In the past, sedans such as the Crown Victoria meant dreaming along in a sofa-like boulevard ride that could easily decompose into a sea-sick wallow on deteriorated roads. Likewise, their steering was typically as vague as a politician's response to a direct question. Fortunately, the highly redesigned Crown Victoria largely avoids these missteps, only straying into unpleasantness if you flagrantly disregard the posted speed limit. Within the boundaries of legal speeds, its steering and brakes are very slow responding (more so the steering), but competent and unruffled in a limousine sort of way. Both steering and brakes require light driver effort, although the relaxed steering ratio does mean sometimes turning the steering wheel quite a bit more than you'd expect. However, when motoring down a typical highway lane, the new rack-and-pinion steering represents a real improvement in accurately pointing the Crown Vic. At parking speeds, the new steering system helps shave a foot from the turning circle. Overall, the new Crown Victoria feels as if its popularity with the police and taxi cab markets has rubbed off on the consumer version, influencing it to become a considerably more predictable handling car than in years past.

The Crown Vic's ride quality is generally smooth. It's particularly adept at sapping the sting from sharp jolts. There's little fore and aft head toss, an annoying experience accepted by drivers of today's taller vehicles. On the downside, the Crown Vic's tires follow road contours more rigorously than we'd like.

In engineering-speak, the rear suspension is of the old-fashioned live axle variety, which has a habit of unsettling both rear wheels when only one of them hits a bump. Taking a railroad crossing at an angle, for instance, is likely to tighten your grip on the morning's latte. But that's not the case with the 2003 Crown Victoria's all-new front suspension and revamped rear suspension, which are rarely ruffled.

Related to ride quality is interior noise, and here the Crown Vic truly shines, delivering near-concert hall quiet even as it absorbs crashing bumps. It's an ideal environment for conversation, music-listening or just quiet contemplation. High marks for this big Ford's acoustic isolation and improved structural solidity. Technically, the new perimeter chassis is roughly 20-percent more resistant to bending and twisting; In human-speak this means less shake, creak and booming, as well as an impressive double five-star crash rating in the federal government's frontal crash tests.

Acceleration is V8-brisk, delivering a satisfying quick twirl of the speedometer needle and an authoritative throttle note. When a good dose of scoot is called for, a punch of the Crown Vic's throttle does the job, pouring its 224 horsepower to the driven rear wheels in fire-brigade buckets full.

Driven normally, you can expect a satisfactory 18 mpg in the city, 26 mpg on the highway, and smooth shifts from the four-speed automatic transmission that are noticeable only to a transmission engineer.

And it's in just this sort of breezing along where the Crown Vic really shines, effectively isolating you from exterior noise and the harshest of road surfaces. Behind the wheel, you're invited to relax and ignore the frenzy of modern traffic. The Ford Crown Victoria is a rolling respite from traffic anxiety disorder.