The good oil: BMW 7 series to stop 'Homer Simpson syndrome'

BMW's stylish new 7- Series. Photo / Supplied

The new BMW 7-Series has a lane departure alarm system, where the steering wheel vibrates to warn you of a car in your blind spot. It jumped into action on Auckland's southern motorway when we got out of the way of the woman in an old Ford Falcon abruptly crossing three lanes - all the while steering with her right arm and holding a cellphone to her right ear with her left arm. American author Joseph T Hallinan calls such behaviour the "Homer Simpson Syndrome".

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Celebrated English cartoonist Gerald Scarfe has decorated a car to help raise money for teenagers who have cancer. The Citroen C4 features logos of London soccer club Arsenal, caricatures of its players and its manager Arsene Wenger. The car will be raffled on behalf of Britain's Teenage Cancer Trust. New Zealanders have been doing all sorts of things this week to raise money to fight cancer. This column made a point through the 90s and early 2000s of highlighting the annual Child Cancer Foundation fundraiser at Pukekohe race track with the Porsche Club of NZ. It worked thus: $520 bought you a run in Owen Evans' Le Mans car, $250 put you beside Ray Williams in his race Porsche, $140 got you in a street-legal 911, $70 saw you in an older model and for $40 you got one of the slower Porsches. From memory, the best year raised almost $35,000. Then OSH stuck its nose in and that was the end of that.

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First Germany, then Britain, now Australia. Motorists across the ditch could be offered money to scrap their older cars in favour of newer, more fuel-efficient models. The scheme is one of a number of ideas being looked at to stimulate the Australian car market. Supporters say it would also reduce the country's carbon footprint and improve road safety. Germany introduced it a few months ago, offering cash incentives to buyers who trade in cars older than nine years. It is one reason sales of new cars in Germany are up 21 per cent this year, in spite of the economic downturn.

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The wealthy Aucklander who sold his vintage cars and motorcycles and moved to Australia last year has read online about how Maori Party MP Hone Harawira invited to Parliament the two men accused of assaulting Prime Minister John Key on Waitangi Day. He emails from Melbourne. "I say again what I said last year: 'The vulgar people in Parliament have moved New Zealand away from its storied historic roots into a lawless, middle-Pacific no-man's land, where tribal rivalry corrupts legislation and short utterances studded with four-letter words dominate the language. There's an alarming new ignorance in New Zealand'." Harawira is the men's uncle.

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Audi and Toyota have taken over from General Motors as automotive sponsors for the New York Yankees baseball team. The German and Japanese carmakers will be on hand for the opening next month of the new $3 billion Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Audi has a three-year deal, which comes with an executive suite upstairs and a vehicle showroom downstairs, in a new part of the stadium called the Babe Ruth Plaza. Toyota hasn't provided details of its deal. Outgoing GM said: "Chevy remains the official vehicle of Major League Baseball. However, some team agreements will end as we manage through the current business and economic challenges and look to reduce costs during this difficult time."

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Kathleen Cherry, 53, is a phlebotomist (someone who withdraws fluid from veins) working with the sheriff's office in Carson City, Nevada. She was driving to the prison to do a blood test on a drink-driving suspect when she was stopped by police - and arrested for drink-driving.

A "mannerspielplatz", or men's playground, near Kassel in Germany, is offering blokes the chance to get in touch with their "inner ditchdigger". For about $500 a day "testosterone-fuelled office workers" can frolic on bulldozers, backhoes, front-end loaders, jackhammers and various other big, loud vehicles, says a playground advertisement. "We fulfil men's dreams," says the owner.

alastair.sloane@nzherald.co.nz