Photo: iStockphoto

With the weather heating up, you're probably spending more time in the great outdoors than in the car. Or rather, you may be driving to the best parts of the great outdoors and leaving your car unattended for hours at a time. And because warm weather also brings a rise in car-related crime, you may come back to your car, happy and sunburned, and find that someone has broken into your vehicle.

There's no sure-fire way to avoid having your car broken into and most car crime avoidance "tips" are just common sense. Don't leave valuables out in the open. Don't leave the doors unlocked. Choose to drive a vehicle so decrepit that thieves will simply mock it and move on (this is my father's strategy).

Even if you don't leave valuables in plain sight, though, your car may still be a gold mine for thieves. According to this article in the Globe and Mail, sometimes thieves don't care about taking your iPod - they really just want your vehicle information.

Our Edmonton refinery is once again producing regular volume of fuel.  During a routine turnaround inspection additional work was identified. As a result of this key gasoline production units that were expected to continue to operate throughout the turnaround were taken out of service causing a temporary reduction of gasoline supply. 

The turnaround and additional work has been completed safely and successfully.  There is no longer any impact to our retail sites in Alberta and all sites previously affected by reduced supply have been replenished and are fully operational.

We remain committed to providing a positive guest experience and thank our customers for their patience through this reduction in supply.

Further to our recent post about speed limits in Canada, we came across this infographic about the dangers of speeding and how avoiding speeding can make things safer for you...and your wallet.

While it is based on US statistics, it still contains a lot of interesting information on how speeding affects us all on the road!

Source: Chucker & Reibach

For a more Canadian view on how speeding and other driving behaviours impact traffic accidents, check out Transport Canada's Statistics and Data page.

- Rose R.

As we wrote recently, we are currently experiencing a reduction in gasoline inventory in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Although the work at the Edmonton refinery is not yet complete, we have successfully sourced additional gasoline through our supply network and have delivered product to Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Supply to retail sites in those provinces will no longer be affected by the fuel shortage.

We continue efforts to source product for Alberta and are working hard to limit the impact to customers.

We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused and will provide updates as they become available.

Photo: iStockphoto

The older my dog gets, the longer is takes for us to cross the street in front of my house. We live in a residential area, but cars just whip along that street like it's the straightaway at the Indy 500, unencumbered by stop signs. I'm not the only neighbourhood resident who's had to leap out of the way of an aggressive driver who couldn't be bothered to slow down.

This morning's near-death experience got me thinking about speed limits - specifically how are speed limits arrived at?

How is the speed limit determined?

Speed limits are determined by traffic engineers, who take several factors into account, such as:

• The location of the road - residential area? Commercial district? Close to major intersections that require a sudden stop?
• The characteristics of the road itself - is it curvy or straight? Flat or hilly?
• If there are traffic signals or stop signs in the area and how they affect the flow of traffic.
• The history of the road - is there a high rate of traffic accidents in the area?
• How busy the road is.
• How far ahead a driver is able see on a clear day.