title: Daytime running lamp

text: DRL power consumption varies widely depending on the implementation. Current production DRL systems consume from 5 watts (dedicated LED system) to over 200 W (headlamps and all parking, tail, and marker lights on). International regulators, primarily in Europe, are working to balance the potential safety benefit offered by DRL with the increased fuel consumption due to their use. Because the power to run the DRLs must be produced by the engine, which in turn requires burning additional fuel, high-power DRL systems increase CO emissions sufficiently to affect a country's compliance with the Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gas emissions. For that reason, low-power solutions are being encouraged and headlamp-based systems are not allowed after DRLs became mandatory in Europe at the beginning of 2011. LEDs and low-power, high-efficacy, long-life light bulbs produce appropriate amounts of light for an effective DRL without significantly increasing fuel consumption or emissions. Fuel consumption reductions of up to 0.5 mpg may be found when comparing a 55 W DRL system to a 200 W DRL system. In 2006, the UK's Department of Transport also found significant reductions in emissions and fuel consumption when comparing a 42 W DRL system to a 160 W full headlight DRL systems. DRL fuel consumption can be reduced to insignificant levels by the use of 8 to 20 W DRL systems based on LEDs or high-efficacy filament bulbs.


title: Daytime running lamp

text: European Union Directive 2008/89/EC required all passenger cars and small delivery vans first type approved on or after 7 February 2011 in the EU to come equipped with daytime running lights. European Union Directive 2008/89/EC ended validity on 31 October 2014, implicitly repealed by the replacement Regulation (EC) No 661/2009. The mandate was extended to trucks and buses in August 2012. Functional piggybacking, such as operating the headlamps or front turn signals or fog lamps as DRLs, is not permitted; the EU Directive requires functionally specific daytime running lamps compliant with ECE Regulation 87 and mounted to the vehicle in accordance with ECE Regulation 48. DRLs compliant with R87 emit white light on an axis of between 400 and 1,200 candela with an apparent surface of 25 cm to 200 cm with an additional requirement of between 1 and 1,200 candela in a defined field.


title: Daytime running lamp

text: In the past, Germany, Spain, France and other European countries have encouraged or required daytime use of low beam headlamps on certain roads at certain times of year; Ireland encourages the use of low beam headlights during the winter, Italy, Hungary and Romania require daytime running lamps outside populated areas, and Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia require the use of full or reduced voltage low beam headlights at all times. Whether this requirement is met by the DRLs required on new cars since February 2011 is a matter of individual countries' laws.


title: Daytime running lamp

text: DRLs were first mandated in the Nordic countries, where ambient light levels in the winter are generally low even during the day. Sweden was the first country to require widespread DRLs in 1977. At the time, the function was known as "varselljus" ("perception light" or "notice light"). The initial regulations in these countries favored devices incorporating 21 W signal bulbs identical to those used in brake lamps and turn signals, producing yellow or white light of approximately 400 to 600 cd on a axis, mounted at the outer left and right edges of the front of the vehicle. Finland adopted a daytime-light requirement in 1972 on rural roads in wintertime, and in 1982 on rural roads in summertime and 1997 on all roads all year long; Norway in 1985, Iceland in 1988, and Denmark in 1990. To increase manufacturer flexibility in complying with the requirement for DRLs, the daytime illumination of low beam headlights was added as an optional implementation. Given the headlamp specifications in use in those countries, such an implementation would produce approximately 450 cd axially.


title: Daytime running lamp

text: UK regulations briefly required vehicles first used on or after 1 April 1987 to be equipped with a "dim-dip" device


title: Daytime running lamp

text: or functionally dedicated daytime running lamps, except those vehicles type-approved to ECE Regulation 48 regarding installation of lighting equipment—this exception was made because ECE R48 did not require dim-dip or daytime running lights, and while countries signatory to the ECE Regulations are permitted to maintain their own national regulations as an option to the ECE regulations, they are not permitted to bar vehicles approved under the ECE regulations. The dim-dip system operated the low beam headlamps (called "dipped beam" in the UK) at between 10% and 20% of normal low beam intensity. The running lamps permitted as an alternative to dim-dip were required to emit at least 200 cd straight ahead, and no more than 800 cd in any direction. In practice, most vehicles were equipped with the dim-dip option rather than the running lamps.


title: Daytime running lamp

text: The dim-dip lights were not intended for use as daytime running lights. Rather, they operated when the engine was running and the driver switched on the front position (parking) lamps. Dim-dip was intended to provide a nighttime "town beam" with intensity between that of the parking lamps commonly used at the time by British drivers in city traffic after dark, and low beam headlamps; the former were considered insufficiently intense to provide improved conspicuity in conditions requiring it, while the latter were considered too glaring for safe use in built-up areas. The UK was the only country to require such dim-dip systems, though vehicles so equipped were sold in other Commonwealth countries with left-hand traffic.


title: Daytime running lamp

text: In 1988, the European Commission successfully prosecuted the UK government in the European Court of Justice, arguing that the UK requirement for dim-dip was illegal under EC directives prohibiting member states from enacting vehicle lighting requirements not contained in pan-European EC directives. As a result, the UK requirement for dim-dip was quashed. Nevertheless, dim-dip systems remain permitted, and while such systems are not presently as common as they once were, dim-dip functionality was fitted on many new cars (such as the Volkswagen Polo) well into the 1990s.


title: Daytime running lamp

text: Canada Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108 requires DRLs on all new vehicles made or imported after January 1, 1990. Canada's proposed DRL regulation was essentially similar to regulations in place in Scandinavia, with an axial luminous intensity limit of 1,500 cd, but automakers claimed it was too expensive to add a new front lighting device, and would increase warranty costs (due to increased bulb replacements) to run the low beams. After a regulatory battle, the standard was rewritten to permit the use of reduced-voltage high beam headlamps producing up to 7,000 axial candela, as well as permitting any light color from white to amber or selective yellow. These changes to the regulation permitted automakers to implement a less costly DRL, such as by connecting the high beam filaments in series to supply each filament with half its rated voltage, or by burning the front turn signals full-time except when they are actually flashing as turn indicators.


title: Daytime running lamp

text: Shortly after Canada mandated DRLs, General Motors, interested in reducing the build variations of cars for the North American market, petitioned the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 1990 to permit (but not require) US vehicles to be equipped with DRLs like those in Canada. NHTSA objected on grounds of the potential for high-intensity DRLs to cause problems, such as glare and turn signal masking, and issued a proposed rule in 1991 that specified a maximum intensity of 2,600 cd. Industry and safety watchdogs reacted to the proposed rule, and eventually the glare objections were set aside and most of the same types of DRLs allowed in Canada were permitted but not required effective with the 1995 model year. General Motors immediately equipped most (and, in following years, all) of its vehicles with DRLs beginning with the Chevrolet Corsica. Saab, Volkswagen, Volvo, Suzuki and Subaru gradually introduced DRLs in the U.S. market beginning in 1995. In recent years, Lexus has installed high-beam or turn signal based DRLs on US models. Some Toyota models come with DRLs as standard or optional equipment, and with a driver-controllable on and off switch. Starting in the 2006 model year, Honda began equipping their U.S. models with DRLs, mostly by reduced-intensity operation of the high beam headlamps.


title: Daytime running lamp

text: Public reaction to DRLs, generally neutral to positive in Canada, is decidedly mixed in the U.S. Thousands of complaints regarding glare from DRLs were lodged with the DOT shortly after DRLs were permitted on cars, and there was also concern that headlamp-based DRLs reduce the conspicuity of motorcycles, and that DRLs based on front turn signals introduce ambiguity into the turn signal system. In 1997, in response to these complaints and after measuring actual DRL intensity well above the 7,000 cd limit on vehicles in use, DOT proposed changes to the DRL specification that would have capped axial intensity at 1,500 cd, a level equivalent to the European 1,200 cd and identical to the initially proposed Canadian limit. During the open comment period, a volume of public comments were received by NHTSA in support of lowering the intensity or advocating the complete elimination of DRLs from U.S. roads. Automaker sentiment generally ran along consistent lines, with European automakers experienced at complying with European DRL requirements voicing no objection to the proposal, and North American automakers repeating the same objections they raised in response to Canada's initial 1,500-cd proposal. The NHTSA proposal for DRL intensity reduction was rescinded in 2004, pending agency review and decision on a petition filed in 2001 by General Motors, seeking to have NHTSA mandate DRLs on all U.S. vehicles. The GM petition was denied by the NHTSA in 2009, on grounds of severe methodological and analytical flaws in the studies and data provided by GM as evidence for a safety benefit to DRLs. In denying the petition, the NHTSA said:


title: Daytime running lamp

text: Several states on the Eastern seaboard, the Southeast, Gulf Coast and California have laws that require headlights to be switched on when windshield wipers are in use. DRLs are not considered headlights in most vehicle codes and so DRLs may not meet the letter of these laws in use.


title: Daytime running lamp

text: DRLs are permitted but not required in Australia, though the Australian College of Road Safety, an Australian automotive safety group, advocates making DRLs mandatory rather than optional.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The Toronto Police Service (TPS) is a municipal police force in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the primary agency responsible for providing law enforcement and policing services in Toronto. Established in 1834, it was the first local police service created in North America and is one of the oldest police services in the English-speaking world.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: It is the largest municipal police service in Canada, and third largest police force in Canada after the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). With a 2021 budget of $1.1 billion, the Toronto Police Service ranks as the second largest expense of the City of Toronto's annual operating budget, after the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).


title: Toronto Police Service

text: From 1834 to 1859, the Toronto Police was a corrupt and notoriously political force, with its constables loyal to the local aldermen who personally appointed police officers in their own wards for the duration of their incumbency. The London Metropolitan Police (1829) was the first modern municipal police department, but the Toronto Police is older than the New York City Police Department (1845), and Boston Police Department (1839).


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The Toronto Police Service was founded in 1834 as Toronto Police Force or sometimes as Toronto Police Department, when the city of Toronto was first created from the town of York. Prior to that, local able-bodied male citizens were required to report for night duty as special constables for a fixed number of nights per year on pain of fine or imprisonment, in a system known as "watch and ward".


title: Toronto Police Service

text: In 1835, Toronto retained five full-time constables—a ratio of about one officer for every 1,850 citizens. Their daily pay was set at 5 shillings for day duty and 7 shillings, 6 pence, for night duty. In 1837, the constables’ annual pay was fixed at £75 per annum, a lucrative city position when compared to the mayor's annual pay of £250 at the time. Although constables were issued uniforms in 1837, one contemporary recalled that the Toronto Police was "without uniformity, except in one respect—they were uniformly slovenly." A provincial government report in 1841 described the Toronto Police as "formidable engines of oppression".


title: Toronto Police Service

text: By 1848, the Catholic population in Toronto rose to 25 percent. Toronto constables on numerous occasions suppressed opposition candidate meetings and took sides during bitter sectarian violence between Orange Order and Irish Catholic radical factions in the city.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: On the night of Thursday, 12 July 1855, S.B. Howes' "Star Troupe Menagerie & Circus" clowns, and "Hook and Ladder Firefighting Company" volunteers patronized the bordello of Mary Ann Armstrong on King Street near Jarvis street, a fight got started, with the firefighters retreating. The next day, Friday, 13 July 1855, a crowd gathered at the Fair Green, a grassy space on the waterfront where the Circus had pitched their tents (Now, south-east corner of Front & Berkeley), threw stones and insults, and demanded that a clown named Meyers be handed over. Circus wagons were burned, the fire bell was rung, yet when "Hook and Ladder Firefighting Company" arrived, they joined the riot. The militia later arrived, called in by the mayor, and diffused the riot. After public outrage at the police failure to prosecute, an inquiry and an election led to mass firings and selective rehirings in 1859.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The new force was removed from Toronto city council jurisdiction (except for the setting of the annual budget and manpower levels) and placed under the control of a provincially mandated board of police commissioners. Under its new chief, former infantry captain William Stratton Prince, standardized training, hiring practices and new strict rules of discipline and professional conduct were introduced. Today's Toronto Police Service directly traces its ethos, constitutional lineage and Police Commission regulatory structure to the 1859 reforms.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: In the 19th century, the Toronto Police mostly focused on the suppression of rebellion in the city—particularly during the Fenian threats of 1860 to 1870. The Toronto Police were probably Canada's first security intelligence agency when they established a network of spies and informants throughout Canada West in 1864 to combat US Army recruiting agents attempting to induce British Army soldiers stationed in Canada to desert to serve in the Union Army in the Civil War. The Toronto Police operatives later turned to spying on the activities of the Fenians and filed reports to the Chief Constable from as far as Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago and New York City. When in December 1864, the Canada West secret frontier police was established under Stipendiary Magistrate Gilbert McMicken, some of the Toronto Police agents were reassigned to this new agency.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: In 1863, Toronto police officers were also used as "Indian fighters" during the Manitoulin Island Incident, when some fifty natives armed with knives forced the fishery inspector William Gibbard and a fishery operation to withdraw from unceded tribal lands on Lake Huron. Thirteen armed Toronto police officers, along with constables from Barrie, were dispatched to Manitoulin Island to assist the government in retaking the fishery operation, but were forced back when the natives advanced now armed with rifles. The police withdrew but were later reinforced and eventually arrested the entire band, but not before William Gibbard was killed by unknown parties.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: In the 1870s, as the Fenian threat began to gradually wane and the Victorian moral reform movement gained momentum, Toronto police primarily functioned in the role of "urban missionaries" whose function it was to regulate unruly and immoral behaviour among the "lower classes". They were almost entirely focused on arresting drunks, prostitutes, disorderlies, and violators of Toronto's ultra-strict Sunday "blue law"


title: Toronto Police Service

text: In the days before public social services, the force functioned as a social services mega-agency. Prior the creation of the Toronto Humane Society in 1887 and the Children's Aid Society in 1891, the police oversaw animal and child welfare, including the enforcement of child support payments. They operated the city's ambulance service and acted as the board of health. Police stations at the time were designed with space for the housing of homeless, as no other public agency in Toronto dealt with this problem. Shortly before the Great Depression, in 1925, the Toronto Police housed 16,500 homeless people.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The Toronto Police regulated street-level business: cab drivers, street vendors, corner grocers, tradesmen, rag men, junk dealers, and laundry operators. Under public order provisions, the Toronto Police was responsible for the licensing and regulation of dance halls, pool halls, theatres, and later movie houses. It was responsible for censoring the content of not only theatrical performances and movies, but of all literature in the city ranging from books and magazines to posters and advertising.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The Toronto Police also suppressed labour movements which were perceived as anarchist threats. The establishment of the mounted unit is directly related to the four-month Toronto streetcar strike of 1886, when authorities called on the Governor General's Horse Guard Regiment to assist in suppressing the strike.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: As for serious criminal investigations, the Toronto Police frequently (but not always) contracted with private investigators from the Pinkerton's Detective Agency until the 20th century, when it developed its own internal investigation and intelligence capacity.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: During the 1930s and 1940s, the Toronto Police under Chief Constable Dennis "Deny" Draper, a retired brigadier general and former Conservative candidate, returned to its function as an agency to suppress political dissent. Its notorious "Red Squad" brutally dispersed demonstrations by labour unions and by unemployed and homeless people during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Suspicious of "foreigners", the police lobbied the city of Toronto to pass legislation banning public speeches in languages other than English, curtailing union organization among Toronto's vast immigrant populations working in sweat shops.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: After several scandals, including a call by Chief Draper to have reporters "shot" and his being arrested driving drunk, the city appointed in 1948 a new police chief from its own ranks for the first time in the department's history: John Chisholm, a very able senior police inspector. In 1955, the Metropolitan Toronto Board of Police Commissioners was formed in preparation for the amalgamation of the 13 police forces in the municipality, Metropolitan Toronto, into a unified police force with Chisholm as chief of the unified force. Unfortunately, Chisholm was not up to the politics of the Chief's office, especially in facing off with Fred "Big Daddy" Gardiner, who engineered almost single-handedly the formation of Metropolitan Toronto in the 1950s.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: On January 1, 1957, the Toronto Police merged with the other municipal forces in the metropolitan area to form the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force:


title: Toronto Police Service

text: With amalgamation, the force grew in size and complexity, and Chisholm found himself unable to manage the huge agency and its Byzantine politics. In 1958, after a number of conflicts with Gardiner and members of the newly expanded Metropolitan Toronto Board of Police Commissioners, Chief Chisholm drove to High Park on the city's west end, parked his car and committed suicide with his service revolver. Former staff superintendent Jack Webster, one of the officers who arrived at the scene of the chief's death and who would, upon his retirement in the 1990s, become the force historian at the Toronto Police Museum, would later write, "Suicide is a constant partner in every police car."


title: Toronto Police Service

text: In 1960, Lawrence "Larry" McLarty became the force's first black officer and paved the way regarding the hiring of minorities into the policing.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: In 1990, the Board of Police Commissioners was renamed as the "Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board", and, upon the creation of the amalgamated City of Toronto in 1998, it became the Toronto Police Services Board, administering the Toronto Police Service.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Today, the Toronto Police Service is responsible for overall local police service in Toronto and works with the other emergency services (Toronto Paramedic Services and Toronto Fire Services) and other police forces in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) including:


title: Toronto Police Service

text: For most of 2005, the police union and the Toronto Police Services Board (the civilian governing body) were involved in lengthy contract negotiations. The rank and file had been without a contract since the end of 2004, and conducted a work-to-rule campaign in the fall of 2005. The police force is an essential public service and are legally prohibited from striking. The Toronto Police Service launched their social media strategy on July 27, 2011, and "has the most active Twitter accounts listed under a single police force in Canada"


title: Toronto Police Service

text: (2020): Constable Peter Roberts was arrested and charged with obtaining sexual services for consideration from persons under 18 years of age.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: (2013): 18-year-old Sammy Yatim was shot and killed by Constable James Forcillo on the 505 Dundas streetcar after threatening other passengers and the police with a knife. On August 19, 2013, Forcillo was charged with second-degree murder. In January 2016, Forcillo was convicted of attempted murder. In January 2016, four Toronto Police officers were arrested and charged with nine counts of obstructing justice and eight counts of perjury.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: (2007): Toronto Police were involved in an international incident in which their members pepper-sprayed, tasered, and handcuffed members of the Chilean national soccer team in an attempt to keep control of crowds after their semi-final match in the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup. A police spokesman explained on CBC Radio on the programme "Here and Now" that police took action against individual members of the Chilean team when they "displayed aggressive behaviour" by vandalizing a bus and arguing with fans. The actions of the police were criticized by the TV and print media in Chile, and initially also in Canada. FIFA president Sepp Blatter later apologized to the Toronto mayor for the incident, and instigated disciplinary action against the officials and players of the Chilean team. In response to the recommendations of the coroner's inquest jury, former chief Bill Blair recommended that all plainclothes police officers be issued arm bands and raid jackets bearing the word "police" in an effort to increase their visibility in critical situations. Unmarked cars, which were already equipped with a plug-in police light, were to be supplied with additional emergency equipment, including a siren package. The proposals were phased in over three years beginning in 2008. Undercover officers also must wear, carry or have access to standard police use-of-force options such as pepper spray and batons.""


title: Toronto Police Service

text: (2004): Eight people were shot by Toronto Police, six of them fatally. SIU investigations deemed all case actions justified.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: (2005): The police service was faced with a spike in shootings across Toronto and increased concern among residents. Police Chief William Blair and Mayor David Miller asked for additional resources and asked for diligence from residents to contend with this issue. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty promised to work with Toronto to fight crime.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: (1992): Tension between Toronto Police and the city's black community reached its peak. After the fourth police killing of a young black man in as many years, a peaceful protest on Yonge Street later turned into a riot. Thirty people were arrested and 37 police officers were injured in the riot. A mandatory coroner's inquest took place into the police killing of 17-year-old Jeffrey Reodica. Although accounts differ, it is generally accepted that Reodica was part of a group of Filipino teenagers pursuing a group of white teenagers on May 21, 2004, in Scarborough, following altercations between the two groups. Plainclothes Toronto police officer Det.-Const. Dan Belanger and his partner Det. Allen Love were in the process of arresting Reodica when Reodica was shot three times by the officers. The teen died in hospital three days later. Belanger and Love, were eventually cleared by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) after investigating the matter found that there were no reasonable grounds to lay any charges. According to the SIU, Reodica brandished a knife at officers. The knife was reportedly recovered at the scene.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: (1988): Toronto Police were under scrutiny for the fatal shooting of schizophrenic Lester Donaldson. The shooting was the first of eight over the next four years, and the latest in series of shootings since the late 1970s, in which mostly unarmed black Canadians were victims. Three days after his death, the Black Action Defence Committee, a group of local activists, was formed. The group made headlines when they introduced the issue of race in the coroner's inquest into Donaldson's killing. In 1990, Toronto police officer David Deviney was charged with manslaughter in connection with the killing and was later acquitted.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The chief of police is the highest-ranking officer of the Toronto Police Service. The position was known as "high constable" until 1859 and then as "chief constable" until 1957, when the Toronto Police Department was amalgamated with 12 other Toronto-area forces to form the Metropolitan Toronto Police. Most chiefs have been chosen amongst the ranks of the Toronto force and promoted or appointed from the ranks of deputy chiefs; Fantino was hired from the York Regional Police, but he had been a career officer with Toronto Police prior, leaving as acting staff superintendent.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Metropolitan Toronto Police (1957–1995), Metropolitan Toronto Police Service (1995–1998), Toronto Police Service (1998–present)


title: Toronto Police Service

text: As an agency of the City of Toronto, the annual funding level is established by a vote of the Toronto City Council in favour of the year's proposed budget. In 2022, TPS requested a budget of $1.1 billion.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The actions of the Toronto Police are examined by the Special Investigations Unit, a civilian agency responsible for investigating circumstances involving police and civilians that have resulted in a death, serious injury, or allegations of sexual assault. The SIU is dedicated to maintaining one law, ensuring equal justice before the law among both the police and the public. They assure that the criminal law is applied appropriately to police conduct, as determined through independent investigations, increasing public confidence in the police services. Complaints involving police conduct that do not result in a serious injury or death must be referred to the appropriate police service or to another oversight agency, such as the Ontario Civilian Commission.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Toronto Police Headquarters is located at 40 College Street, near Bay Street in downtown Toronto. The former headquarters at Jarvis Street was turned into a museum (which was subsequently re-located to the current headquarters). The present site was once home to the Toronto YMCA. The sign over the main entrance still reads "Metropolitan Toronto Police Headquarters" and displays the emblem of Metropolitan Toronto (which was dissolved in 1998). Since 2007, the sign also displays the current emblem of the Toronto Police Service.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The Toronto Police Service has approximately 5,400 uniformed officers/under cover officers and 2,500 civilian employees. Its officers are among the best paid in Canada. In October 2008, the Toronto Police Service was named one of Greater Toronto's Top Employers by Mediacorp Canada Inc., which was announced by the Toronto Star newspaper.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The Toronto Police Service is divided into two field areas and 17 divisions (police stations or precincts):


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Encompasses the original city of Toronto, the former cities of York and East York and some southern portions of the former City of North York.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The emergency task force is the tactical unit of the Toronto Police Service. It is mandated to deal with high-risk situations like gun calls, hostage takings, barricaded persons, emotionally disturbed persons, high risk arrests and warrant services, and protection details. The unit was created in 1965. An earlier non-SWAT riot and emergency squad emerged in 1961.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Part of its role is now undertaken by the emergency task force, public safety and emergency management and the mounted unit.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The Toronto Police Service is one of several police forces along Lake Ontario with a marine unit. Prior to the 1980s, the port area had their own police force, Toronto Harbour Police/Port of Toronto Police which merged into the Metropolitan Police Force's marine unit. The unit's has the largest jurisdictional area of any unit in the Toronto Police Service, policing over of open water, from the Etobicoke Creek to the Rouge River in the west and east respectively, and south to the water boundaries of Niagara Region and the United States.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The Toronto Police Service has a fleet of 24 boats based either at the main station of the unit, at 259 Queens Quay West in Harbourfront; or at one of its three substations, at Humber Bay, the Scarborough Bluffs, and the Toronto Islands.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The Toronto Police Service Marine Unit works in conjunction with other municipal and regional police units that operate marine units in Lake Ontario, including the Durham Regional Police, Halton Regional Police, Hamilton Police Service, Niagara Regional Police Service, and the Peel Regional Police. The Marine Unit also works in conjunction with the neighbouring York Regional Police, although their marine unit is based in Lake Simcoe. In addition to municipal/regional police services, the Toronto Police Service Marine Unit also works in conjunction with the Canadian Forces Search and Rescue Unit based in CFB Trenton, and the Toronto Search and Rescue volunteer service (which has ties to the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary).


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The horse unit was formed in 1886 to provide crowd control and is now stationed at the Horse Palace at the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE). The unit has been based at Casa Loma, Toronto Zoo, Sunnybrook Stables and at various division in Scarborough and North York. The unit has a strength of 27 horses and 40 officers.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Police horses Honest Ed and Spencer were invited to the inauguration of US President Barack Obama by Michigan's Multi-Jurisdictional Mounted Police Drill Team and Color Guard.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Three horses have been killed while on duty. They include Lancer, following a motor vehicle collision in 2002; Brigadier (born 1998 near Listowel, Ontario) after an intentional motor vehicle collision in 2006; and Royal Sun, following a torn leg ligament in 2012.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Parking enforcement on all roads and public property are the responsibility of the Toronto Police and work with Toronto Parking Authority. Parking enforcement officers are provincial offences officers able to issue parking tickets under part II of the "Provincial Offences Act". They do not carry any use of force items and are unarmed, but are issued Kevlar vests for safety. They are peace officers pursuant to section 15 of the "Police Services Act" for the purpose of enforcing municipal by-laws.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Their uniform consists of a blue shirt, black cargo pants with blue stripe, a black vest and a cap with blue stripe. Boots are similar to front line police officers. In winter months, parking enforcement officers have a blue jacket with reflective trim. Patches on the jackets and shirts are similar to those of the Toronto Police Service, but with a white background the blue wording "parking enforcement".


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Their vehicles have the same paint scheme as the older Toronto Police Service squad cars, but they are labelled with '"parking enforcement" and fleet numbers "PKE" (east) or "PKW" (west).


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The Toronto Police Service police dog unit was created in 1989 and is deployed to search for suspects, missing persons and other duties. The service has 17 general purpose dogs. There are four drug enforcement dogs and one explosives detector dog. The 21 officers and dogs are assigned to this unit and based at 44 Beechwood Drive in Toronto East York


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Toronto Police dogs that have died during their service, including Keno, a firearms detector, and Luke, a general service dog; both in 2011.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: As 400-series highways are owned by the province of Ontario, policing on 400-series highways within the city of Toronto (highways 401, 400, 427, 404) is the responsibility of the Ontario Provincial Police (though all Ontario police officers have province-wide jurisdiction).


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Toronto Police Traffic Services is responsible for patrolling on local roads and municipal expressways (W.R. Allen Road, Don Valley Parkway, F.G. Gardiner Expressway); traffic services has a "60" or "66 Division" (60xx or 66xx) designation on their cars.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The transit bureau commands 12 transit districts where TPS officer patrol on the Toronto Transit Commission vehicles and property. The bureau replaced the earlier Special Constable Services (c. 1997), Transit Patrol Unit (2009–2013), and non fare enforcement role of the TTC Special Constables. From 1987 to 1997, TTC staff enforced TTC bylaws and fare issues without a formal unit.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The Toronto Police Pipe Band was formed in 1912. The band was originally composed of serving police officers, however, membership is open to any person. Today, the Toronto Police Pipe Band organization comprises two professional bands in grades 1 and 2, and 3 juvenile bands in grades 3, 4, and 5 through its affiliate Ryan Russell Memorial Pipe Band. The bands compete in local and international pipe band competitions, and also play as representatives of the police force in community parades, and police ceremonies.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Toronto Police previously employed lifeguards, responsible for patrolling 11 beaches and 44 kilometres of shoreline during the summer months, who were assisted by the Toronto Police Service (including the marine unit), Toronto Paramedic Services and Toronto Fire Services.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: In 2017 as part of a modernization initiative, the Toronto Police Lifeguard Service was transferred to the Toronto Parks, Forestry & Recreation Division.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The morality department was formed in 1886, when then Mayor William Holmes Howland appointed ex-Royal Irish Constabulary officer David Archibald to head this special unit of the Toronto Police Service to deal specifically with "vice, sin, and crimes which heavily impacted women and children". Howland had just won Toronto's mayoral race that year by promising to make Toronto a beacon of morality for the world, even going so far as to give Toronto the moniker, "Toronto the Good". The department ran through the 1930s, and was seen as a forerunner to many social assistance programs, such as the Children's Aid Society. It was set up under a social purist pretext of policing people's everyday behaviours so that Toronto might live up to Howland's moniker. Among the offences, though not necessarily crimes, that morality officers policed were gambling, "blue laws" or "Sabbath laws", being an absentee father, drug dealing, interracial relationships, homosexuality, bootlegging and alcoholism, vagrancy, family abuse and prostitution. The people in power who wrote these laws, such as Howland, and created the morality department said that they were there to protect moral and good people from the evils of the city. However, when examining the direct implementation/enforcement of these laws, and the effects they had on civilian life, the larger purpose of the morality department was to prevent working-class people from socializing or coming together, and thereby to keep them in a generally less powerful position.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The roots of this social purity doctrine can be traced back to the belief in the good of British colonialism, ideas still holding strong in the late 19th century in Canada, as Canada's national identity was still strongly linked to British ideals. The assumption is that bad people behave objectively badly, and that these people need to made good by a sovereign government. This government does so by limiting the civilian population's freedoms and regulating their social interactions to ensure that people remain "moral and good", and thereby can make a new generation of "moral and good" people. Of course everyone would fall under these practices who was not seen to be morally, or socially, good, but women and people of colour were seen by the government as inherently lesser or more susceptible to temptation or sin, and so they were policed far more heavily than their white or male counterparts. The resulting system of social governing, was easily abused to keep a divide between classes wide, through methods like disproportionately enforcing the laws when the accused were of lower classes, making special exemptions for people who lived or served those who lived in the higher classes. And, once again, since women and people of colour were seen as inherently more susceptible to temptation, they were automatically made targets of the system's efforts to socially reform people.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The officers' methods often called for them to threaten fines or jail time rather than arrest all offenders, which made them popular among people as a social service. People knew that they probably would not be arrested or get the unwanted publicity that goes along with being arrested and going through the public courts. In this way these officers became regulators of the community. Ordinary people interacted with them and thereby came to trust them. As a result, these officers had many people willing to give them information on who might be a suspected drug dealer, prostitute, gambler or absentee father.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The primary focus of the anti-prostitution laws was to make prostitution unprofitable so that women would instead pursue legitimate ways to make money. In essence, the people who put these laws in place were attempting to save women from a life of prostitution. The legitimate forms of employment were few and far between; maid, secretary and factory worker were the only plentiful options, and each of those put women in a position where they were constantly subordinate to another. Prostitution had a much wider definition to the social purists of the time than it does now. For example, if a man bought a woman dinner and the woman then went home with him, that was considered prostitution. Thus, any women, and especially working-class women without social standing, who sought out men were persecuted, though not prosecuted. Seemingly innocuous behaviours, such as walking alone at night, might also get a woman arrested for prostitution.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The Sabbath laws (alternatively known as "blue laws") were a series of laws designed to prevent people from working on the Sabbath, commonly known as Sunday, to respect the Abrahamic God's day of rest. They, like most laws enforced by the morality department, disproportionately affected working-class people and favoured the upper class. One of the best examples of this was the fact that taxis used by the public to get around were not allowed to work on Sunday, but private chauffeurs of the wealthy were. Beyond preventing many forms of work, they also prevented people from doing certain leisure activities that could be interpreted as work. Similar to the taxi driver–chauffeur contradiction, ball games for children in public on Sundays but still allowing for games of golf at private clubs. Such contradictions led people to believe that these laws were put in place to prevent working-class people from consorting with each other, to keep them separate and easy to manage.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: For most of their operating time, the majority of their work was finding absentee fathers from Canada, the U.S. and Great Britain, and then coercing them into paying maintenance payments. These maintenance payments would go towards supporting their wives and children. This re-enforced a family structure where the father was a provider and the mother was unable to support herself or her family. As attitudes towards policing among the upper ranks moved away from social management and into crime and punishment in the 1920s, it came to be that the police and social activist groups alike agreed that this work was no longer a job for the police. In 1929, the newly established family court system took over the management of these payments.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Morality officer was one of the first roles within the police force, not including secretary, that women were allowed to fulfill. In the early 1910s, they were brought in under the idea that they would be better suited to deal with young women who had been acting immorally, and that they would themselves be a moralizing influence in the police service. Also, the existence of policewomen was an encouragement for women to come forward with assault charges against their abusive husbands. Women would trust that if they went to a police officer who was also female, then something would be more likely to get done. Yet, the majority of their duties included arresting and searching female suspects, and interviewing female suspects and victims. As well, rather than being on the beat in dangerous parts of town, they would be searching for people, though mostly women, acting immorally, particularly in places where men and women came together. They were never tasked the same duties as their male counterparts, and so were seen more as social workers within the police force than actual members of the force. Through the 1920s, feminists argued that these policewomen were taken on by police for show more than to be actual policewomen, and interest from the upper ranks in policewomen faded along with their interest in social management, since the upper ranks saw the two as being deeply connected. Few more women were taken on until after World War II, and those that were there gained little ground for women in the police force.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Adult crossing guards at various intersections and crosswalks were employed and paid by the Toronto Police Service, however, as part of a modernization initiative, the crossing guard program was transferred to the City of Toronto in 2017.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The rank insignia of the Toronto Police Service is similar to that used by police services elsewhere in Canada and in the United Kingdom, except that the usual "pips" are replaced by maple leaves. The St. Edward's Crown is found on insignia of staff sergeant, all superintendent ranks and all commanding officer ranks.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The Commanding Officers consist of the Chief of Police, Deputy Chiefs, Chief Information Officer, and Chief Administrative Officer. They head the command pillars of the Toronto Police Service.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Investigations are divided into crimes against persons and crimes against property. These investigations are conducted by:


title: Toronto Police Service

text: New and current officers of the Toronto Police Service train at the Toronto Police College in Etobicoke on Birmingham east of Islington. The initial training is three weeks, followed by 12 weeks at the Ontario Police College in Aylmer, Ontario and then nine weeks of final training at Toronto Police College. Charles O. Bick College was closed in July 2009.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Front line officers wear dark navy blue shirts, cargo pants (with red stripe) and boots. Winter jackets are either dark navy blue jacket design–Eisenhower style, single-breasted front closing, two patch type breast pockets, shoulder straps, gold buttons—or yellow windbreaker style with the word POLICE in reflective silver and black at the back (generally worn by the bicycle and traffic services units). All ranks shall wear dark navy blue clip on ties when wearing long-sleeve uniforms.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Hats can be styled after baseball caps, combination caps, or fur trim Yukon (similar to the Ushanka) hats for winter. Motorcycle units have white helmets. Black or reflective yellow gloves are also provided to officers with Traffic Services. Front line officers usually wear combination caps since that is the location of their badge. Prior to the 1990s, female officers wore bowler caps instead of combination caps. Auxiliary officers wear combination caps with a checkered red and black band. The Mounted Unit wear black Canadian military fur wedge cap during the winter months and custodian helmet for ceremonial use.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: As is the case with all Ontario law enforcement officers, uniformed officers wear name tags. They are in the style of "A. Example" where the first letter of the first name is written and the last name next to it, with a Canadian flag to the left of the name. Name tags are usually stitched on with white stitching on a black background, but they also have pin-styled with black lettering on a gold plate.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Senior officers wear white shirts and a black Eisenhower style jacket. Auxiliary officers wear light blue shirts (long sleeve for winter and short for summer), with the badging of auxiliary on the bottom of the crest. Originally front line officer also wore light blue shirts but changed to the current navy blue shirts in the Fall of 2000.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The Toronto Police Service logo is very similar to the old Metropolitan Toronto Police logo, and it includes the following components:


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The shield in the Toronto Police Service logo is from the coat of arms of the former Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. The TPS logo is also similar to the emblem of the former Metropolitan Toronto School Board. Prior to the formation of the Metropolitan Toronto Police, the Toronto Police Department officers wore a generic Scully badge on their caps, a common shield used by Canadian police forces in the 19th century and early 20th century. This featured a metallic maple leaf with a beaver and crown.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: Police cars, also known as "police cruisers", are the standard equipment used by Toronto Police officers for transportation. The vehicles are equipped with a combination of a rotator and LED lightbar. The vehicles are numbered according to their division and car number. For example, 3322 represents that the vehicle is from 33 Division, and the following 22 is the vehicle designation number.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: The current design since August 2017 is partly dark grey, with white doors with black text that says "TORONTO POLICE". Briefly, in, the design was entirely dark grey, with white lettering. The cars were redesigned following public controversy over its low visibility and "militaristic styling".


title: Toronto Police Service

text: An earlier design sometimes still seen is a white base with red and blue markings, and stealth vehicles are grey with reflective markings. Some fleets, such as parking enforcement, special constables and court services, still use the pre-2017 white/red/blue livery and have not been updated as of 2022. Some of the photos in this section show this former colour scheme.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: In August 2018, TPS acquired TTC Orion VII buses 7900–7905 for purposes such as roadblocks, mass transport and training. These units are now numbered ES-0 through ES-5. ES stands for Events Support. The following units were painted black prior to being sent to TPS. In November 2018, these units were repainted in a gray and white livery similar to the LFLRV livery on TTC vehicles. The following units are maintained and stored by the TTC. They are currently stored at Birchmount Garage in Scarborough.


title: Toronto Police Service

text: An unmarked Cessna 206 H (C-FZRR) was registered with the Toronto Police Service and been used for undisclosed surveillance work. The plane has been alleged to have been used during the Rob Ford substance abuse scandal. C-FZRR was sold in 2015 to Sky Photo Techniques. Air (helicopter) support is provided by York Regional Police through a mutual support agreement.


title: Steve Peacocke

text: Stephen Peacocke (born 30 October 1981) is an Australian actor. Peacocke appeared in various theatre productions, before playing minor roles in television dramas and films, including "Suburban Mayhem" and "All Saints". From 2011 until 2016, Peacocke portrayed Darryl Braxton on the television soap opera "Home and Away". The role saw Peacocke win the Logie Award for Most Popular Actor twice. Following his departure from "Home and Away", Peacocke starred as Detective Josh Levine in the Australia drama series "Wanted", and he made appearances in the feature films "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" and "Me Before You". As of 2021, he stars in the Network Ten drama series "Five Bedrooms" and Seven Network's "RFDS: Royal Flying Doctor Service".


title: Steve Peacocke

text: Peacocke was born in Dubbo, New South Wales to Gareth Peacocke, a former accountant, and his wife Sylvia. He has a brother, who encouraged him to pursue acting. Peacocke attended schools in South Dubbo before finishing his secondary education at a Bathurst boarding school. He went on to study communications at the University of Newcastle and took a drama class taught by Glenn Hazeldine, who also encouraged him to take up acting. Peacocke worked numerous labouring jobs in his twenties while trying to start his acting career, including unloading freight trucks and working as a jackaroo for $3 an hour. Peacocke played rugby for the Dubbo Kangaroos, but various injuries led him to theatre work instead. In 2004, Peacocke won a City of Newcastle Drama Award for playing Ricko in a production of "A Property of the Clan". He moved to Sydney in order to pursue his acting career and he lived in a share house in Stanmore, where he struggled to make rent before he was cast in "Home and Away".


title: Steve Peacocke

text: Peacocke appeared in the short play festival "Brand Spanking New" with actress Bel Deliá, in playwright/director Augusta Supple's work "Interrupting Grace" directed by Nick Curnow, and also on Supple's later venture "Stories from the 428". He also had a role in Kit Brookman's "It Was Raining All Afternoon".


title: Steve Peacocke

text: Peacocke began his on-screen acting career in 2006 when he appeared in a small role in the Australian film "Suburban Mayhem". He started appearing on television in 2007, when he played the role of Zeb Hall in the medical drama series "All Saints". His other television credits include "Packed to the Rafters", "Rake" and "East West 101". He also appeared in the television film "Emerald Falls" in 2008, which starred Georgie Parker. Peacocke played a role in a parody of Rihanna's "Umbrella" music video called "Drifting in my cappella" with 1BUCK80. Peacocke appears in the 2011 feature film "Burning Man", with Matthew Goode and Bojana Novakovic.


title: Steve Peacocke

text: In early 2011, Peacocke received the role of Darryl "Brax" Braxton, a local River Boy, on the Australian soap opera "Home and Away". Peacocke also revealed his plans to work in the United States in the future. In 2012, Peacocke won the Logie Award for Most Popular New Male Talent. The following year, he won the Most Popular Actor award. He also received a nomination for the Gold Logie Award for Most Popular Personality on Australian Television. Peacocke announced his departure from "Home and Away" in February 2015. He filmed his final scenes in late 2014 and he made his last on-screen appearance 10 June 2015. Two months later, Peacocke returned to "Home and Away" to shoot scenes for a storyline which aired in late 2015.


title: Steve Peacocke

text: Peacocke appears as Nic in "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot", an adaptation of Kim Barker's memoir "The Taliban Shuffle". He also appears in the adaptation of "Me Before You" as Nathan, opposite Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin. Peacocke then starred as Detective Josh Levine in the 2016 Australian television series "Wanted". He also appeared in the comedy film "Cooped Up".


title: Steve Peacocke

text: 2019 saw Peacocke star alongside Kat Stewart and Hugh Sheridan in Network Ten's drama series "Five Bedrooms", which focuses on five people who buy a house together after meeting at a wedding. The series was renewed for a second season, which began airing in August 2021, after a production delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After starring in war film "", Peacocke joined the cast of comedy drama "Squinters" for its second season, and appeared in the drama "Les Norton".


title: Steve Peacocke

text: Peacocke starred in the Nine Network miniseries "Informer 3838" as Detective Paul Dale, who heads up the Victorian Police drug squad, until he is wrongfully arrested and imprisoned. Peacocke also plays flight nurse Pete Emerson in the 2021 drama series "RFDS: Royal Flying Doctor Service". He carried out his own research to prepare for the role, including talking with people who worked with the Flying Doctor Service and training with a nurse. In August 2021, Peacocke starred in the six-part ABC drama series "The Newsreader", which is set in a 1986 television newsroom. For his performance as sports reporter Rob Rickards, Peacocke earned an AACTA Award nomination for Best Guest or Supporting Actor in a Television Drama.


title: Steve Peacocke

text: Peacocke has been in a relationship with actress Bridgette Sneddon since 2005. The couple met at the University of Western Sydney. The couple announced their engagement on 7 March 2014 and married on the 24 December 2014 in a private ceremony.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Anne Maeve Binchy Snell (28 May 1939 – 30 July 2012) was an Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, columnist, and speaker. Her novels were characterised by a sympathetic and often humorous portrayal of small-town life in Ireland, and surprise endings. Her novels, which were translated into 37 languages, sold more than 40 million copies worldwide. Her death at age 73, announced by Vincent Browne on Irish television late on 30 July 2012, was mourned as the death of one of Ireland's best-loved and most recognisable writers.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: She appeared in the US market, featuring on "The New York Times" best-seller list and in Oprah's Book Club. Recognised for her "total absence of malice" and generosity to other writers, she finished third in a 2000 poll for World Book Day, ahead of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Stephen King.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Anne Maeve Binchy was born on 28 May 1939 in Dalkey, Dublin, the oldest of the four children of William and Maureen (née Blackmore) Binchy. Her siblings include one brother, William Binchy, Regius Professor of Laws at Trinity College Dublin, and two sisters: Irene "Renie" (who predeceased Binchy), and Joan, Mrs Ryan. Her uncle was the historian D. A. Binchy (1899–1989). Educated at St Anne's (then located at No 35 Clarinda Park East), Dún Laoghaire, and later at Holy Child Killiney, she went on to study at University College Dublin (where she earned a bachelor's degree in history), she worked as a teacher of French, Latin, and history at various girls' schools, then a journalist at "The Irish Times", and later became a writer of novels, short stories, and dramatic works.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: In 1968, her mother died of cancer aged 57. After Binchy's father died in 1971, she sold the family house and moved to a bedsit in Dublin.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Her parents were Catholics and Binchy attended a convent school. However, a trip to Israel profoundly affected both her career and her faith. She later said to "Vulture":


title: Maeve Binchy

text: In 1963, I worked in a Jewish school in Dublin, teaching French with an Irish accent to kids, primarily Lithuanians. The parents there gave me a trip to Israel as a present. I had no money, so I went and worked in a kibbutz – plucking chickens, picking oranges. My parents were very nervous; here I was going out to the Middle East by myself. I wrote to them regularly, telling them about the kibbutz. My father and mother sent my letters to a newspaper, which published them. So I thought, It's not so hard to be a writer. Just write a letter home. After that, I started writing other travel articles.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: One Sunday, attempting to locate where the Last Supper is supposed to have occurred, she climbed a mountainside to a cavern guarded by a Brooklyn-born Israeli soldier. She wept with despair. The soldier asked, "What'ya expect, ma'am – a Renaissance table set for 13?" She replied, "Yes! That's just what I did expect." This experience caused her to renounce her Catholic faith, and eventually become agnostic.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Binchy, described as "six feet tall, rather stout, and garrulous", although she actually grew to 6'1", said in an interview with Gay Byrne of "The Late Late Show" that, growing up in Dalkey, she never felt herself to be attractive; "as a plump girl I didn't start on an even footing to everyone else". After her mother's death, she expected to lead a life of spinsterhood, saying "I expected I would live at home, as I always did." She continued, "I felt very lonely, the others all had a love waiting for them and I didn't."


title: Maeve Binchy

text: However, when recording a piece for "Woman's Hour" in London she met children's author Gordon Snell, then a freelance producer with the BBC. Their friendship blossomed into a cross-border romance, with her in Ireland and him in London, until she eventually secured a job in London through "The Irish Times". She and Snell married in 1977 and, after living in London for a time, moved to Ireland. They lived together in Dalkey, not far from where she had grown up, until Binchy's death. She said of him that he was a "writer, a man I loved and he loved me and we got married and it was great and is still great. He believed I could do anything, just as my parents had believed all those years ago, and I started to write fiction and that took off fine. And he loved Ireland, and the fax was invented so we writers could live anywhere we liked, instead of living in London near publishers.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Files in Ireland's National Archives, released to the public in 2006, feature a request from Maeve Binchy to President Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh asking if he could "receive" her. She wrote, "I know you are extremely busy but I often see in the paper that you 'received' so-and-so and was wondering very simply could I be received too." This request came while she was working for "The Irish Times" in London in 1975.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: In 2002, Binchy suffered health problems related to a heart condition, which inspired her to write "Heart and Soul". The book, about what Binchy terms "a heart failure clinic" in Dublin and the people involved with it, reflects many of her own experiences and observations in the hospital. Towards the end of her life, Binchy's website stated "My health isn't so good these days and I can't travel around to meet people the way I used to. But I'm always delighted to hear from readers, even if it takes me a while to reply."


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Binchy died on 30 July 2012. She was 73 and had suffered from various maladies, including painful osteoarthritis. As a result of the arthritis she had a hip operation. A month before her death she suffered a severe spinal infection (acute discitis), and finally succumbed to a heart attack. Gordon was by her side when she died in a Dublin hospital. Just ahead of that evening's "Tonight with Vincent Browne" and TV3's late evening news, Vincent Browne and then Alan Cantwell, who respectively anchor these shows, announced to Irish television viewers that Binchy had died earlier that evening.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Immediate media reports described Binchy as "beloved", "Ireland's most well-known novelist" and the "best-loved writer of her generation". Fellow writers mourned their loss, including Ian Rankin, Jilly Cooper, Anne Rice, and Jeffrey Archer. Politicians also paid tribute. President Michael D. Higgins stated: "Our country mourns." Taoiseach Enda Kenny said, "Today we have lost a national treasure." Minister of State at the Department of Health Kathleen Lynch, appearing as a guest on "Tonight with Vincent Browne", said Binchy was, for her [Lynch's] money, as worthy an Irish writer as James Joyce or Oscar Wilde, and praised her for selling so many more books than they managed.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: In the days after her death tributes were published from such writers as John Banville, Roddy Doyle, and Colm Tóibín. Banville contrasted Binchy with Gore Vidal, who died the day after her, observing that Vidal "used to say that it was not enough for him to succeed, but others must fail. Maeve wanted everyone to be a success." Numerous tributes appeared in publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including "The Guardian" and CBC News.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Shortly before her death, Binchy told "The Irish Times": "I don't have any regrets about any roads I didn't take. Everything went well, and I think that's been a help because I can look back, and I do get great pleasure out of looking back ... I've been very lucky and I have a happy old age with good family and friends still around." Just before dying, she read her latest short story at the Dalkey Book Festival. She once said she would like to die "... on my 100th birthday, piloting Gordon and myself into the side of a mountain".


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Despite being agnostic, Binchy was given a traditional Requiem Mass which took place at the Church of the Assumption, in her hometown of Dalkey. She was later cremated at Mount Jerome Cemetery and Crematorium.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: "The New York Times" reports: Binchy's "writing career began by accident in the early 1960s, after she spent time on a kibbutz in Israel. Her father was so taken with her letters home that "he cut off the ‘Dear Daddy’ bits,” Ms. Binchy later recounted, and sent them to an Irish newspaper, which published them." Donal Lynch observed of her first paying journalism role: the "Irish Independent" "was impressed enough to commission her, paying her £16, which was then a week-and-a-half's salary for her."


title: Maeve Binchy

text: In 1968, Binchy joined the staff at "The Irish Times", and worked there as a writer, columnist, the first Women's Page editor then the London editor, later reporting for the paper from London before returning to Ireland.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Binchy's first published book is a compilation of her newspaper articles titled "My First Book". Published in 1970, it is now out of print. As Binchy's bio posted at Read Ireland describes: "The Dublin section of the book contains insightful case histories that prefigure her novelist's interest in character. The rest of the book is mainly humorous, and particularly droll is her account of a skiing holiday, 'I Was a Winter Sport.'"


title: Maeve Binchy

text: In all, Binchy published 16 novels, four short-story collections, a play and a novella. A 17th novel, "A Week in Winter", was published posthumously. Her literary career began with two books of short stories: "Central Line" (1978) and "Victoria Line" (1980). She published her debut novel "Light a Penny Candle" in 1982. In 1983, it sold for the largest sum ever paid for a first novel: £52,000. The timing was fortuitous, as Binchy and her husband were two months behind with the mortgage at the time. However, the prolific Binchy – who joked that she could write as fast as she could talk – ultimately became one of Ireland's richest women.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Her first book was rejected five times. She would later describe these rejections as "a slap in the face [...] It's like if you don't go to a dance you can never be rejected but you'll never get to dance either".


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Most of Binchy's stories are set in Ireland, dealing with the tensions between urban and rural life, the contrasts between England and Ireland, and the dramatic changes in Ireland between World War II and the present day. Her books have been translated into 37 languages.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: While some of Binchy's novels are complete stories ("Circle of Friends", "Light a Penny Candle"), many others revolve around a cast of interrelated characters ("The Copper Beech", "Silver Wedding", "The Lilac Bus", "Evening Class", and "Heart and Soul"). Her later novels, "Evening Class", "Scarlet Feather", "Quentins", and "Tara Road", feature a cast of recurring characters.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Binchy announced in 2000 that she would not tour any more of her novels, but would instead be devoting her time to other activities and to her husband, Gordon Snell. Five further novels were published before her death: "Quentins" (2002), "Nights of Rain and Stars" (2004), "Whitethorn Woods" (2006), "Heart and Soul" (2008), and "Minding Frankie" (2010). Her final novel, "A Week in Winter", was published posthumously in 2012. In 2014 a collection of 36 unpublished short stories that she had written over a period of decades was published under the title "Chestnut Street".


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Binchy wrote several dramas specifically for radio and the silver screen. Additionally, several of her novels and short stories were adapted for radio, film, and television. (See List of Works: Films, radio and television.)


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Binchy appeared on "The Late Late Show" on Saturday 20 March (based on chronology this would have been 1982) in connection with the publication of the "Dublin 4" short story collection. "Then the conversation broadened and Gay Byrne asked about some aspects of my work, the royal weddings", Binchy later recalled in a letter she sent to the programme. "I said how much I had liked Charles's wedding and hated Anne's - about covering the election in Ireland and how I had been one of the very few journalists watching FitzGerald and Haughey on the night of the Great Debate..."


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Following the publication of "Light a Penny Candle", the programme sought Binchy to reappear to explain her success. In advance of her appearance she sent Mary O'Sullivan, who was working on the programme, a letter (the same one referred to above) setting out her earnings in some detail, since Binchy thought this would be of relevance. She received an initial 5,000 Irish pounds for "Light a Penny Candle". The paperback rights were sold for a British record for a first novel with a prepublication advance of £52,000 from Coronet. Viking Press paid Binchy $200,000 for the U.S. hardcover edition. The Literary Guild of America paid a further $50,000. The French publisher paid Binchy 50,000 francs. Binchy wrote to O'Sullivan, "I thought it would be better if you knew the exact figures, then you could decide what was and what was not relevant". O'Sullivan republished the letter in the "Sunday Independent"'s "Living" supplement in 2020 but mentioned that the last page, which followed on from Binchy referring to what she intended to do with all her money, was missing.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: In 1999, Binchy appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show". In 2009, she appeared on "The Meaning of Life", also presented by Gay Byrne. Binchy and her husband had a cameo appearance together in "Fair City" on 14 December 2011, during which the couple dined in The Hungry Pig.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: In 1978, Binchy won a Jacob's Award for her RTÉ play, "Deeply Regretted By". A 1993 photograph of her by Richard Whitehead belongs to the collection of the National Portrait Gallery and a painting of her by Maeve McCarthy, commissioned in 2005, is on display in the National Gallery of Ireland.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: In 1999, she received the British Book Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2000, she received a People of the Year Award. In 2001, "Scarlet Feather" won the W H Smith Book Award for Fiction, defeating works by Joanna Trollope and then Booker winner Margaret Atwood, amongst other contenders.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: In 2007, she received the Irish PEN Award, joining writers including John B. Keane, Brian Friel, Edna O'Brien, William Trevor, John McGahern and Seamus Heaney.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: In 2010, she received a lifetime achievement award from the Irish Book Awards. In 2012, she received an Irish Book Award in the "Irish Popular Fiction Book" category for "A Week in Winter".


title: Maeve Binchy

text: There were posthumous proposals to name a new Liffey crossing "Binchy Bridge" in memory of the writer. Ultimately the bridge was named for trade unionist Rosie Hackett.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: In September 2012, a new garden behind the Dalkey Library in County Dublin was dedicated in memory of Binchy.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: In 2014, University College Dublin announced the first annual Maeve Binchy Travel Award. The €4000 award will help student winners "pursue a novel travel trip to enhance their writing skills".


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Irish show Derry Girls's fan favorite character Colm McCool played by Kevin McAleer mentions in season 3 episode 1 he's a reader of Ms. Binchy, a nod to her works in the era and generation.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Binchy published novels, non-fiction, a play and several short story collections. Two collections of short stories, "Chestnut Street" (2014) and "A Few of the Girls" (2015), were released after her death.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Binchy wrote several dramas specifically for radio and the silver screen. Additionally, several of her novels and short stories were adapted for radio, film, and television.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: In addition, the plot of the Danish film "Italian for Beginners" (2000) was taken in part from Binchy's novel "Evening Class" without credit or payment to her; the production company later settled with Binchy for a payment of an undisclosed amount.


title: Maeve Binchy

text: Since 1968, Binchy was a "frequent and hugely popular contributor to RTÉ Radio". A press released dated 31 July 2012 and posted in that organisation's online Press Centre reads:


title: Maeve Binchy

text: In season 3 episode 7 of Ballykissangel, one road worker tosses a book to another, saying, "The latest Maeve Binchy!"


title: Skip Spence

text: Alexander Lee "Skip" Spence (April 18, 1946 – April 16, 1999) was a Canadian-born American singer, songwriter, and musician. He was co-founder of Moby Grape, and played guitar with them until 1969. In the same year, he released his only solo album, "Oar", and then largely withdrew from the music industry. He had started his career as a guitarist in an early line-up of Quicksilver Messenger Service, and was the drummer on Jefferson Airplane's debut album, "Jefferson Airplane Takes Off". He has been described on the AllMusic website as "one of psychedelia's brightest lights"; however, his career was plagued by drug addiction coupled with mental health problems, and he has been described by a biographer as a man who "neither died young nor had a chance to find his way out."


title: Skip Spence

text: Alexander Lee Spence was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, on April 18, 1946. His father, Alexander Lett "Jock" Spence (1914–1965), was a machinist, a salesman, and played Route 66 as a solo singer-songwriter and piano player. He was also a decorated Canadian WWII bomber pilot, having been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.


title: Skip Spence

text: In the late 1950s, the family relocated from Windsor to San Jose, California, based on Spence's father finding work in the aircraft industry. At the age of ten, he was given his first guitar by his parents.


title: Skip Spence

text: Spence was a guitarist in the band the Other Side before Marty Balin recruited him to be the drummer for Jefferson Airplane (apparently because he looked the part). Spence drummed on their debut, "Jefferson Airplane Takes Off", which was recorded before Grace Slick joined the group. He was dismissed by the band after taking an unannounced vacation to Mexico. He briefly considered joining Buffalo Springfield as a drummer before returning to the guitar to co-found Moby Grape.


title: Skip Spence

text: During the recording session of Moby Grape's second album, "Wow", in 1968, Spence attempted to break down a bandmate's hotel room door with a fire axe, while under the influence of LSD. Spence's deterioration in New York and the "fire axe incident" are described by bandmate Jerry Miller as follows:Skippy changed radically when we were in New York. There were some people there that were into harder drugs and a harder lifestyle, and some very weird shit. And so he kind of flew off with those people. Skippy kind of disappeared for a little while. Next time we saw him, he had cut off his beard, and was wearing a black leather jacket, with his chest hanging out, with some chains and just sweating like a son of a gun. I don't know what the hell he got a hold of, man, but it just whacked him. And the next thing I know, he axed my door down in the Albert Hotel. They said at the reception area that this crazy guy had held an axe to the doorman's head.Bandmate Peter Lewis, describes Don Stevenson as also being target of Spence and what happened to Spence afterwards:


title: Skip Spence

text: We had to do [the album] in New York because the producer [David Rubinson] wanted to be with his family. So we had to leave our families and spend months at a time in hotel rooms in New York City. Finally I just quit and went back to California. I got a phone call after a couple of days. They'd played a Fillmore East gig without me, and Skippy took off with some black witch afterward who fed him full of acid. It was like that scene in The Doors movie. He thought he was the anti-Christ. He tried to chop down the hotel room door with a fire axe to kill Don [Stevenson] to save him from himself. He went up to the 52nd floor of the CBS building where they had to wrestle him to the ground. And Rubinson pressed charges against him. They took him to The Tombs [notorious prison in New York] and that's where he wrote "Oar". When he got out of there, he cut that album in Nashville. And that was the end of his career. They shot him full of Thorazine for six months. They just take you out of the game.


title: Skip Spence

text: In June 1968 Spence was admitted to Bellevue Hospital in New York; during his six months stay, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. According to an urban myth, on the day of his release, he drove a motorcycle, dressed in only his pajamas, directly to Nashville to record his only solo album, with no other musicians appearing on it, the now-classic psychedelic/folk album "Oar" (1969, Columbia Records).


title: Skip Spence

text: During the early 70s Spence also founded and experimented with a three-man rock band called Pachuca and later a larger ensemble called The Rhythm Dukes. He continued to have minor involvement in later Moby Grape projects and reunions. He contributed to "20 Granite Creek" (1971) and "Live Grape" (1978), though his bandmates always included at least one of his songs on group recordings, irrespective of whether he was capable of performing with the group at the time. He had been similarly remembered by Jefferson Airplane, whereby his song "My Best Friend" was included on the group's "Surrealistic Pillow" album (1967), despite his departure from the group.


title: Skip Spence

text: Due to his deteriorating state and notwithstanding that he was no longer functioning in the band, Spence was supported by Moby Grape band members for extended periods. Voluminous consumption of heroin and cocaine resulted in a further involuntary committal for Spence. As described by Peter Lewis, "Skippy was just hanging around. He hadn't been all there for years, because he'd been into heroin all that time. In fact he actually OD'ed once and they had him in the morgue in San Jose with a tag on his toe. All of a sudden he got up and asked for a glass of water. Now he was snortin' big clumps of coke, and nothing would happen to him. We couldn't have him around because he'd be pacing the room, describing axe murders. So we got him a little place of his own. He had a little white rat named Oswald that would snort coke too. He'd never washed his dishes, and he'd try to get these little grammar school girls to go into the house with him. He was real bad. One of the parents finally called the cops, and they took him to the County Mental Health Hospital in Santa Cruz. Where they immediately lost him, and he turned up days later in the women's ward."


title: Skip Spence

text: Mental illness, drug addiction and alcoholism thus prevented Spence from sustaining a career in the music industry. Much of his life was spent in third party care, as a ward of the State of California, and either homeless or in transient accommodations in his later years. He remained in and around San Jose and Santa Cruz. Peter Lewis regularly visited Spence during the latter years of his life: "The last five years I'd go up‚ he lived in a trailer up there‚ Capitola. I used to hang around with him; we'd spend the weekends together. But he just basically kind of hit the...he was helpless in a way in terms of being able to define anything or control his feelings."


title: Skip Spence

text: In 1994, he participated in a music program for the mentally ill, sponsored by the City of San Jose. Two years later, in 1996, he was commissioned to write a song for "The X-Files" soundtrack, "Songs in the Key of X;" though not used, it was included on the "More Oar" tribute record as "Land of the Sun".


title: Skip Spence

text: Spence's final performance with Moby Grape occurred on August 9, 1996, at Palookaville in Santa Cruz. At this final show, Spence led the group through a rendition of "Sailing" (a song performed during the 1971 reunion run) and an impromptu performance of "J.P.P. McStep B. Blues", which he'd written for Jefferson Airplane in 1966.


title: Skip Spence

text: Spence died of lung cancer on April 16, 1999; two days before his 53rd birthday. He was survived by his four children, eleven grandchildren, a half-brother (Rich Young) and his sister, Sherry Ferreira. "", an album featuring contributions from Robert Plant, Tom Waits, and Beck, among others, was released a few weeks after his death. Prior to its release, the CD was played for Spence at the hospital, in his final stages before death. Spence is interred at Soquel Cemetery in Santa Cruz County.


title: Skip Spence

text: Spence has been described on the Allmusic website as "one of psychedelia's brightest lights". Spence wrote "Omaha" for Moby Grape's first album which "Rolling Stone Magazine" listed in 2008 as one of the 100 greatest guitar songs of all time.


title: Skip Spence

text: In June 2008, a Skip Spence tribute concert was held in Santa Cruz. The concert featured Spence's son Omar, who has sung with various configurations of Moby Grape in recent years. Omar Spence, singing his father's songs, was backed by the Santa Cruz White Album Ensemble, with Dale Ockerman and Tiran Porter, both formerly of the Doobie Brothers, and both of whom have played with various members of Moby Grape in several bands over the past three decades. Don Stevenson (an original Moby Grape member) also performed. Keith Graves of Quicksilver Messenger Service played drums.


title: Skip Spence

text: Peter Lewis joined the group onstage for the finale. An additional Skip Spence tribute concert was held in October 2008.


title: Skip Spence

text: William Gibson paid tribute to Spence in his collection of essays, "Distrust That Particular Flavor", in which he marvelled at his tailor adjusted jeans.


title: History of General Motors

text: The history of General Motors (GM), one of the world's largest car and truck manufacturers, dates back more than a century and involves a vast scope of industrial activity around the world, mostly focused on motorized transportation and the engineering and manufacturing that make it possible. Founded in 1908 as a holding company in Flint, Michigan, as of 2012 it employed approximately 209,000 people around the world. With global headquarters at the Renaissance Center in Detroit, Michigan, United States, General Motors manufactures cars and trucks in 35 countries. In 2008, 8.35 million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under various brands. Current auto brands are Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, and Wuling. Former GM automotive brands include La Salle, McLaughlin, Oakland, Oldsmobile, Opel, Pontiac, Hummer, Saab, Saturn, Vauxhall, Daewoo and Holden.


title: History of General Motors

text: In addition to brands selling assembled vehicles, GM also has had various automotive-component and non-automotive brands, many of which it divested in the 1980s through 2000s. These have included Euclid and Terex (earthmoving/construction/mining equipment and vehicles); Electro-Motive Diesel (locomotive, marine, and industrial diesel engines); Detroit Diesel (automotive and industrial diesel engines); Allison (Aircraft engines, transmissions, gas turbine engines); Frigidaire (Appliances including refrigeration and air conditioning); New Departure (bearings); Delco Electronics and ACDelco (electrical and electronic components); GMAC (finance); General Aviation and North American Aviation (airplanes); GM Defense (military vehicles) and Electronic Data Systems (information technology).


title: History of General Motors

text: General Motors was capitalized by William C. Durant on September 16, 1908, as a holding company. The next day it purchased Buick Motor Company, and rapidly acquired more than twenty companies including Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Oakland Motor Car Company, and McLaughlin of Canada. Dr. Campbell, Durant's son-in-law, put 1,000,000 shares on the stock market in Chicago Buick (then controlled by Durant).


title: History of General Motors

text: Durant's earlier company, the Durant-Dort Carriage Company, had been in business in Flint since 1886, and by 1900 was producing over 100,000 carriages a year in factories located in Michigan and Canada. Prior to his acquisition of Buick, Durant had several Ford dealerships. With springs, axles and other key components being provided to the early automotive industry by Durant-Dort, it can be reasoned that GM actually began with the founding of Durant-Dort.


title: History of General Motors

text: GM under Durant's leadership acquired Oldsmobile later in 1908. The next year, he brought in Cadillac, Cartercar, Elmore, Ewing, and Oakland. In 1909, General Motors also acquired the Reliance Motor Car Company of Owosso, Michigan, and the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company of Pontiac, Michigan, the predecessors of GMC Truck. A Rapid became the first truck to conquer Pikes Peak in 1909. In 1910, Welch and Rainier were added to the ever-growing list of companies controlled by GM.


title: History of General Motors

text: GM was initially created by combining independent manufacturers who were competing with the Ford Motor Company and vehicles offered before the October 1, 1908 introduction of the Model T. Once the Model T began to dominate the market, independent companies began to combine their resources as corporations and decided to offer what the Model T didn't. The Model T was offered in black because it dried the fastest as it rolled of the assembly line, so GM offered their products in various color combinations; the Model T came with one four-cylinder engine, so GM offered their vehicles with different wheelbases and engine displacements on a gradual scale based on price.


title: History of General Motors

text: Durant lost control of GM in 1910 to a bankers trust as the deal to buy Ford for $8 million fell through, due to the large amount of debt (around $1 million) taken on in its acquisitions, while Samuel McLaughlin left at the same time. Durant was forced out of the firm by the stockholders and co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Company in 1911 with Louis Chevrolet. McLaughlin in 1915 built Chevrolet in Canada and after a stock buyback campaign with the McLaughlin and DuPont corporations, and other Chevrolet stock holders, Durant returned to head GM in 1916, as Chevrolet owned 54.5% with the backing of Pierre S. du Pont. On October 13 of the same year, GM Company incorporated as General Motors Corporation after McLaughlin merged his companies and sold his Chevrolet stock to allow the incorporation, which in turn followed the incorporation of General Motors of Canada (reverting to General Motors Company upon emergence from bankruptcy in 2009 that left General Motors of Canada Limited as a privately owned Canadian Company). Chevrolet entered the General Motors fold in 1918 as it became part of the Corporation with R S McLaughlin as Director and Vice-President of the Corporation; its first GM car was 1918's Chevrolet 490. Du Pont removed Durant from management in 1920, and various Du Pont interests held large or controlling shareholdings until about 1950.


title: History of General Motors

text: In 1918 GM acquired the Chevrolet stock from McLaughlin Motor Car Company of Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, manufacturer of the McLaughlin automobile since 1907 (later to be renamed McLaughlin-Buick) as well as Canadian versions of Chevrolet cars since 1915. The company was renamed General Motors of Canada Ltd., with R.S. "Colonel Sam" McLaughlin as its first president and his brother George as vice-president allied with the Corporation 1919. Superior Court of Ontario Canada documents show the Corporation as indirect parent of General Motors of Canada Limited. General Motors of Canada is a 100% owned Canadian Company.


title: History of General Motors

text: 1918 also saw personnel increase at GM. The number of employees grew from about 49,000 workers to 85,000 workers. Many came from the South of the United States, as well as from Europe, to work at GM Michigan facilities. To accommodate them, GM began to build employee housing with the nearly $2.5 million set aside for the project. This would become one of General Motors top 5 expenditures for the year 1919. 1919 also brought changes to employee investment opportunities. Similar to modern-day 401(k) plans, all employees could invest a percentage of their wages or salary. GM proceeded to match every penny that their employees invested.


title: History of General Motors

text: GM's headquarters were located in Flint until the mid-1920s, when they were moved to Detroit. Its building, originally to be called the Durant Building, was designed and began construction in 1919 when Durant was president, was completed in 1923. Alfred P. Sloan became president that year, and the building was officially dedicated as the General Motors Building in 1929. GM maintained this headquarters location, now called Cadillac Place, until it purchased the Renaissance Center in 1996. The Buick Division headquarters remained in Flint until 1998 when it was relocated to the Renaissance Center.


title: History of General Motors

text: In 1920, Durant oversaw the start-up of the Sheridan line of cars, manufactured (from 1920 to 1921) in Muncie, Indiana. The Sheridan nameplate has the distinction of being the first automotive brand started from scratch by General Motors. When Buick's D. A. Burke approached Durant about the idea of designing a car from the ground up, and then marketing the car as a bridge vehicle between GM's established divisions of Chevrolet and Oakland (a four-cylinder), and between Buick and Cadillac (an eight-cylinder), respectively.


title: History of General Motors

text: To market the vehicles, Sheridan hired World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker, himself an accomplished automobile racer in his own right. Through prosaic marketing and Rickenbacker's endorsements, Sheridan officials felt the production target of 300 cars a day was not only achievable but profitable as well.


title: History of General Motors

text: Just as production began to ramp up, Durant was fired for the second and final time from General Motors. Since the Sheridan was a Durant pet project, GM, now under Alfred Sloan, was left with Sheridan, one of Durant's more costly but viable caprices. Durant on the other hand knew that the vehicle was soundly engineered and knew what GM paid for the Muncie facility. In May 1921, Durant purchased the rights to the Sheridan and to the Muncie plant, with the intent on using the facility to continue building the Sheridan and Durant's new project, the Durant and Princeton automobiles, now to be built by Durant Motors.


title: History of General Motors

text: In 1925, GM bought Vauxhall of England, and then in 1929 went on to acquire an 80% stake in German automobile manufacturer Opel. Two years later this was increased to 100%. In 1931, GM acquired Holden of Australia.


title: History of General Motors

text: In 1926, GM created the Pontiac as a "companion" to the Oakland brand, an arrangement that lasted five years. The companion outsold its parent during that period, by so much that the Oakland brand was terminated and the division was renamed, Pontiac. As part of General Motors Companion Make Program, three other companion makes (Buick's Marquette, Oldsmobile's Viking, and Cadillac's LaSalle) were created. Each of these, however, had less staying power than Pontiac and was discontinued within a few years, due in large part to the Great Depression.


title: History of General Motors

text: General Motors acquired control of the 'Hertz Drive-Ur-Self System' (now better known as The Hertz Corporation), the Yellow Cab Manufacturing Company together with its subsidiaries, Yellow Coach Manufacturing Company in 1926 from John D. Hertz who joined the mainboard (John Hertz purchased the car rental business back from GM in 1953 and took it public the following year). GM also acquired the Yellow Coach bus company, and helped create Greyhound bus lines.


title: History of General Motors

text: During this period (and into the 30s), Sloan and his team established the practice of targeting each of GM's automotive divisions to a specific demographically and socio-economically identifiable market segment. Despite some shared components, each marque distinguished itself from its stablemates with unique styling and technology. The shared components and common corporate management created substantial economies of scale, while the distinctions between the divisions created (in the words of GM President Sloan) a "ladder of success", with an entry-level buyer starting out at the bottom with the "basic transportation" Chevrolet, then rising through Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, and ultimately to Cadillac.


title: History of General Motors

text: While Ford continued to refine the manufacturing process to reduce cost, Sloan was inventing new ways of managing a complex worldwide organization, while paying special attention to consumer demands. Car buyers no longer wanted the cheapest and most basic model; they wanted style, power, and prestige, which GM offered them. Sloan did not neglect cost, by any means; when it was proposed Chevrolet should introduce safety glass, he opposed it because it threatened profits. Thanks to consumer financing "via" GMAC (founded 1919), easy monthly payments allowed far more people to buy GM cars than Ford, as Henry Ford was opposed to credit on moral principles. (Nevertheless, Ford did offer similar credit arrangements with the introduction of the Model A in the late 1920s but Ford Credit did not exist until 1959.)


title: History of General Motors

text: In 1929, General Motors acquired a 80% majority stake in Opel, making it the first non–American subsidiary of General Motors.


title: History of General Motors

text: In 1930, GM entered aircraft design and manufacturing by buying Fokker Aircraft Corp of America (U.S. subsidiary of Fokker) and Berliner-Joyce Aircraft, merging them into General Aviation Manufacturing Corporation. Through a stock exchange GM took controlling interest in North American Aviation and merged it with its General Aviation division in 1933, but retaining the name North American Aviation. In 1948, GM divested NAA as a public company, never to have a major interest in the aircraft manufacturing industry again. GM did, however, establish their own air transportation, with the creation of the General Motors Air Transport Section (GMATS).


title: History of General Motors

text: General Motors bought the internal combustion engined railcar builder Electro-Motive Corporation and its engine supplier Winton Engine in 1930, renaming both as the General Motors Electro-Motive Division.


title: History of General Motors

text: In 1931, after purchasing remaining stake – General Motors took over the full control of Opel, making the company a wholly owned subsidiary, and over the next twenty years, diesel-powered locomotives—the majority built by GM—largely replaced other forms of traction on American railroads. (During World War II, these engines were also important in American submarines and destroyer escorts.) Electro-Motive was sold in early 2005.


title: History of General Motors

text: In 1932, GM formed a new subsidiary—United Cities Motor Transport (UCMT)—to finance the conversion of streetcar systems to buses in small cities. From 1936 the company was involved in an unpublicized project, with others, in what became known as the General Motors streetcar conspiracy to buy out streetcar and intercity train transport operators using subsidiary companies, and convert their operations to use buses.


title: History of General Motors

text: In 1935, the United Auto Workers labor union was formed, and in 1936 the UAW organized the Flint Sit-Down Strike, which initially idled two key plants in Flint, but later spread to half-a-dozen other plants including Janesville, Wisconsin and Fort Wayne, Indiana. In Flint, police attempted to enter the plant to arrest strikers, leading to violence; in other cities the plants were shuttered peacefully. The strike was resolved February 11, 1937, when GM recognized the UAW as the exclusive bargaining representative for its workers.


title: History of General Motors

text: General Motors produced vast quantities of armaments, vehicles, and aircraft for the Allied war effort during World War II. Its multinational interests were split up by the combating powers during the war such that the American, Canadian and British parts of the corporation served the Allied war effort and Adam Opel AG served the Axis war effort. By the spring of 1939, the German Government had assumed day-to-day control of American owned factories in Germany, but decided against nationalizing them completely (seizing the assets and capital). Soon after the war broke out, the nationalization came.


title: History of General Motors

text: General Motors ranked first among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. GM's William S. Knudsen served as head of U.S. wartime production for President Franklin Roosevelt. The General Motors UK division, Vauxhall Motors, manufactured the Churchill tank series for the Allies. The Vauxhall Churchill tanks were instrumental in the UK campaigns in North Africa. Bedford Vehicles and GM of Canada, CMP manufactured 500,000 logistics vehicles for the UK military, all important in the UK's land campaigns. In addition to the obvious manufacture of motor vehicles for the Allied cause, GM was also a major manufacturer of aircraft.