Topic
Cars & Driving
Michigan does cars differently — some of the priciest insurance in the country, and registration tabs based on a car's original sticker price. Here's what helps you understand the bills and the rules of driving in the mitten.
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Mackinac Island, the island with no cars
Mackinac Island has banned cars since 1898, so residents and visitors get around by foot, bicycle, horse, and winter snowmobile.
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The Blue Water Bridge
The Blue Water Bridge is Port Huron's landmark international crossing to Canada, with twin spans over the St. Clair River.
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Good news on car insurance: west Michigan is the cheap end of an expensive state
Michigan car insurance is expensive, but Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo-area drivers are usually on the lower-cost end of the state.
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Parking overnight in west Michigan? Watch the winter street rules
Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo handle overnight winter street parking differently, and nearby cities set their own local rules.
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Why is car insurance so expensive around here?
Michigan auto insurance is still expensive, and metro Detroit addresses can move rates by hundreds of dollars a month.
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Michigan Built the Car — but It Also Built the Road, the Rules, and the First Freeway
Michigan didn't just build the car — it laid the first mile of concrete highway (Woodward, 1909), pioneered the painted center line, and built the first urban depressed freeway (Davison, 1942).
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That '80s Rock Band? Named After a Michigan Truck
The band REO Speedwagon took its name from a Lansing-built delivery truck — named, in turn, for auto pioneer Ransom Eli Olds.
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The 'Michigan Left' — Why You Turn Right to Go Left
Michigan's oddest turn makes you drive past your street and U-turn back — and it cuts crashes by 30 to 60 percent.
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The $5 Day: How a Michigan Factory Helped Invent the Middle Class
In 1914, Ford's Highland Park plant doubled pay to $5 a day — and helped invent the idea that a factory job could support a middle-class life.
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The First Car Ever Driven in Detroit Wasn't Ford's — and Ford Watched on a Bicycle
The first automobile driven on Detroit's streets wasn't Henry Ford's — it was Charles Brady King's, in 1896, with a young Ford following on a bicycle.
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The Line Down the Middle of the Road Was a Michigan Idea
Every painted center line on Earth traces back to Edward Hines of the Wayne County road board, who put the first one down on a Trenton street in 1911.
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You Can Drive Underwater Into Another Country — Only in Detroit
The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, opened in 1930, is the only place in the world where you can drive underwater across an international border.
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