know, it was the
Cadillacs and power windows.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Yeah, but but now you know that's that's you can
you basically cannot find a car without those now, So
it's what what's happened is it's come to the point
where economies of scale start to work for you where okay,
well the switches are cheaper than a window crank and
you know, yeah, we have to put a mode are
(05:00):
in it, but we're gonna put motors in every one,
and there's no point in having two vehicles on the
line that one has a power window motor and one doesn't.
So you start to get these things, all not for free,
but it just comes as part of the base package
of the vehicle.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Well, I guess one of the things that could come
next would be, I mean, where you're gonna go except
for on a uh self driving.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Yeah, to be it, which is already you know, yes,
so that's a technology that is in its infancy at
the moment.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
It's not really self driving. You used it and it worked, Yeah,
I like it a lot, really, so I use both.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Blue Cruise, which is of Fords, and Super Crews, which
is Chevy's version of this. It's not self driving. So
what it is is basically a really intelligent cruise control.
So it's it's you know, monitoring the distance of the
vehicle in front of you. However, it'll also change lanes
(06:04):
for you and you don't need to touch the steering wheel,
which is pretty nice and I liked it. I enjoyed it,
but it doesn't drive the car like if you know,
what I think of as self driving is Okay, I'm
starting out in Hartford, Connecticut, and I want to get
the Boston and I want to you know, check out
(06:24):
behind the wheel and just get me there. I put
in the address and you just drive me there. That's
we don't have We're not even close to that yet.
Do you think people really care about safety? And the
reason I asked you ask this is if safety were
a true priority, wouldn't at some point we have cars
and roads that are like slot cars. Basically you can't
(06:46):
get in an accident because the car, even the road,
even the intersection won't let your car go right through
it if there's a car coming the other way. So
you have there's two questions there. One, do people really
care about safety?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Again? And the answer is yes, right so they It
used to be prior to.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
The nineteen eighties, you basically just drove what the auto
manufacturer gave you you didn't care. It's uh cool, it's fast,
it looks good, whatever. No head ress that was the
fow aaddress. No collapsible steering columns, no seatbelts like, all
of that stuff was mandated in nineteen sixty seven. Then
all of a sudden in the eighties, safety became something
(07:32):
that a manufacturer could market. So they Volvo they they're
a manufacturer that that really invented safety marketing, and then
Mercedes did it, and then SUPERU did it, and they
all realized, like, the average person who buys our car
is not an enthusiast. They're a mom or a dad
(07:53):
who's carting their kids around and they want to keep
them as safe as possible. So if a manufacturer can
then and say, hey, look our car performs better and
crash tests than card B and C does, that's a
that's absolutely something people are interested in.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
But do you think they would be interested in cars
that could not crash and intersections that would not allow
you to go through if there are a car coming
things like that? And speed limit your car simply can't
go faster than speed speed limit. They can up the
speed limits right like now it's sixty five, you go
seventy four, right, just make it seventy five? Car just
(08:32):
won't go any faster than that? What about that?
Speaker 4 (08:34):
So there have so I think the the in let's
get you right, Let's get the answer to that.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
After this got it all right, let's take a break
here on WZ.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Night Side with Danny and Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
That's right, Bradley Jay and for Dan tonight, this says
night Side, we're with Craig Fitzgerald. He's our car guy.
And I was asking Craig about safety and whether people
really cared about safety, whether it's kind of just theater, right,
I don't you know, I feel they don't really care
about safety. It would be safer to have automated enforcement
(09:15):
of traffic laws, but nobody's I don't think anybody's interested
in that. As a matter of fact, I might bring
that up as a topic later on. I think I
have a way that people would like. But any address,
you were talking about Volvo safety, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
So what we were talking about the second part of
your question was about do we actually make it impossible
to run a red light?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Right?
Speaker 4 (09:40):
So, is there's a technology that would that exists that
would like a stock Chira. So part of this is
an infrastructure problem, which we know we're not going to
spend bazillions of dollars on infrastructure.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
We're just not going to do it.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
I mean, it's hard enough to get a bridge replaced,
let alone, you know, and who's going to be electrification
of the I.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Was going to be the first manufacturer.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
I can't go right, right, So so but there's there's
a lot of what's happening now is a lot of
what's called V to V, which is vehicle to vehicle communication.
So vehicles will be able to communicate with each other
and know where they are in an intersection and avoid
(10:22):
each other.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
So you eliminate the middle yes person, yes, right, your
car consensus a car that you can't see coming down
Oak Street.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
And you're starting to see that now with like, you know,
your car is modern enough that it has lane keeping
assists and also let you know when somebody's in the
blind spot next to you, so blind spot monitoring.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
GIST and my favorite thing, the fancy adapted cruise control
is the greatest, right, So all of those things, they're
kind of like the precursor to what exactly what you're
talking about. So I would.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
I'd be willing to bet that twenty twenty five years
from now, you're going to have exactly what you want,
which is, you know, you're not able to blow a
red light anymore.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
So. So the other thing is this vehicle to vehicle
communication and this vehicle to infrastructure communication, which is there's
a red light, that red light is communicating to the
cars that are coming up to the red light to
let them know it stopped and they will not be
able to go. You know.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
There there probably is some manual override for that, but
you'd need to stop first, you'd you know, So this
is theoretical at this point, but vehicle to infrastructure technology
is absolutely coming.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
So you could have a red light that made your
yes car stop. Yeah, that.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
With you know that that would start out by alerting
you with an audible and a visual alert and then would.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Stop the car, just like adaptive cruise control stops you correct. Correct.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
So that's all know in the books. Now that's all happening.
All right, Let's talk to Bob in Tewkesbury. Bob in Tewksbury,
kielieving Merry Christmas is happy Holidings to everybody.
Speaker 5 (12:11):
How's ever were doing out there.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Howat I'm having.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
A wonderful Christmas. I've been watching some basketball, but I
want to talk about public safety. There's a couple of
things I like to share with the public, and that
is that back in the nineteen eighties, my two cocks
cast a law Mad Mothers again drug driving. People should
wear their seatbelts and their chosen to keep the public safe.
(12:38):
Because I care about public safety, I never had a
driver's license. I've always taken public transportation. I went to
driving school when I was a young man in high school.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
But I.
Speaker 5 (12:51):
Didn't have the opportunity to have account because I always
rely on public transfer or taxis. They share more taxi
services for people. But there's another thing too. Make sure
you tell the public and the people to have smoke detectives.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
The Okay, thank you very much, Bob. I appreciate that
we're kind of talking about cars and us.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
But so the the point here is is, you know,
like in the eighties, I pay pretty close attention to
the number or the rate of highway deaths every year.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Right.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
So there's a really good list that comes from Nizza
that's on Wikipedia that'll show you the rate of highway
deaths every year from nineteen twenty four on.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
And as as his thing, his name was Bob Right.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
His point was, in the eighties we started paying attention
to this stuff. We passed stricter drunk driving laws. We
started to pass we had to do it twice here
in Massachusetts, a seatbelt law. And when we did, you
can see those that death rate start to plummet. So
we went from somewhere around five per hundred thousand or
(14:08):
sorry cer per trillion vehicle miles traveled, that's around five
deaths per and we're down now to like one point three.
We cut that number by five because we were we
got really serious about safety in this country.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
And what were the major changes.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Nineteen sixty seven was the most responsible before that drop.
Most responsible for that drop is a nineteen sixty seven
we we enacted federal motor vehicle safety standards, right, so
they were there were something like thirteen of them. That
was like, literally, the car has to have seatbelts in it,
it has to have a collapsible steering column, you have.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
To have headdress, right.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
And then from there we started getting seat belt laws,
We started doing really strict drunk driving enforcement, and you
and then once you got into the nineties, ABS air bags,
and then beyond that traction control and stability control. Those
(15:11):
things all together have just it's a precipitous drop since
the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Are there any numbers that compare the deaths per trillion
to the rate of traffic enforcement? Use? Traffic enforcement for
a number of reasons is significantly down. Correct in Massachusetts anyway,
And I was wondering if accidents start to edge up
(15:41):
when enforcement goes down.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
I haven't seen those two things put together. One thing
I will say is that one thing I was most
wrong about in the last decade or so was during
the pandemic, when highways for about six months were largely empty.
Traffic was way down, we were driving last I anticipated
(16:07):
that you were going to see a really significant drop
in highway deaths.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Didn't happen.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
And one of the reasons for that is because people
started driving a lot faster when there's no traffic on
the road. They were just wailing it and there was
no enforcement happening at that point. That that I was
surprising to see that we are our miles traveled for
that year dropped, and just highway deaths didn't at all.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I see enforcement in place on the highway in New
Hampshire but not Massachusetts. No, And I kind of I
like driving in New Hampshire. I like seeing the state
ee yeah on the road there.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Yeah, they're they're always, I know, they're always right after
the tollbooths and they're pulling people over like they're they
don't fool around there.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
I'ven't been on ninety three up there in a while.
I don't know what the enforcement's like there. I feel
like drivers and I'm not even going to start on scooters.
Actually I may start on them later, but automotive car
drivers seem to now know that there's no, there's not
a lot of enforcement. Oh there, let's say there's less enforcement.
(17:16):
And I was in an uber going from my house
to a fancy hotel for my birthday and it took
I don't know, almost an hour to go like three
miles up Boilston traffic in this city, and people are
(17:36):
blocking the box. The traffic cycles over and over and
no one would go, couldn't go, and and people got
out of their lane and it started to look like uh, saigone.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Or yeah, I don't know what's going on in this
city now where rush hour starts at two o'clock in
the afternoon.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
I don't know, it's it's brutal trying to get out
of here. Also, I try, I try to go to
New Hampshire early in the morning and yeah, beat the traffic.
And I don't really, but I am thunderstruck when I
see the traffic coming the other way at six am.
It's already there's a traffic jam from the Tobin t yep.
(18:21):
Pretty close. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
My wife imagine when she she comes into into town.
She works in government center, goes in there twice a week.
She leaves the house at five thirty in the morning.
I'd rather avoid the traffic.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
I'd rather live in town with some strange roommate. Yeah
than drive. Make that drive. Yeah, it's help us drive.
Justin will talk to you right after this break on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
You're on night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
That's right, this is Nightside with Dan Ray. Some of
you may be saying, that's not Dan Ray. Who is
that guy? Well, my name's Bradley J. And if you
want to know a little bit more about me, you
can just do Bradley J. J A y dot Orgus
B I a dally Why Jay dot o r g
our guest is Quig Fitzgerald. I call him the car
(19:12):
guy because that's really what he is. I could get
into what he does for you write for a See,
I should have just said, kick Fitzgerald, what's your job
in where I am A I'm a senior editor with
a with a company called DCI Marketing out in uh Mission, Milwaukee. Yeah,
and uh I write a lot for Subaru, I do
(19:36):
some work for Kia. I do some a bit for GM.
I used to be one of the editors at Haming's
Motor News. Contributed to the Globe for a long time. Yeah.
Also very funny. Well thanks, I follow you on LinkedIn. Yeah,
it seems to be where you hang. That's where I
hang mostly now.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
I tried to get off of the meta platforms and
you are, I guess one of the funniest people on there. Well. Thanks,
that's really nice to hear. I was a who posts.
So how do they find you? Just search Craig fitz
John Lincoln.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
Sure, Actually, you know you find you on there, You'll
find me because I'm connected to you.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
All right.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Now we're talking about what's new or what's what's going
to be new and out of motive area stuff stuff
for twenty six. Well, actually we've gone out before further
than twenty six here into one hundred years from now.
But we'll bring it back to that and get into
the new laws which will become effective this upcoming year.
(20:31):
But first we have Justin Justin and Marlborough.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Hi. Justin, Hi, Hi glady. I always enjoy you hosting
the show and you always have a nice guess. I
have two things I want to bring up about driving,
and this first one combines Christmas. The Massachusetts Tirewood Department
does a pretty good job and promoting drivers to not
(20:58):
drive drowsy. Yes, and I with society would do more
of an effort. And I commend society in chastising trunk driving.
But drowsy driving is almost is just as dangerous in
my opinion.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Definitely is, definitely is. And interestingly, as Bradley and I
were talking about this Hyundai Palisade that I'm driving in
a lot of you know, cars from the twenty twenty
six model year there these cars are now smart enough
to monitor whether or not you're paying attention.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Do they count your eyeblinks?
Speaker 4 (21:35):
They do, so they start to count your eyeblinks. They
start to count your how often your eyes wander and
whether they close, the length of the blinks, and it
will alert you with an audible warning and then a
flashing warning to say, hey man, it's time to.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Pull over and get some rest because you're you're starting
to fall aside. So that's sensitive. Do you think soon
they'll be able to tell if you're lying or not? Yeah?
And I would imagine. Well, I mean it's it's not
that much of a jump from a polygraph to that, right, right.
And if they can tell if you're lying or not,
the car can ask you before you start it if
you've been drinking, right, or if you're tired, right right? Okay?
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Yeah, So justin good point there, And yes, there is
technology to try to keep people more aware of their
their tiredness behind the behind the wheel.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
So you had two points. What was your I think
he had too. What was the other one?
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Yes, my other point is somewhat driving related, but I
miss it. But I understand society not wanting people to
do it. But when I went to high school, I
was in the family of eight children and it was
a three mile walk. My mom says, since you're walking,
you might as well hitchhike. We have a good chance
of getting a ride. And I enjoyed doing that. But
(22:51):
I can see driving nowadays it's not safe to pick
up hitchhikers. But yeah, I got the chance.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Is it really more dangerous or is it that everybody
knows when the bad things happen? Are people worse now?
Speaker 3 (23:05):
I don't think so. But I just like to play
a lot with society.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Honestly, much worse, much worse now, I you know, I
don't know, like and you know, I think the idea
of hitch hiking, uh really turned off a lot of people,
I think. And after so we went through this whole
period in the nineteen seventies and eighties with you know,
stranger danger and serial killers and all this kind of
(23:33):
stuff where it was like people were just looking for
this stuff behind every shadow, you.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Know, And I preceed h stranger danger. No, I didn't
learn that. I did for sure in the eighties growing up.
For sure, stranger danger. No, that was like it was
like you never take a ride with somebody you don't know,
like the well yeah exactly exactly, so you know, like
I wouldn't advocate anybody hitchhiking, but I have hitch before
(24:00):
in my past, and I have lived to tell the tale.
Would I pick up anybody at this point? No, I
would not, No way, because all they would have to
say is that you did something right right the chart,
which brings me to knowing all all of this the
only person. Probably back in the day it was much
(24:24):
more of an easy going thing so that but it's not. Now.
Everyone's so petrified that only a you know, dangerous person
would pick anybody up. The chances are getting picked up.
There may not be more dangerous people, but the chances
that of one of them is going to pick you up,
I think are greater because everyone else is too freaked
out to pick you up.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Well, you know, I've stopped to help people that that are,
you know, stuck beside the road right and even then,
like I want to I want to identify who I am.
I don't want any discomfort about you know, like I'm
not I'm here to help you. That's it, you know,
like I don't want anybody to feel about them. I
(25:04):
am taking advantage of No, not really, I mean, I'm
gonna tell him my name. I gotta tell him who
I am name. Yeah, sure, why not?
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Like, if I'm there to help somebody, I will do that.
I would. I'd give a fake name. You wouldn't even stop,
would you. I It depends on the situation. I drive
by and see if it looked like they were faking. Yeah,
I can't. I'm a sucker. A few Christmas as ago,
there's a Christmas Street place on Harvard Street by O'Brien's
the Bar, yep, and by a Modell Model hardware yep.
(25:35):
There's a guy giving me a SOB story. There's a
moment in the car and he's out there talking about, Oh,
I need to get money for getting back to Worcester,
my wife is et cetera, blah blah blah. And I
walked on for about twenty steps, and I, you know,
my Christian upbringing made me turn around and get the
(26:00):
guy twenty bucks right then and there. Not too long
after that, I told somebody about that, and I said, oh, yeah,
that guy, he's always out there.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
So yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
I mean, you keep you keep talking about society justin
why don't you give me a grade our society A B,
C or D or e F F. How would you
judge our society?
Speaker 3 (26:26):
I'd like to give them like an eighty two, eighty.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Two, that's like a that's like a B plus pretty good,
pretty good.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
And I want to leave you at the chuckle. So
I had a neighbor chastised me for hitshaking. She says,
I'm going to tell your mother, And I told her,
I said, who do you think came up with this idea?
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah, I don't think anybody's all right, justin thank you, thanks,
I appreciate it. Yeah, I don't think anybody's mom is
giving him advice to hike. Now, you know what, I
love that he gave such a very very careful and
eighty two. He could have said abc D exactly. He
could have rounded it off to eighty eighty two, not
(27:14):
eighty three, not eighty one. He ran maybe he checked
with Chad GPT, could have or something. Who's running a survey. Okay,
you know we still have to get to the new laws.
So let's start that. After this break on WBZ, it's.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Night Side with Dan Ray on wb Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
It is Nightside Bradley Jay for Dan Ray against is
Craig Fitzgerald. And now we're gonna finally after having a
lot of farm get into some upcoming driving rules laws
for this next year. Now does this for the state
or is it? Are there any local ordinances?
Speaker 4 (27:56):
So so what I did was take a look at
all of the new laws pertaining to driving in the
six New England.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
That's beautiful.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
So you know, this is the time when you know
there's a lot of you know, ballot initiatives and stuff
that you can talk about and then you kick in
at the first of the year.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
And and the thing is it surprises people every year.
It's like, oh, I didn't know this.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
So in Massa choose it's really the only big one
is Massachusetts was one of the few states that required
rental car companies to ensure their own vehicles. Right, so
if you rented a car from enterprise and you chose
not to take the insurance and you've got an accident,
(28:38):
they were going to eat the cost of that.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
At the end of the day. They would come after you,
they'd try to come after you, but at the end
of the day they were going to eat the cost
of that. In twenty twenty six, now the primary insurance
holder when you rent a car is going to be you.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
It's going to be the renter. So the companies off
the hook, right, the company is a bit of the hook.
Now the was so so it's this way in most states.
It's like, we're one of ten states that didn't do
it that way, you know, And it makes sense. You're
responsible for the car, you're renting the car, you're but
but what happened.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
The argument was that.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
Rentals in Massachusetts were more expensive than they were another.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
It's they're going to pass the savings onto us. They
are not. They are not. Did never never, any company
ever never passed the savings on They're never going to
pass the savings onto you. You're never going to go
in there done it. And so it was the lobby,
insurance lobby, that's well, it was a rental car lobby.
That was you know, whoever that is, I don't know,
(29:43):
you know that they got a hold of somebody and said, hey, look,
you know we do this in forty other states. Why
are you the exception?
Speaker 4 (29:49):
Because we want to be, because we want to be
because that's why the right and at the end of
the day, you know, as a as a consumer, that
is protection for you. Yes, all right, you know, if
I chose not to get the insurance and I crashed
into you know, or somebody rear ended me.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
It's not my fault. Why should I be responsible for that?
Speaker 4 (30:12):
Even if I didn't take the insurance, now you're gonna
be Now that's gonna go to your vehicle insurance as
primary coverage. So you know, I understand it to a degree,
but I also don't think it's a consumer protection at all.
I think we're a little bit worse off you.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Oh would I would say, yes, Now, what do we
do to protect ourselves? We just got to make sure
that we are I have some special level of insurance, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
My insurance. You know, you got to check with your
insurance company. You just got to make sure that your coverage,
you know, will transfer to a to a rental car,
you know, which.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
It always does.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
And then you know things like where else do I
have insurance my rental car or my credit card company
provide level?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
They say that, well, they do.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Anyone ever really been covered? They will anything, They will
cover you. But the problem is that and you know,
I worked at enterprise for a long time when I
was in college, and what we used to tell people is, yes,
your car insurance will cover you. Yes, your AARP or
triple A will cover you. However, we're coming after you first,
and you're gonna have to pay for the damages and
(31:24):
then you go after you must have been a heck
of a salesman, right, I mean the way it is,
that is how it works, right, So we're gonna come
after you if you don't take the lost damage waiver
or whatever it is, the minimum coverage.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
You know, that is the case that they're gonna. They're
gonna come after you.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
They're gonna present you with a bill that says this
is twenty thousand dollars worth of damage, whether it was
your fault or not, and you're gonna have to go
after your insurance company.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
When you read the carge and you take photos of
it before you're I don't, and I'm sure I should.
I thought you would say that I was being no paranoid. No,
I think you're right.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
And I'll tell you where it is especially important is
on wheels because every wheel is curbed like everybody runs
in north curve with something. So it's important to actually
walk around the car when you pick it up, see
if there's any damage on it and report it and.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Do a video and if there's some something inside that's
out of whack, take a picture of it or sure,
or go to it and say give me another car. Yep, yep.
So that's the only big thing in Massachusetts this year,
and in New Hampshire the big thing is that they're
no longer going to do safety inspections after the first
of the year, which is huge, and that kicks in
(32:43):
on January first.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Yes, so we've talked about that and you and I,
and it was interesting to hear from the listeners that
most people thought that that was a bad idea.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
You know, we can ask that question again right now, Yes,
six ten thirty. Would you like to see Massachusetts adopt
the New Hampshire way of doing things and not have
to have an annual an annual inspection or wherever you
are doesn't have to be Massachusetts. Would you like to
see your state be free of the mandatory inspection rule?
Speaker 4 (33:18):
So interestingly, in New Hampshire, I think the thought was, well,
we're going to be saving fifty dollars a year or
thirty five dollars a year or whatever not having to
do these inspections. And simultaneously what happened was they increase
every transaction that you make at you know, when you
go to register car, when you go to get a
(33:39):
driver's license, when you go to get a title, like
all of those fees increased. So the state's going to
pull in an additional projected thirty one and a half
million dollars from from fees rather than an actual safety
You know, those New Hampshire numbers, the future New Hampshire
numbers regarding how many people get the inspections anyway, well
(34:00):
say a little bit.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
About how much people care or do not care about safety?
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Right right?
Speaker 4 (34:05):
So I remember back in the eighties Rhode Island, eighties,
early nineties, Rhode Island didn't have a safety inspection or
it was like this weird like voluntary safety inspection program,
and every car down there looked like it was out
of a Doctor Seuss book, you know, like it was
like what is going on to cars with busted windshields
(34:25):
and you know, wheels falling off and fenders falling off
and everything. I don't know if that's going to happen
in New Hampshire, but it'd be interesting to see because
it'll be the only state in New England that doesn't
have a safety inspection.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
So what is likely to go wrong if you don't
inspect your cars, tires not rusting it. We used to
be rust. Rust used to be a big thing. Rust
will be a big thing still. Really, I thought there
was better metal, more plastic on cars.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
There is more plastic, but things still rust and it's
it's always a problem, so you know, And what it
affects mostly is trucks and cars from the mid two
thousands or early two thousands that are still out driving
on the road that now have no rocker panels, no
indo fenders, no you know, they're rusted out completely.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
So if you're side view America's knocked off, you don't
have to there's no you know, you could that could
be a that could be a primary reason for a
state trooper to pull you over or a town cop
to pull you over. But the safety inspection isn't going
to catch it. So no emissions, no ball, tire inspection,
(35:36):
no no lights, nothing. Do you think people will let
their tires get really bald? Yes? I know they will.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
They do now when you like if when you do
inspections here in this state, and I've you know, worked
at a shop that does inspections, half of the cars
coming in knowing full well that they're going to get
picked up at Bald Tires.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
I don't know what happened to me as a child,
but I really hate ball tires. Man. As you know,
I will just friend picks me up. I'm not testing
them out or anything, but I just I will randomly
stick my finger in the tread when I'm getting in
the car, not to see if it's safe. I just
love one and I love to tread, so I bald tread.
And if they have good tread, no, I'll get in
(36:17):
the car and say nice tread.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
Bald tires and tires from brands that I have never
heard of before. That throws me off. So I was
actually I was looking at a truck this week. I
was looking at eighty two uh Ford F one fifty
that I want to buy, and it had and it's
a brand new tires, and I looked at the tires.
I was like, I have never heard of this company before.
I have no idea where they're from. I don't know
(36:40):
if these things are any good or not. So that's like,
that's a reason not to buy that truck.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Remember Retreads, Yes, when did they go in nineteen sixty seven?
Speaker 3 (36:51):
That? No?
Speaker 4 (36:51):
I remember Retreads? I mean, you can still get retread out,
and they're sore for heavy trucks like and which is
iron because they should not be driving around with retreads.
But yes, you can, you can still get retreads on.
But what happened was it was the shift from biased
ply tires to radials that really made you know, retreads kind.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Of not a thing.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
You know.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
When I was a younger man, I had an incident
on Route ninety three involving a retread. It was, you know,
it's pretty high speed limit up there. Yeah, seventy five
going by Tilton and starting to go up this big
long hell pass just past Tilton and right front pal, Yeah,
and I'm dragging me right into the right I was
(37:37):
pretty sure that's an eye opener. Sure it really is.
I had two tires in the span of two days
blow out on me like that. All right, Well, we're
gonna keep Craig for another hour because we haven't even
come close to getting all the information that he has
to offer. So we'll do that. The number here six, one, seven, two, five, four,
(37:58):
ten thirty. This is nice side would ray Dan's off tonight.
I'm Bradley J. Filling in for Dan, and I mentioned
it earlier and I realized some of you, many of
you may not know anything about me, So if you
want a little background, visit my website bradleyja dot org,
b r A d l E y jy dot O
r G. All right, and again love to have you
(38:21):
join us. We're here to sort of talk about cars,
but mostly to have fun and and entertain each other.
Six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty is w
b zy
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