Jul 4/04

Back from various trips and full of stories to tell, especially the cars... Listings here will be sporadic through September, in preparation for a paper I will be presenting there. Meanwhile, thanks for visiting and enjoy!

May 18 / 04

Guv McGreevey is at it again! Someone buy this man a new office, or an extended vacation. And I'm not talking about this slice of populist stupidity:

McGreevey proposes millionaire's tax to fund property tax rebates
... The first aspect of McGreevey's plan would enact a 2.6 percent tax on income over $500,000.

Or is it half a millionaire, Guv? That aside, here's the latest on automobiles from the Guv. Now he's gonna solve the price of gasoline "crisis" by opening the spigots at Costco:

NJ Orders Costco To Open Pumps To Public
Motorists searching for cheap gas need not bypass the pumps at Costco if they are not members of the warehouse retailer, according to the state. Costco's membership requirement violated New Jersey laws regarding fuel sales, state consumer officials said.

Well, problem solved. Nah, the Guv that won't sit still will have another solution soon enough. Here's a suggestion: why not a gasoline tax rebate paid for with a millionaire's surcharge on gas for SUVs? But that won't do, for -- believe it or not -- New Jersey has among the lowest total state taxes per gallon of gasoline in the nation. See here (warning: Adobe pdf file):

Nationwide and State-by-State Motor Fuel Taxes, January 2004

Must make Guv McG's hands itch.

May 10 / 04

Where do we go with this one, out of Billings, MT:

Towing services lose money disposing of automobiles
On a recent winter day, a tattered BMW sat hoisted in one of the four stripping bays at Hanser's Automotive & Wrecker on South Billings Boulevard... a rollover had finished the car off. Too many miles and too little care rendered the compact sedan beyond redemption. Tread on the tires was nearly gone, and its seats were in shreds. The engine and transmission were shot. Nothing on the ancient hulk could be salvaged ... Since it was recovered after a rollover, the tow could have cost as much as $300, Hanser's Automotive owner Ralph Hanser said. Then Hanser's had to invest another $400 in paperwork and in the processes of draining the fluids, recycling them and stripping and cleaning the car in preparation for the crusher. "So we've got $700 into a car with no value,'' he said.

Perhaps it will make more sense when we look at this article:

China auto production up 25 percent in first quarter
China's burgeoning auto industry produced 1.3 million automobiles during the first three months of the year, up 25.63 percent from the same period in 2003, statistics showed.

Of these, 1.28 million were sold, a 28.98 percent rise on the previous period, the China Automotive Industry Association said. Some 576,900 sedans were made and 567,000 found buyers, up 41.86 percent and 44.47 percent respectively.

Welcome to the automobile glut, c.1928. Back then, worries were to too many used cars, too many old cars to junk, and too many new cars to sell. The worries were dead-on, as it turned out. 1929's record production of some 4.5 million cars wouldn't be matched until 1949.

Now, before you go gittin' all paranoid: Just because there was an automobile glut and a surfeit of useless old cars in 1929 and again today doesn't mean we're headed into a depression. Today's factory overcapacity could be trouble, but it doesn't have to be. Let's look at the up-side of it all, again going back to 1928. The year before, Ford shut down Model T production. Americans had dumped the T for bigger, faster, and better. 1929 brought the triumph of the eight-cylinder engine, and makers of the day's exotics were planning launches of twelve and sixteen cylinder engines (Cadillac and Marmon). Newer was always good and consumer credit was easy and spread. You want a car, you got it. The summer of 1929, however, makers noticed an increase in inventories. The glut had begun. Still, and even following the Market Crash and a million-1/2 drop in production, bottoming out at 1.1 million in 1932 (and thereafter building to 3.9 million in 1937, with ups and downs from there to WWII), people wanted cars. There just wasn't enough cash to go around. There were, though, lots of cheap used cars, including salvaged junked ones.

What kept 1932 down was not industry surplus. It was the general economy and stupid governance of it by way of shanking credit and currencies and tossing about of trade barriers, price controls, and workplace/labor regulation. 1929's surfeit of cars didn't have to last. So, God bless Chinese consumerism. I just hope we can all survive the inevitable crash. If they want the benefits of free markets, they're gonna have to lay off the command economy when the free lunch is over. Otherwise, it'll be all over.

Meanwhile, I'm glad there's no money in junk cars in Montana. Must mean good cars are easy to find.

May 4/ 04

General Motors founder Billy Durant has made Business Week's "innovators" list:

Billy Durant: Greasing Detroit's Wheels

William Crapo Durant was a maniac wildman who changed the world. Move over Henry Ford. Ford made fortune and history by making millions of the same thing. He had one brilliant idea and he beat it silly. Billy Durant was daring, and more visionary He would bring various makes and types together to provide large efficiencies to the production of a variety of vehicles in styles, prices, and brands. He made modern industry by making various things to fuel consumer demand for one or the other. Following Durant's GM, mass production must be variable, not just massive.

Durant was a maverick from beginning to end. He made and lost GM twice. He made and lost another car company in the 1920s. He was the sole dissenter of 1909's high automobile tariff, and he p.o.'d the industry with it. He was also a prescient voice in 1930, when he called for free trade in the face of protectionism that only magnified the economic crisis.

Billy Durant: American hero. Thank you, Business Week, even if your article on him is lame -- and wrong in a few places. For starters, the article gives too much credit to Ford. Also, if you read it, please note that Durant formed GM in late 1908, using Buick, which he took over the year before, as the platform. He definitively did not try to buy Chrysler in 1907 (as the article suggests) because GM wasn't yet formed and neither was Chrysler -- which came in the 1920s, and when he tried to buy Ford, the deal collapsed not because Durant didn't have bankers behind him, but because Ford wanted cash not stock.

Durant was playing chess to Ford's checkers. While Ford pumped out millions of Model T's, Durant's GM, which he lost then took over then lost again, was taking over the market based on Durant's original business model. In the mid-1920s, Ford nearly collapsed because GM proved that Americans of all buying power wanted style as well as function. Ford caved. His attempt to replace the Model T with another single, updated model, the A, failed, and Ford ultimate adopted the GM strategy of mixed, scaled products and prices.

Apr 30/ 04

As the last Oldsmobile falls off the line in Detroit (see here), The Washington Times reports that the Russian auto maker, ZIL, has been,

Saved by the Bell
As the Soviet Union collapsed more than a decade ago, carmaker AMO ZIL faced a daunting challenge confronting thousands of state-owned enterprises: competing in a brave new world of open markets. The question was especially troublesome for ZIL, a producer of luxury limousines used by top Soviet-era Communist Party officials as well as less-glamorous trucks. Both lines saw plummeting sales as consumers opted for newly available Western imports. ZIL, in turns out, was saved by the bell.

...The company produced about 220,000 vehicles in the late 1980s. This year it made only 17,000. As Soviet communism and ZIL's vehicle sales began their slide, a professor of acoustics, Boris Nunin, suggested a new venture to Mr. Mashin. He noticed that Russian Orthodox churches all over the country were rebuilding after decades of neglect and destruction under Soviet authorities. The churches were filled with worshippers who were rediscovering their Orthodox roots.

Founded in 1916 (see here and here for ZIL history), this Soviet-era factory that has been unable to compete in the world economy now finds salvation in church bells. Yes, the irony is too good. Re-named in 1931 from AMO to ZIS (ZAVOD IMJENI STALINA), for Stalin, and later, after Stalin's death, to ZIL (Zavod Imeni Lihacheva), for its director, the company is now making church bells for those churches that Stalin destroyed. Delicious.

At the recent American Historical Association (AHA) conference, I represented automotive history. In and out of the interested few (wonderful folks), the largest attention to our beloved subject, I found, came from remnant academic Sovietologists who were interested in labor and automobiles only insofar as it included communist automobiles. I only wish I had this article to share.

The Washington Times gets it wrong in that ZIL made only trucks and limousines for Communist Party elites. ZIL produced hundreds of thousands of automobiles (and millions of trucks), obviously the cars were not all limousines. The Times might have gotten it better by pointing out that, while ZIL made limousines, it didn't make the millions of automobiles that a worker's paradise might require -- as did, uhuhm, the United States. The ZIL was not the everyman's car.

God bless American consumerism, of which Oldsmobile was an original and century-long, prominent factor. I will lament the demise of Olds, a result of market forces and bad management exactly the same as I will applaud ZIL's re-creation as a church bell manufacturer.

Hoorah!

Apr 29/ 04

I've had my fun with NJ Guv McGreevey, especially his lunatic solutions to road problems. Today, instead, we'll send our sympathies:

James McGreevey Involved in Car Crash
 New Jersey Governor James McGreevey was in a car accident Wednesday afternoon.

He's okay, but aide Sean Brennan was slightly hurt. State police say the governor's car was on Route one in Lawrence Township, when another driver made an illegal left turn in front of them.

He's always getting into trouble with turns to the left...

.Apr 28/ 04

Oh my, a long, long month... Got the slide show up of my Dayton presentation:

Early Automobiles and Airplanes: The Cultural Lag

The full article will show up in print later in the year. Enjoy this, meanwhile.

Apr 5 / 04

Breaking! Breaking! -- Honesty in traffic enforcement... get this:

White women more likely ticketed when pulled over
.... According to the data, white women were most likely to get ticketed when pulled over by police — 93.3% of the time. By comparison, black men were ticketed 88.2% of the time they were stopped.

No, no, that's not the news. In this article on that old story of racial profiling comes an amazing admission from  Nashville Police Chief Serpas, who stumbled into this amazing admission:

''The officers are using their experience and knowledge. I can't second-guess every decision they make,'' Serpas said. Giving a warning can also help remind people to pay more attention to their driving, he said. ''What we're out to do is change behavior,'' Serpas said. ''The No. 1 predictor for collisions is failing to pay attention.''
[underline mine]

All hail Chief Serpas! You let it slip, bud, and I know you didn't mean it. Running away from charges of racial profiling, you let slip this unmentionable in traffic policy and enforcement: "failing to pay attention" causes most accidents. Read between the lines: speed doesn't kill, stupidity does.

Perhaps NJ Governor McGreevey can go after stupidity rather than its by-products, such as stupid speeding, stupid drunk driving and stupid cell-phone use in cars.

Meanwhile, that dumb bitch in a Merc who the other day cut me off from the right lane to get into the Anthropologie parking lot, and who hadn't a clue I was next to her, was not Driving While Cell-phoning, she was driving stupid. After braking hard to avoid being hit, I busted around her and made the cell phone gesture to make sure she knew that she cut me off. I then followed her into the parking lot, as I was going to that store, too. She scatted away, probably whining to whomever she was talking to that some bald dude in a beat up Ford Escort was stalking her. She is but another of the idiots who provoke the Guv McGreevey's and their willing accomplices in the legislatures to criminalize cell phone use in cars.

 Cell phones don't cause accidents, speeding doesn't cause accidents, stupidity does. So glad to see that Chief Serpas has, and on behalf of traffic enforcers everywhere, finally admitted it.

Apr 4/ 04

Back from the Dayton conference at which I delivered a raucous, rockin' lecture on the origins of the Motor Age: Henry Ford, Wright Brothers, my man Taft, and the back-ass, anti-automobile politics of Theodore Roosevelt that suppressed the achievements of the Wrights and Ford and their respective industries as a whole. Taft liberated them all. I converted the audience. An historian came up to me afterwards and said in his years-long studies of the early 1900s he never realized the politics of it. So glad he caught on.

I'm posting a photo essay for a glimpse of the lecture (under construction). The paper will be published at the end of the year by the Society of Automotive Historians. The lecture was off-the-cuff and fun. Sorry you missed it!

Mar 15 / 04

Off blog while preparing for the SAH/NAAM  conference presentation on April 2 at Dayton (see News above).

Got lots to talk about when time avails. If you need some amusement, meanwhile, check out this anti-automobile website (anti-everything, actually, but this page is dedciated to protests against automobiles and Big Oil... oooh). Too funny!

See you soon!

Mar 10/ 04

Breaking news: a rare act of stupidity from the State of New Jersey that doesn't have Governor McGreevey's name on it!

Nissan sued over stolen headlights
New Jersey authorities sued Nissan North America Inc. on Monday, alleging the automaker failed to warn customers that the super-bright headlights on its Maximas were hot targets for thieves.

... "We allege the company sold cars with these fancy lights, but kept consumers in the dark about how attractive the headlamps were to thieves," said Reni Erdos, director of the state division of consumer affairs, which filed the suit. "Nissan's actions, or lack thereof, rendered consumers vulnerable to the criminals who targeted their vehicles."

A Google news search of  "McGreevey"  and "stolen headlights" didn't get a match. Maybe he's too busy hiding under his desk after this story broke: McGreevey's office hit with U.S. subpoena. Too bad for the Guv. What a great issue, defending Japanese car buyers and car thieves both! We've had fun with McGreevey and his hyperactive governance, so I'm frightfully sad his name isn't on this one.

Mar 9/ 04

Hope at home:

Buick Beats BMW in New Car Rankings, Survey Says
For the first time in 25 years, the influential Consumer Reports magazine says the reliability of Detroit car and truck brands is now slightly better, on average, than European brands, Tuesday's Wall Street Journal reported. Prestigious European brands Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volkswagen, Audi, Volvo, Mini and Jaguar all ranked below average for reliability in 2003, based on results from the magazine's annual subscriber survey, which this year got 675,000 responses.

For cars less than a year old, the average problem rate for European cars was 20 per 100 vehicles, compared with 18 problems per 100 for traditional U.S. brands, such as Buick, Saturn or Dodge. U.S. makers still significantly trail Japanese and Korean auto makers, though. Asian auto makers held steady at 12 problems per 100 in the latest survey.

Watch out: Buick might just be the next great American car -- again. Oh, that and Cadillac. Check out this sucker: the Return of the Sixteen:

Sixteen - XV-16
The new GM XV16 concept engine, unveiled in the Cadillac Sixteen show car, builds on GM's leadership in advanced overhead-valve engine design and showcases a number of novel fuel-saving technologies in a surprisingly compact package.

.... GM's XV16 concept engine is a naturally aspirated, all-aluminum 13.6-liter V-16 that generates more than 1000 horsepower (746 kW) and 1000 lbs.-ft. (1356 Nm) of torque. Building on GM Powertrain's small-block V-8 engine architecture, the V-16 features many of GM's advanced next-generation valvetrain and fuel-saving technologies including 3-step Displacement on Demand.

Awesome stuff.

Feb 26/ 04

Just sent off an article to the great Automobile Quarterly magazine for which I spent the last three weeks insanely trying to secure information that couldn't be found. To know what you can't find is as important as finding it, although the uncertainty of it all is maddening. One can never prove a negative. Nevertheless, history deserves the best effort.

I've been dying to get back here and rant. Will have to start with a lovely incident on the way back from my journey tonight to Fedex to send in the AQ article. At a stop light I noticed that the Volvo S60 in the left-turn lane was shining its white reverse lights. The idiot had probably pulled into the intersection at the yellow or the red, backed back into the lane, and forget to get out of reverse. You've probably seen it before. I have. No matter how often seen it's a glorious sight: you count down the seconds to green knowing that the car will go backwards, not forwards at the press of the accelerator. No disappointment tonight: this Volvo shot backwards ten feet before the bastard hit the brake.

Oh, so lovely it is to enjoy someone else's pain... Now, off to my own.  See ya soon!

Feb 24/ 04

Apologies for the absence. Been working hard on a magazine article and a paper for a conference coming up next month. Been collecting things for you, meanwhile, and I can't wait to find a moment to put them up. Please check back in soon!

Feb 9 / 04

Lookie here, people voting with their free hand?

Drivers Soon Ignore Hands-Free Cell Phone Rule
...In March 2002, New York State put into effect a ban that prohibits all drivers from talking on a handheld cell phone while driving .... Before the ban, 2.3 percent of New York drivers talked on a handheld cell phone but this dropped to 1.1 percent immediately after the ban. But the effect was not long lasting. By March 2003, 2.1 percent of New York drivers were talking on a handheld cell phone, a percentage that was hardly different from before the ban.

You can't mess with Americans and their automobiles. Just as surely that a new law will follow the latest road disaster it will be ignored by the multitudes who will face neither enforcement of that law nor the laws of physics. Every American driver is a lawbreaker. Get in a car, and you break a law. Think about it: did you have your lights on at that first drop of rain? Did you remove your seatbelt to get your wallet to pay that toll? Did you do -- horrors! -- 42 in that 35 mph zone? You criminal.

The risk of being caught talking on the hand-held cell phone is either lower than the State needs or the consequence of getting caught isn't a deterrent. Either way, folks who break this law are making a simple economic choice: using the phone is worth more than getting caught costs. With cars, it's the same old story, starting with the first speeder over a hundred years ago. From day one the automobile has made scandals and scoundrels of us all.

Heh, that's just another great reason to celebrate it!

While you're here, see the Graphic of the week for the latest technology to assist chatty New York drivers.

Feb 6 / 04

At the January 1930 New York auto show, Cadillac presented the Sixteen, an astonishing marvel of that many cylinders and infinite dreams. Sixteen cylinders!

Who cared that the Cadillac traditional V-type engine meant those sixteen cylinders fit into a hood no longer than a Duesenberg straight eight, and that they produced fewer horses than the Duesy? Sixteen cylinders! Bad-ass, automotive bliss.

The Sixteen launched Cadillac. From its inception in 1903, when backers of Henry Ford bailed on that dreaming, scheming perfectionist for the second time and went to Detroit's best machinist, Henry Leland, to apply his "one-lunger," a brilliant and powerful one-cylinder engine, to a plain Ford chassis, instantly creating a perennial best car, to its 1909 test of stripping three cars into a common pile then reassembling them into three working cars and running them 500 miles, to its 1950s and 1960s supremacy in style, design, technology and comfort, Cadillac was the best built automobile in the world. Of all its cars, including the outrageous shark-finned 1959s, the 1930 Sixteen was the most outrageous, made altogether more outrageous for its timing, coming three months after the market implosion of October, 1929. That was not planned, as the Sixteen had been in development for three years. No matter, for over the next year the Sixteen sold out and drew attention and buyers to Cadillac dealers like nothing else, even amidst economic collapse.

Come the gas crisis, the EPA, and Jimmy Carter, Cadillac sank to what the moderns came to think of as a cushy, beastly, once-great old-folks' machine that once had a great name that no longer meant anything.

Over the last two years we have seen a brand repositioning the equal to the stunning 1930 introduction of the Sixteen. In business, this is revolution. You can't buy it. And if you could, it wouldn't last. While advertising operates in image and slogans, it has to stand somewhere. No base, it floats away. Cadillac took on not only a hot Zeppelin guitar riff, it has built a platform to sustain it. One result: the word "Cadillac" is back.

Cadillac, Mercedes battle over hip-hop throne
Move over Mercedes-Benz, Caddy is this month's king of cool, according to Americas trend-setting rappers and musicians. While the German luxury brand was the favored status-symbol of rappers last year, a review of the top 20 best-selling records in the United States in January shows that Cadillac was the hottest set of wheels this month -- at least in the eyes of America's music-makers.

"Don't want to meet your daddy, just want you in my Caddy," runs a line from "Hey Ya!" a tune by hip-hop band Outkast.

"If you ain't got no man, hop up on my Brougham, I keep it pimpin like an old man," says rapper Twista in Slow Jamz.

 I'm so glad to have Cadillac back. While I enjoyed LL Cool J yapping about his three Rolls-Royces, and while I have no problem with Dr. Dre and his Benzo, R-R is too alliterative (and what's up with "Benzo," anyway?). "Mercedes-Benz" just ain't lyrical, and no matter how Andre or Janis Joplin sing it, those four, equal syllables are plain. Compare it to Snoop Dog''s "Mutherfuckin' Cadillac," and you'll see what I mean.

Try "mutherfuckin' Mercedes-Benz." Only a good MC can say it right, and even then it's not natural. Snoop's goes four syllables to three, with accents on each of the last three. M-B requires two down-beats, whereas Cadillac has but one, or, if properly pronounced, none, as it properly has but two consonants -- an alliterative cannonball. It's all abut the K's at either end.

No matter the sounds, as GM learned in the Eighties and Nineties, without the product, there's no word. It don't work to rap about your father's Cadillac -- it's gotta be your own. I'm gratified not only that Cadillac is back in the popular lexicon, but that, finally, we have an American automobile ad campaign with a car to match. It's been a m-effin long time coming.

Feb 2/ 04

In my 9/30/03 column I suggested that the Administration was out to starve the Congress of highway funds, daring Congress to jack the gas tax or cave and go pay-as-you-go via tolls. (See also the 10/27/03 and 9/29/03 entries in which I warned that special interests and congressional hogs were after your gas tank.) Well, the Administration has won, and congratulations America:

Petri, Kennedy lead dueling visions for transportation bill

No, it's not that Kennedy. It's this one:

...Rep. Mark Kennedy, a Minnesota Republican in just his fourth year in Congress, has gained momentum for his more unorthodox solution: Allowing states to build tolls on interstate highways, to fund construction of new optional "FAST" lanes.

The gas tax assumes that automobiles and trucks will pay their share by their consumption of fuel, and that highway costs will be carried by specific users of fuel on behalf of society which in general benefits from that specific highway usage.

An alternative view is that since society in general benefits from highways society in general ought maintain them through general taxation. This has been generally expressed in the form of bonds which are to be paid by the gasoline tax or by general revenue.

Both solutions require general federal taxation. The debate in Congress has been over how much and not what. As noted by your host last September, this is about to change. With the federal debt escalating due to lower general tax receipts, and with antipathy of tax increases (thanks to tax cuts), general payments or increasing the gasoline tax is a dead trail.

The viable alternative -- and this is driven by the Administration -- is more and more specificity in the tax burden via direct user payments, i.e. tolls. Oops. Here's the opposition, coming from the office of gas-tax-hiker Rep. Young of Alaska:

"Tolling is one of the least popular ways to raise revenue for roads and bridges ... People who are subject to tolling would rather pay a little more at the pump than go through the entire process that tolling encompasses. If you had a national highway system set up on tolling you'd never get anywhere."

But what about everyone else who doesn't pay tolls?

They'll never notice. Hit 'em up boys. They'll yelp, but they're but a small corner of the pound.

Jan 29 / 04

A really fine definition of traction control from the great Click and Clack:

Magliozzi: Skid control not necessarily necessary
Tom: Basically, there are several skid-control devices now. There are antilock braking systems (ABS), which keep you from skidding when you're stopping. There's traction control, which keeps you from skidding when you're accelerating. And then there's electronic stability control, which keeps you from skidding when you're turning.

Ray: What about Liquid Tide? Doesn't that have something to do with eliminating skid marks, too?

Tom: Ignore my brother, Meg. Stability control corrects for oversteer and understeer. Basically, it looks at where you put the steering wheel and compares that with where the vehicle is actually going. If the two lines are different, stability control uses the ABS system (and, in most cases, throttle position) to correct the line of the car and keep you on the road.

Even I undestand it now with that simple, clear definition. Much to be learned there, and not just about cars. My compliments to the boys.

Jan 27 / 04

Got into a touch of trouble over my essay on SUVs, Hating Life (and the SUV). One reader demanded to know if she owns an SUV because she's "arrogant," "vain" or "nervous about her marriage." None of the above, I told her, it's because she's short. Elsewhere, I've been challenged on the link between breast implants and suicide, which, you must understand, was relevant to my dissertation on the SUV. So I put up a link to a medical journal article on the subject. Ah, the onward march of science...

Other readers pointed to the incomprehension by inhabitants of the New Yorker offices as to the U in SUV. One gave proof by way of a Snopes.com photograph of some idiot who loaded a pallet of plywood onto a subcompact. You gotta see it: The Lumber Car. That oughta settle the matter of the Utility of the larger car.

Meanwhile, teen angst played out against SUVs down in Houston:

Teens arrested for smashing 'decadent' SUVs
A former Cy-Fair High School student serving five years' probation for felony arson in a flag-burning case headed a group of self-described environmental guerrillas who vandalized almost 50 sport utility vehicles, officials said Tuesday.

"Environmental guerrillas"? Too much knowledge, or just a product of modern anti-automobilism? Damn, as kids, we never, ever conjoined philosophy with vandalism. It was a purely aesthetic experience, in between doing really, really stupid things in my mom's station wagon... 9, maybe 10 mpg coming from that old Buick 354.

For my essay on automobiles and philosophy c.1912, see The Motor Bandits: The Motor Bandits: Cars, Crime, and Philosophy. These guys were much more amusing -- and deadly, than today's enviro-punks.

Jan 26/ 04

Your host v. the New Yorker Magazine on the SUV

Jan 23 / 04

Photographer Helmut Newton Dies in Crash
Newton, 83, was pulling out of a parking lot at the Chateau Marmont Hotel just off Sunset Boulevard at about noon when he lost control of the Cadillac he was driving and crashed into a wall

Here for a photo of the crash. Ten bucks says the airbag got him. (Oh, it was a Caddy SUV...)

While you ponder your financial future, enjoy this story:

Streakers Watch As Their Car Is Stolen

Jan 21 / 04

Yesterday your host went on about drunks and legislators and toughening laws against the worst offenders (Jan 20). The news today brings confirmation:

Proposed law would prevent drunk drivers from buying automobiles
...White said the initiative is one more step his office is taking to try to keep the most dangerous drivers off the roads of Illinois. White pointed to a fatal crash that occurred last year as the impetus for the legislation. A drunk driver whose license had been revoked since 1995 slammed his vehicle into a porch killing four people. The driver had purchased his vehicle just three months prior to that wreck despite the fact he was ineligible to drive.

What, no license no car? What will the ACLU have to say about this? Reality says that the guy would find a way to buy a car if he wanted to buy a car. He'd go to New Jersey (calling Gov. McGreevey!) or Maryland. Why, we must make it a Federal law, then!

Sausage making at its best, friends.

Jan 20 / 04

Had a fascinating conversation with someone who is in the business of promoting automobile safety. He's all about seatbelts and teen and drunk driving. Some people just don't wear seatbelts, it seems. I'm not one to demand legislative enforcement of it. I'd rather the States outlaw stupidity first. Neither that nor seatbelt laws would change much, I'm afraid. As for teens, they just get into more and worse accidents than any other demographic, and States are vigorously chasing them down with such laws as to limit them to driving with one adult passenger, etc. That, too, strikes me as futile, but, heh, it's the democratic way: legislatures must act! Unless, of course, some influence pulls harder the other way. Teens, drunks, and the seatbelt-less don't have much of a lobby. Sure, libertarian types are out there protesting the safety nannies, but they do it on behalf of principle, not the teens and the drunks.

Wait a minute -- I'm told that the drunks do have a lobby. I shoulda known it. But of course!

Drunk driving is ever a problem. The drunks won't go away. States have lowered tolerance levels (such as .08) and outlawed what in the South they still call "toters" -- that drink you take with you on the drive. Now they're going after the serious drunks, the ones who don't mind being arrested, who don't mind losing their license, and who don't remember having run down that nun. The noose is going up for those types. But that's about it. There won't be any further tightening of the blood alcohol levels, it is the theory of my informant, for no matter the demands of MADD and the AAA, the average, lamented and regretful drunk driver indeed has a champion. Standing between you and MADD and that fourth drink is none other than... The Lawyers.

But of course! They make serious cash off drunks, defending them, suing them. They'd rather not see the problem go away. And, guess what profession is most common among State legislators... You got it, The Law. And, says my informer, as far as the good old boys in the State capitols are concerned, keeping blood alcohol limits high is an act of self-defense... So go ahead and test your body. Your attorney was a D.A. He'll cut a deal.

So is it two or three beers an hour? Was that shot of whiskey really the equivalent to one beer, or did that nice tip you gave the bartender return a double on round two? You've got a guardian angel. Go right ahead. $200 an hour.

Jan 12 / 04

Just up a new essay on the outrageous and the outrage of the Motor Bandits

Enjoy!

Jan 4 / 04

Back from Christmas vacation, and survived severe testing of the earth's gravitational pull, a.k.a. skiing the Mt. Sugarloaf, Maine ice. As for automobiles, the trip was built around testing/ breaking in a lovely new LEXUS GS300. No, it's not mine, and, yes, its owner was mighty scared about it all, a test that included the upper half of I-95, dirt and ice Maine roads, two children, and my CD collection. And yes, one of said children puked in Connecticut. The fine, leather interior and parchment white outer paint was, mostly, spared. The rest of the trip the slightest "Daddy?" sent the front seats into Code Orange.

The Lexus fared it all magnificently, especially my final pull around the left-lane bastards at the I-495/I-270 split just before the final exit to back home. Said owner got nervous with my driving -- or showed it -- for the first time all trip as I popped the electronic manual shifter into 3rd at about 65 and jammed it up to I-Won't-Say how many mph's, then smashed brakes at the exit. I had to suppress that "woo hoo!" I'd perfected on that one good run at Sugarloaf (damn!).

Too much fun.

So here's the review: entirely solid car with no defects, starting with enough trunk for the four of us and winter clothes. Road feel is good, and not too-good, as one gets with the Teutonic "driving cars," while far better than the old American floaters. Didn't for an instant feel OOC, although I didn't try. Heh, it happens sometimes, and it didn't once, not even under serious at-speed gittin' around the New Haven construction between Jersey walls and huge trucks. Eight+ hours driving and I didn't get leg-tired once. The engine doesn't lack a thing. It's ever there when needed, especially in the tranny's automatic "sport" mode, which allows higher rpm shifts than standard auto. The manual shifter works great, but quickly becomes tedious. It's fun to have, though, and fun when in the mood.

My favorite luxury feature is the open-windows button on the key. You stand by the car, hold down the unlock button, and all the windows open, sunroof included. The best we could figure was it'd be useful if a baseball or missile or something was coming, and you could lower the windows to let it pass with no shattered glass, or if a quick escape requires jumping into the driver's seat through the sunroof from the 3rd floor of a Monaco hotel. I really can't think of any other reason to open the windows from the outside, and that includes airing it out on a hot day, for the machine's got a fine and strong A/C to which that'd be an insult.

Best of all, it's a true sedan -- four doors, poised, and comfortable -- yet and ever the proper coach for riding and driving. The GS300 is a marvelous car, and the owner is justifiably proud.

Web review of the car here: automotive.com
Lexus website: GS specs

Dec 17 / 03

Back from NYC and full of motoring thoughts, especially after near death from crazed New York mothers and ramming baby carriages. I'll take New Jersey turnpike 18-wheelers in snow storms over maniac driven, twin-infant, drop-top, all-weather plastic-draped baby carriages that own 5th Avenue sidewalks.

More on that soon. Meanwhile, here's a fun one:

Parking ticket finally gets paid
The Athens [Georgia] Downtown Parking System received an envelope Friday with payment for a downtown parking violation on Clayton Street - from 1965 .... the $1 cash payment came in an old Parking System envelope, with an old 5-cent stamp - and a newer 32-cent stamp - attached. In addition to the fine, the envelope came with a note: ''I forgot to send this dollar back in 1965. I added a 32-cent stamp to the envelope. Sorry, Gary Peacock.''

Awesome! And now for some serious bizness...

While it may be smog-free, smugness is the worser pollutant of the Toyota Prius. One owner of this "hybrid" gasoline-electric automobile bragged to the Oregon newspaper, the Register-Guard:

"It's very easy to drive, it's very comfortable and it saves a lot of money," he said. "And it's environmentally sane."
 (Current Trend: Hybrid cars give owners a charge)

But wait-- the self-satisfieds are in for a fixin' I'm not sure they can handle. The same article notes:

Toyota plans to unveil a hybrid Lexus RX 330, its luxury SUV, next fall. And late next summer, Ford will start selling its first hybrid electric vehicle, the Escape SUV. The Saturn Vue SUV and the GMC Sierra, Chevrolet Silverado and Dodge Ram pickup trucks also are slated for hybrid versions.

An environmentally-friendly SUV? (See the August 28 entry for the Eco-terroriests and SUVs.) What are the hyperactives to do? Can they, as F. Scott Fitzgerald defined intelligence, hold opposing thoughts in sanity, or is there, ultimately, no incongruity between hatred of a gas-guzzling SUV and hatred of a 50mpg SUV? Until it gets 75 mpg it's a damnation. Or 100, or, or... no matter what, it's the killer of Kyoto accords and flying emblem of America at its worst.

It's the SUV and not the engine that offends. Back in the anti-automobile early days, nobody complained about yachts, for hardly anyone ever saw them. But get in the back of a limousine, and there was hell to pay. Indeed, appearances are everything. They'll still hate the SUV, hybrid engine and all. Don't count on feel-good satisfaction from car owners who just want a good ride. It ain't mpg one wants out of an SUV, and it ain't gonna get a pass from car-haters and Prius owners.

I wonder if the greenies at Ford marketing have really thought this one through. Doubtful.

Dec 10 / 03

Off to NYC for an awesome time! See you next week!

Some busy work, meanwhile, can be found here:

Want a cigarette blackmarket and all the violence that goes with it? Raise taxes super high and go here: The deadly butt-leg war

Good speeding (bad driving): Unsafe at Any Speed

Bad speeding (good driving): Speeding Isn't Funny 

But no, Hillary's gonna save you from it all!: Hillary Clinton Joins Fight for National Seatbelt Law Yikes.

And If Hillary doesn't get you to feeling the flu, here's George Soros... again... Shut Up! The Bubble of American Supremacy

 Alright, you've got your homework, politics and automobiles.

Dec 7 / 03

Catching up on some stories today. First up is a sure winner for NJ Guv McGreevey, Superhero to the Oppressed and Fixer of All Things. If he hasn't got his hands in this one, he'll be there soon. No more worry (and new laws) over sleepy drivers, Guv McG, here's the latest bogeyman for ya, from the TimesLeader, "Northeastern PA's homepage" (and, yes, the article comes of Trenton, NJ)::

Collection agencies targeting E-ZPass violators
Thousands of E-ZPass users who have failed to pay their fines will be hearing from a collection agency. Violators have racked up $12 million in unpaid tolls and fees since late March, officials said. That includes $125,000 owed by the top ten toll cheats, who are now receiving letters demanding that they pay up.

I'll google "EZ Pass and McGreevey" in a few days and see what comes up. I'll bet he can't resist. Okay, I couldn't resist. I did it now. Google brings 644 hits. The good news is that the first story ain't so bad:

Governor McGreevey unveils high speed E-ZPass

Speed is good. It's funny, though. Let's see how nearby Guvs do (I'm choosing the highest counts from the various spellings of E-ZPass EZ-Pass, EZ Pass, etc.): NY's Pataki gets 551 hits. MD's Ehlrich gets 134. PA's Rendell and EZ Pass" lands 111.  Guv McGreevey -- you da man!

Playing Google and McGreevey brought me to this one, dated Oct 31/03:

NEW POLL: McGreevey's Troubles Go Beyond Approval Ratings
Voters Rank Him "One of the Worst Governors," in New Jersey History by a 3:1 Margin, Say They are "Embarrassed" by Him, and that It's Time to Give Someone New a Chance The New Gray Davis?

"The New Gray Davis"? Ouch.

Regulars here will recognize the McG name. (See the end of the Dec 2 cars entry for links to other McG entries). Really, it's not my fault. I landed on the McG by accident. He does silly things. I just report it. Oh, Guv McG, if you'd have let us alone, we wouldn't laugh at you so much. Oh, and this:
QUIT MESSING WITH OUR CARS!

Next up are a couple fun stories for ya. No comments, for they speak for themselves:

Stylist's Hair Catches Fire at Gas Pump
ALBANY, Ga. -- A hair stylist was pumping gas into her car when her hair burst into flames. "That scared me to death," said stylist Traci Marshall. The fire was probably caused by static electricity from Marshall's hair rubbing against her clothes, said her husband, Camilla firefighter Lt. Bill Marshall. The static electricity apparently mixed with gas fumes and ignited the fire Sunday.

Man with over 400 arrests sent to prison
ANDERSON, Ind. (AP) - A 74-year-old man who has been arrested at least 400 times was sentenced Monday to 17 years in prison on drunken driving charges. Virldeen Redmon of Anderson was arrested in July while driving even though his license had been suspended for life following scores of alcohol-related offenses. Redmon's latest conviction was on charges of driving while intoxicated, endangering a person and driving while suspended.

Police have been arresting him since 1947, including three times since June. Redmon has had his driver's license suspended for life five times. In 1996, a judge sentenced him to 9-1/2 years in prison for driving under a lifetime suspension and public intoxication. The judge reduced the sentence in 2001 and released him after a doctor testified that Redmon suffered from health problems.

Dog Caught Opening Car Doors: Video Captures Canine Seeking Shelter Inside Family Car
Members of the Leroy family in Washington thought they were the target of a prankster when they kept finding a stray dog inside their parked car. Intent on catching the culprit, they set up a video camera to record the vehicle. However, they were surprised at what they caught on film. The video captured the dog as she opened the car door on her own and climbed inside.

Dec 2 / 03

Had a "there but for the grace of God" moment yesterday when I got to watch a woman wipe out on the Capitol Beltway at 60 mph. Merging on to the highway, I noticed that a car ahead was heading off the road. You see this, as drivers get distracted. Usually they correct it over the line or the rough pavement. This car kept going, moving steadily over the oversized shoulder and boom! into the wall, which it struck at an angle. The driver reacted just before the impact, and threw the wheel to the left. That, with the impact, shot the car back across the highway. I can see it in slow motion, crossing in front of three lanes of cars. Somehow, it slipped threw and landed on the median containing wall with another Boom!

I stopped to the right, now ahead of the car. Seeing that others had stopped from behind her, I moved on, figuring I could be no more help and that I'd only get in the way being on the other side.

Reminded me of the time in the pre-cell phone days that I had to run over a field to make a 911 call for some old man that went off Route 29 just north of Charlottesville. A doctor had stopped, too, and he attended the guy while I made the call. When I got back, the doctor headed for his car. He told me that the man was okay and just not to let him move. He didn't want to be around when names were taken. He probably already had lawyer burns for helping someone, and he didn't want to be around for another run in court.

I'll assume the women was okay. She was upright and the car, an economobile, amazingly, didn't flip. One of the cars that almost hit hers was an SUV. The irony there is that while her small car would have been crushed by the SUV, if she were in a SUV, she would have flipped.

Two morals here: 1) you never know; and 2) don't do your make-up in the car. Shall we ask Governor McGreevey of NJ to make a law against it? (For Guv McG's stories, see the Nov/11 and Nov/17 cars entries and the Oct/21 politics entry)

Dec 1 / 03

In 1908, Jules Jusserand proclaimed that the automobile was the fulfillment of man's long dream for locomotion:

This the men before us could do only in their imagination. The Orientals had King Solomon's carpet, Ruggiero had his hippogriff, Rabelais had his movable road, we have our automobiles, and we equal them all.

Jusserand's enthusiasm has, c. 2003 fallen to this from the Sacramento Bee:

Another crisis for Schwarzenegger: Increasing traffic congestion
We Californians' symbiotic relationship with our cars and the roads we traverse is a well-established sociological phenomenon, born of our notion, perhaps misguided, of freedom to go anywhere and do what we want, whenever we please. And we exercise those assumed privileges by driving over a quarter-trillion miles each year.

Our writer, Dan Walters, ain't exactly enthused by the automobile. So much for Ruggierio and Rabelais. The automobile is no longer legend, it's a "sociological phenomenon."  And now to the Guvernator and his problems with modern sociology:

Arnold Schwarzenegger, who used to drive a Hummer on Los Angeles freeways when he was a private, if famous, citizen, paid homage to that special connection in two gubernatorial decrees. The new governor reversed two unpopular actions by predecessor Gray Davis -- one of those rare Californians who didn't drive -- by reducing property taxes on cars by billions of dollars, and pressuring the Legislature to repeal a new law that granted driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

Schwarzenegger's governorship, however, faces a more serious, if less evident, transportation crisis. Simply put, the state is rapidly running out of money to expand its transportation systems, especially highways, in the face of ever-increasing demand, largely because billions of dollars have been diverted into the state's general fund to cover deficits.

Walters can't even find joy in the Governor's victories over the car tax and licenses for illegals (oxymoron alert!). Screw that, Walters. In 1902, your kind complained about speeders. In 1906, your kind blamed socialism on the envy created by rich automobilists. In 1932 your kind complained that President Hoover's car was too nice. In 1952, your kind said that a national road system was impractical and expensive. It's always and ever the same: nope, can't do it, won't do it, na na na. I'm not a non-believer, Mr. Walters. We've got mighty bad traffic here in DC, and I just deal with it, screaming included. No matter how bad it is, though, I'll ever love the automobile, including my own (no matter how crappy it is). And no matter what, I'll never give an inch to Walter's and his self-loathing. Is it, Mr. Walters, "misguided" this "freedom to go anywhere and do what we want, whenever we please." (Mind the speed limit, please..) No thank you. I'm with Mr. Jusserand.

Long live the automobile!

Elsewhere, and for some positive thinking, see the Graphic of the Week (link above) for a new idea in auto-motion.

Nov. 28 / 03

Just back from Miami, where I got in some amazing car-watching. Like L.A., South Florida is an automobile marketers' toy house. Miamians would blow the insurance money on a down-payment towards seven-years of monthlies on a new Merc before fixing the roof of the house after a hurricane. They'd rather no house than no car. The car to Miami is the all and the everything. L.A. ain't nothing to Miami, if only because in Miami all they've got is the car. I wandered parking lots of cheap condo parks and counted hood ornaments. I followed one guy in a new and very yellow Corvette into an apartment building that'd embarrass even your worst New York lanlaw. Never mind the bed bugs, damn, he was gonna look good in that car. Ya gotta wonder what he does when he actually gets the girl into the car. "Heh baby, wanna go to your place?"

Cars in Miami are tricked out one way or another. The most expensive option at the Honda dealer is no spoiler for the Accord. Try blue neon on the dash of the Infiniti. Try low riding in a 320i. They even trick out '84 Impalas, jackin' 'em with truck tires and purple velour over the seats. Yes, you can still buy velour in Miami. And yes, you can get that Boxster in chartreuse.

The great thing about Miami, though, is that they actually drive these things. It's been years since I was run down by a sports car in DC. In Washington you get lawyers with 160 mph speedos and self-imposed rev-limiters that left-lane sit at 57 mph. They actually use the dashboard in Miami. Coming over the Miami Beach causeway I could only cheer when a Porsche blew smoke at the green light. That baby had to have hit triple-digits at the top of the bridge. Yeah, yeah, death and ruined lives and all that. Go up to the top of this page and hit the button for my article on speeding in 1902. Your outrage is that old. And so is joy at a fast car actually driven fast.

I'm sorry, I like that kind of thing.

Nov 20 / 03

Bromley's off burning his scalp in Miami for a week. Best to all, and please check in for tales and adventures on the trip starting up again right here a week from today.

Nov 17 / 03

Been that long since I logged on? Hurrump. Thanks for your patience. Maybe I've been busy having more fun that you.

So here's the latest on automobiles. First up comes from our wacky friends up north:

P.E.I. throne speech promises limits on automobile insurance rates
A promise of new legislation that will put limits on Island auto insurance rates was formalized in this week's speech from the throne.

You think that's confusing, hell, not only do they have a throne, they think they can just cap insurance costs, and voilá, liberté, fraternité y insuré.

Calling NJ Guv. McGreevey, calling Guv McGreevey! (see 11/11 entry) Your socialist friends up in -- where the hell is this? Prince Edward Island? yeah, whatever -- have a plan for you. Snap of the fingers, stroke of the pen... cool, law of the land. Ain't fairy tales nice?

Sorry, P.E.I and your thrones, you just made auto insurance expensive for everybody.

Nov 11 / 03

Here he goes again. Our good friend, New Jersey Guv. McGreevey is back at it to save us by killing us (see entries Nov 3 cars and Oct 21 politics). I dont know what it is about this guy. He's got bad Bromley Karma or something, but I can't swing a cat through the newspapers without scaring up another of his inanities. I swear it, I'm not tracking the guy. I see something stupid in the news and two out of three times it's old Guv. McGreevey again. Here's the latest:

$1 a day keeps some motorists legal
CRANBURY -- Gov. McGreevey went to a New Jersey Turnpike rest area yesterday to frame the announcement that low-income motorists can purchase auto insurance for a dollar a day in the state with the nation's highest premiums. "There is no longer any excuse for any citizen to refuse to drive without auto insurance," said McGreevey at the Turnpike's Molly Pitcher Rest Stop. New Jersey law requires motorists to carry insurance. This has been a burden on many inner-city residents who need transportation to reach jobs in the suburbs and industrial parks.

A buck a day, that's all it takes. Go Guv McGreevey. Straight to France or some other socialist country where State policies are all about the unfairness of wealth. Guv McGreevey is like the cop who stopped a suicide by shooting the guy. And he needs a similar reprimand from his superiors: "Not an acceptable method." McGreevey's little plan to make New Jersey auto insurance affordable for the poor is going to make it more and more and more expensive for the rest. NJ is already tops on the premium list of all states.

Please, please, Guv. McGreevey, please stop trying to save us from ourselves.

Nov 6 / 03

From the Christian Science Monitor,

Court weighs legality of roadblock searches
.... Anyone who has flown on a commercial jetliner has endured random, suspicionless searches by government authorities. In a different venue, such government action would be a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures. But metal detectors, luggage scanners, and pat-downs at airport departure gates are authorized as "reasonable" in recognition of the threat posed by terrorists. So what about a police roadblock set up to help investigate an unsolved crime?

No, no, no, says a drunk driver who was nabbed at an "informational" roadblock set up as a dragnet for another crime. Who's he kidding? This is the Rhenquist Court, and it counts to ten like this, "1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10." Ain't no such thing as a Fourth Amendment in that math. At least not if Justice O'Connor's in a mood that day. The Monitor continues,

The case is significant because it is expected to clarify when law-enforcement officials may use roadblocks - including sobriety checkpoints. And it comes at a time when the government is adopting increasingly tight security measures in the on-going war on terrorism.

One last drink, anyone?

Nov 3 / 03

The Nov/Dec AAA World magazine (sorry, no link) advises that we'd better not Drive While Fatigued (FWT) in New Jersey.

Wake Up Call (p. 20)
Jersey drivers could be thrown in jail for driving fatigued.

How they gonna know? Too much yawning on the Turnpike? ("Gee, Mr. Ossifer, I'm not tired, I was just bored by the stupid traffic.") Or will there be a coffee count at rest stops? ("Sorry, son, that's the fourth time you've peed in an hour, and you peed on your shoes this time. You're under arrest.")

The law comes to us, as do all Nanny Laws, in reaction to a horrible incident, and yes, yes, the lawmakers shall act! This one is "Maggie's Law," named for some poor innocent slaughtered by a moron driving on 30 hours of open-eyed fatigue. Under the new law he'd have gotten a 2nd degree charge and the full 10 years in jail and $100K fine.

Of course, like all these idiot laws such as cell-phone bans, responsible fatigue is out the window with one bad classmate. At least NJ Governor McGreevey can feel better at not getting his anti-growth bill (see politics entry here). Cool, slash of the pen, law of the land, no more dead Maggies.

What the Jersey legislature should have done is to make penalties more severe for harm caused by negligent acts, such as DWF, cell phone use, etc., rather than outlaw such behavior altogether. Really, it makes more sense, it is more fair, and it would make for much more fun in the courts. Instead, we outlaw potential rather than consequence.

Can't go there -- might lead to reasonable drunk driving and speed laws, won't it? Okay, make that argument, but what about the opposite, the severe restrictions on our liberties just because someone else abused them? I find that much more dangerous.

Oct 27 / 03

Here comes another newspaper serial story on the dismal state of American roads, this time from the Washington Post yesterday:

A Cheaper, Faster Way
Whenever Tina Kinney hears politicians offer ways to fix the traffic jams that extend her hour-long commute and determine everything from where she lives to when she buys groceries, she rarely hears solutions that would ease her pain today, this year or even next. Most often, Kinney said, discussions about reducing traffic seem to get stuck for years in debates over whether to build mega-projects that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and do little to help her life in the short-term ... "I get very frustrated because I feel like there's so much that could be done -- simple, common-sense things," Kinney said. When asked for relatively quick, affordable ways to reduce traffic, Kinney and other Post readers had plenty of ideas: Crack down on double-parked vehicles that create bottlenecks. Remind highway drivers, particularly on the Beltway, that the left lane is for passing...

... other solutions are same old, such as telecommuting, parking restrictions, better timed lights, bike paths, and so on. What's really going on here is that the hated "big" projects are tied up in politics, lawsuits and bad leadership.

Advocates for expanding the highway network say only more roads .... Environmental groups say the long-term solution lies not in building and widening roads, but in focusing development around transit stops and moving away from the car-dependent sprawl that creates more traffic.

The debate has grown more contentious in the past decade, often blocking attempts to reach any agreement on plans to combat congestion, local officials said. But today, many public officials and transportation experts are beginning to focus on shorter-term, affordable and less-controversial fixes. That is partly because nobody has the money to fix the big problems, whether they be via transit systems or roads. Some transportation planners also say shifting the focus could help the region get beyond a roads-vs.-transit stalemate that has diverted attention from other potential traffic busters.

"I think there has been a kind of paralysis of decision-making for the years I've been here," said Ronald F. Kirby, transportation planning director for the Council of Governments since 1987. "The little things that could have been done kind of got lost in the larger debate. . . . The bigger issue of whether to build more roads or not was so overwhelming in people's minds that they just didn't want to talk about anything else until they settled those issues."

At least he admits it. So what of those small projects? Today's article in the Post is on telecommuting (here). Ain't gonna happen, or it ain't gonna clear the roads. None of the small projects will change a thing. It's either more roads or not. The Enviros are clear on this issue. What about you? Me, I want more roads. And I will take one of the small projects, only I want action, not advice. From the article,

Remind highway drivers, particularly on the Beltway, that the left lane is for passing...

When's the last time you were "reminded" not to drive 85? I want the left lane huggers gunned down, or ticketed, or something. But reminded? Never ceases to amaze how reporters prefer mush.

Oct 23 / 03

Just one of those stories that if you haven't seen it you just got to: Remember the Chevy "No va" that read "Doesn't Run" in Mexican? Well, GM marketing has committed rhetorical suicide once again, this time up north:

Embarrassed GM to Rename Car With Risque Overtones
General Motors Corp will rename its Buick LaCrosse in Canada because the name for the car is slang for masturbation in Quebec, embarrassed officials with the U.S. automaker said on Thursday.

There's gotta be a market for it somewhere... I mean, why not go with it? With with the LaCrosse and its U.S. cousin, the Wanker, Buick could pull the fastest repositioning in marketing history. Just no explaining that sudden popularity of the stodgy old brand with 16 year old boys. What's next, an endorsement from Peewee Herman?

See graphic here

Oct 22 / 03

A friend sends some interesting links on speeding, the first one with the comment, "why the f-- does a state government need to have a speed limit resource page?" here:

Speed Limits Resources
MN. Statute 169.14 establishes statutory speed limits on most typical roadways under ideal conditions. All other speed limits are set by the DOT Commissioner based upon an engineering and traffic investigation.

Actually, this is a good thing it's up on the web. State traffic engineers are a peculiar breed who vary from the contemptuous to genius. My sad experience in Virginia was with one of the former category. What an ass. The first thing out of his mouth in reply to my question about a lunacy-causing 35-mph speed limit on a four-lane stretch of road was, "So how much was your speeding ticket?" Not a good start. I didn't endear myself to him with, "I didn't, and if I did it'd be none of your effin business, outside of it paying your salary. And you, sir, are an asshole." I did not receive a satisfactory answer to my question -- and not because of mutual contempt. His explanation was stupid, something to do with average speeds, distances between intersections and merging traffic, all of which led me to the conclusion that the limit at that very favored Fairfax County Police speed trap ought be fifty at a minimum.  So check out that link, for it does the citizens a service with its easy glimpse into the tortured thinking behind speed limits

The other link my friend offers is a has a history of traffic control in Great Britain:

Road Safety and the Institute of Road Safety Officers

And yes, I detailed the development of speed limits in my book, William Howard Taft and the First Motoring Presidency. And yes, Taft was pulled over for speeding. And finally, this fun link:

Alabama's SPEEDTRAP LOTTO

Oct 16 / 03

Some car ad during the ALCS game had a polar bear getting into the passenger seat. Struck me as a misrepresentation of the species -- I mean world's largest carnivor wouldn't settle for a ride in the passengers seat, would he? Well, seems like he wouldn't. From the News.com.au site:

Polar bear kills last villager
 A polar bear has killed the last villager on Russia's Vrangel island off the northern Chukotka peninsula, scientists at a local reserve said today. The reserve's workers attempted to save Vasilina Alpaun, who was attacked on her own doorstep, but were too late. ... Bears roam free on the island and are rarely aggressive, the reserve's director Leonid Bove said, adding that the woman most likely provoked the animal.

The island's last resident? What'd she do to the bear -- invite it into her U-Haul?  This ain't right.

Oct 12 / 03

Last week was a busy one and was away, so no new entries.  Started out with the taping of an interview of me for a History Channel "Modern Marvels" show on presidential transportation. The producer and cameraman were excellent and mighty professional. It was great fun, and I can't wait to see the product.

Meanwhile, while I'm catching up, you can catch up on me at the new entry to the website, Bromleyism Archives, with assorted essays from back when I had more time for that sort of thing. Although a few years old now, you might have some fun with the stories of my really bad car, thoughts on speeding,  speed limits and enforcement, and a body-slam at bad drivers of good cars. Also some political stuff therein.

Thanks for your patience, and have fun at the archives!

 Oct 4  / 03

Here are two gems for ya, on fun and games with cars and crime:

Man Steals $729K Ferrari After Test Drive
ARDMORE, Pa. - Where do you hide a $729,000 Ferrari during rush hour? That's what police in the Philadelphia suburbs want to know, after a con man drove off with a red Ferrari F50 during a test drive. The Ferrari F50 — which can hit 60 mph in less than 4 seconds and tops out at 203 mph — hasn't been seen since. Police theorize it was hustled into a trailer and quickly shipped overseas for sale on the black market.

The company made just 349 of the eye-popping Italian roadsters — described by one car-enthusiast Web site as "part Batmobile, part ballistic missile" — in 1995 to commemorate its 50th anniversary. It was designed to be a street version of a Formula One race car. The thief, a nattily dressed man who claimed he had flown up from Atlanta and had a limo waiting nearby, took the test drive Sept. 16 without producing a license. The ID, he said, was in the wallet he had left at the airport. ... Now they're looking for the con man, described as a 6-foot, slender white male with reddish-brown hair and glasses.

 Ah, the power of image -- a limousine still works! And then there's this one, a classic case of brain freeze:

Suspected Staged Accident Turns Deadly
A car crash allegedly staged for insurance money took a deadly turn, and investigators said the suspect and the victim were working together. ... Lawrence Police Chief John Omero said staged accidents are a thriving business in Lawrence. The city has the highest level of automobile insurance fraud in the state, four times the state's average. Omero calls the accident that took the life of a grandmother a shameless crime.

Police said Hairo Gomez was driving the target car, or car to be hit. Altagracia Arias, 65, was in the back seat of the bullet car, or car intended to hit the target car, police said. "What was supposed to happen was that the two vehicles were to strike, and the people were to claim injuries. What happened, the individual driving the bullet car continued accelerating and went on to hit a lamppost, resulting in the woman in the car dying," said Omero. ... Police said there were five other passengers between the two vehicles, and the district attorney said he expects additional charges in the case...

According to police, hours before she was killed, Arias was seen recruiting passengers at a local senior center, offering $200 a seat.

Can't make this stuff up, folks.

Sep 30 / 03

In yesterday's entry regarding federal highway funding, I warned that there's gonna be a fight over your gasoline tank. And lookie here, there's a little lobby called Americans For Transportation Mobility (ATM) that's been pressing hard for increased spending. From the website:

ATM's mission is to educate the public, elected officials, and other opinion leaders about the value of transportation to the nation's economy and quality of life.

I looked real hard through the website, but I couldn't find the words "gasoline tax." They'll help you contact your congress-itter. They'll hold a meeting in your town to "educate" folks about the need for more spending. They'll tell you all about how important the roads are to the economy and the American way. But you won't find nowheres that dirty little word, "tax."  So who is the ATM?

Launched on June 26, 2001, Americans for Transportation Mobility (ATM) -- a national coalition -- works to ensure our nation's transportation infrastructure is improved to handle current and future demands.

Well, who benefits the most directly from increased road monies? Click on that link "national coalition." Aint' it sweet how business and unions cozy up with each other when it comes to your wallet? Cats and dogs, sleeping together on your doorstep.

While the ATM won't say it, sounds of "T-A-X" are polluting the halls of Congress: From the Rocky Mountain News,

Lawmakers spar over gasoline taxes
"It's time for us to make that difficult choice," Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver, told 400 business leaders attending the sixth annual Colorado Congressional Transportation Summit. "... We've got to invest in the future and we've got to do it now." More money is needed for roads, agreed Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Fort Morgan, but it shouldn't be done "on the backs of the people" by imposing higher fuel taxes.

The Engineering News-Record says it more precisely:

Senate Approves 5-Month TEA-21 Extension
... On one side is House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska), who with a group of House allies and support from some construction groups, wants a $375 billion... But reaching that $375-billion total requires raising the federal motor fuels tax.

On the other side of the divide is the White House, which has objected to a fuels-tax hike. The Bush administration has proposed a more modest new transportation bill pegged at $247 billion over six years, 19% higher than TEA-21.

Whose side are you on -- I mean, how many cylinders does your car have...?

Sep 29 / 03

Here we go!  Get ready to hear all about how Spain has such great highways and how come the roads here suck, and besides, Americans are spoiled by cheap gasoline and if they'd just pay five bucks a gallon they'd stop buying SUVs...

Transportation Funding Hits Gridlock
Nearly everybody in Congress wants roads and mass transit systems. Lawmakers just can't figure out how to pay for them ... The National Highway Trust Fund, which is funded through an 18.4-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax, generated about $98 billion during the past three years ... But the Transportation Department estimates that meeting the nation's transit needs during the next six years will cost $375 billion ... "We're going to have to figure out a way of financing it," said Rep. Thomas E. Petri (R-Wis.), who chairs the transportation subcommittee on Highways, Transit and Pipelines. "As a society, we're going to have to pay for it one way or another."

Don't panic -- yet. The reporter didn't do her homework, and if she did she'd understand that the dire panic of Bush critics is about to get worse. Tax cuts are just the start  The Administration is out to change government, and highway funding will be one of the battlegrounds. Unheard in this article is a vibrant movement to get road building off the gas-sniffing addiction. Self-pay, tolls, and private roads are just some of the ideas that will surface when Congress finally takes on the issue. Don't look for it during the election, however. Just vote for Bush next year, and you won't have to pay the equivalence of airfare for the family to Madrid when filling up the Suburban.

Waaaaitt!!!

Before I get too gushy over Bush policies on road building, the Washington Times warns of the regulatory hysteria at the Federal Highway Administration sister group, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA):

Regulatory mania at NHTSA
Last week, the bureaucrats at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced a new regulatory scheme to standardize dashboard control displays, warning lights and function indicators for every single car model sold in the world. According to the agency, an international standard should make some controls on all vehicles identical.

The idea comes from the new head of the agency, appointed by the Administration. Oops. The good news is this guy is the exception among Bush appointees. Still, as the Times says, he needs to get with the program, or be gotten out:

 We understand that the federal government is a leviathan with lots of jobs to fill, and that a conservative president's appointees are not all going to be politically impressive or ideologically solid. But there has to be a minimum standard — especially for a pro-business conservative president — because there is so much in our out-of-control bureaucracy that needs to be restrained. Millions of Americans who voted for Mr. Bush did so partly to get a break from nanny-state overregulation. Conservatives do not vote Republican to get stuck with federal administrators, such as Dr. Runge, who seem to believe we are just one more federal regulation away from mandating a safe world. He should be given his walking papers.

Sep 27 / 03

Sitting on the deck of a woods cabin (yes, you may be jealous of my August in Maine), we heard a tree fall nearby. I got to wondering if it actually fell, or did we hear something that didn't happen. That is, if I could find the fallen tree I might resolve an old philosophical problem. So off I went in the canoe to about where I'd thought the noise came. Around the bend of the cove, I found a cousin in a fishing boat, and he was not happy. There it was, a fallen tree -- the tree that nearly fell on my cousin. Yes, trees do make noise when they fall, whether you're just below one or not. And enough of them fall the same night, you're without electricity for a week.

We're on automobiles, right? Well, here are two stories that have shaken my belief in the objective nature of the automobile:

Man Dies After Horse Strikes Car
An elderly man is dead from injuries sustained when a car he was riding in was struck by a 1,500-pound horse. Myron Marmorstein, 74, was riding in the passenger seat of a 1998 Buick when the saddled, but riderless, horse slammed onto the car's roof.

The horse was killed, too. So much for philosophy...
And then there's this one:

When Is a Bicycle a Car?
A fellow named Daniel Wells decided to have a few drinks and go for a bicycle ride in the small western Washington city of Montesano, Washington. He made the mistake of doing so about 3 a.m. and passed before the watchful eye of Montesano police officer Steve Needham, who was on patrol. Officer Needham knows a drunk driver when he sees one, and he saw Mr. Wells swerving and making wide turns on his bicycle. The red and blue lights came on and a surprised Mr. Wells soon found himself arrested and charged with drunk driving. His breath test result was .13 .... A trial was held and Mr. Wells became distinguished as perhaps the only person in the state of Washington to have been convicted for operating a bicycle while drunk. It was not a distinction he had hoped for.

Thankfully, the Court of appeals overturned the conviction under the theory that DUI punishment is related to the potential harm of a drunk driver, and that one on a bicycle poses much less harm than one in an automobile.

Sep 24 / 03

Woohoo -- power's back on! Hurricane Isabel: you got me, babe -- seven, count 'em, seven days in pre-Edison, Bethesda, Maryland. Makes one lose sympathy for Baghdad. Ain't nothin' to living without power, 'xcept a cooler, ice and more beer.

Welcome back.

Sep 15 / 03

September 15, 1857, and a large one... Happy Birthday, William Howard Taft

(Why cars? My man, he launched the motor age)

Sep 12 / 03

More from the Kommies & their Kars  file...

Teen Jailed for Luxury Car Race
HANOI (Reuters) - A 17-year-old Vietnamese boy was sentenced to three years in jail for organizing a luxury car race along a city street in a case that exposed reckless, free-spending youth in the conservative communist country

Uh, "conservative communist"?
I like it! 'Bout time someone used the word correctly, that is, one who "conserves" a present order. The liberals are today's conservative. Glad to know that teenage car nuts are the liberals of Vietnam. The world needs more of it!

Okay, here's the real question, and the reason we're in the automobile column:

Six others in the race -- that featured a BMW, a Lexus, a Mercedes Benz and a Toyota -- were given suspended sentences, state-run media said. Cars are well beyond the means of most of Vietnam's 80 million people.

... pt. 2, from today's Kommies & their Kars

DaimlerChrysler Signs $1.1 Billion Deal to Build Luxury Cars in China

Told ya so!  See the 8/29/03 column on Chinese cars. I wonder how many are gonna be sold in Vietnam?

Sep 11 / 30

God Bless America!

Sep 10 / 03

There's been some flack about a Pennsylvania law to remove the requirement for head protection on motorcycles (see Motorcyclists finally allowed to feel the wind in their hair). You'd expect the insurance companies & etc. to whine and moan, but hooda thought of this one:

Bikers to ride nearly nude tonight to protest repeal of helmet law
If you're going motorcycle riding with a bare head, you might just as well ride in the buff, a group of angry bikers say.

Okeedoke.  (Angry? Try, "stupid"?) Not good for tourism, me thinks. Quoted in the article is a 29-year old:

"Of all the things on your body, your head is the most important thing to keep protected."

That guy really 29? No way.

Within two days of the law (no update on the nude bikers), the Allentown Morning Call decried 2 motorcyclists hurt in 2 crashes.  Then we get this story today from Minnesota Missing Motorcyclist Found Alive In Ditch. Pennsylvania better get busy requiring motorcyclists to carry a tent.

Sep 09 / 03

More today on red light cameras and black boxes in cars from the Washington Post (see Bromleyisms 9/1/03 and 8/28/03). No surprise that the Post takes a positive view towards the nanny- and gotchya!-boxes. While admitting that the AAA expressed some concern over the timing of certain lights (with a shortened yellow, 14,000 tickets were issued from one intersection in Bethesda, MD). As for the black boxes, the Post somehow managed to find a kid who said its the squawking at his 70mph speed helped him become a better driver.

I'll let you do your own yelling and screaming here:

The Snoop in Your Coupe

Montgomery Cites Benefits Of Cameras at Traffic Lights

Sep. 07/ 03

More SUV attacks here. This time New Mexico. O.K., we're bored now, so you can go away eccoterrorists. Really, Greenpeace charges on nuclear aircraft carriers were far more charming than night-time key-scratching and grafitti raids on parked Chevy Suburbans. Even the tree sitters are more exciting.

Sep. 05/ 03

Can't resist this story: It's Good to Be the King, of the Swaziland monarch's annual wife tournament. According to Reuters "bare-breasted young maidens danced in front of King Mswati on Friday -- many hoping to catch his eye and become his next wife." The next paragraph counts 50,000 of 'em, although with no confirmation that this means 100,000 breasts. Either way, it's one hell of a thought.

Why, you ask, is this an automobile thing?

While women's rights activists have slammed Mswati's marriage habits as feudalistic and health care workers have raised concerns they send the wrong message about AIDS, the prospect of joining royalty has a strong allure for many young Swazi women. "I want a limousine, and a house like they give the queens. I want my children to school in England," said 14 year-old Phindile Thwala, one of this year's dancers.

For more on this line of thought, see Stretching It: The Story of the Limousine by Michael L. Bromley and Tom Mazza (SAE 2002)

Sep. 04/ 03

Car That Can Park Itself Put on Sale by Toyota

I dunno, the ERA finally enacted?

...elsewhere...
here's the latest on SUVs: Is Big Bad? from Reason, a critique of a critique of SUVs by a critic of SUVs. Here's all you need to know: the government created SUVs with CAFE fuel standards and tariffs that exempted and protected light trucks. Guess what Detroit did with the rules? That's why you idiots think you want cars with a center of gravity higher than Britney Spear's belly ring.

I once traded my Mercury Sable wagon for a Jeep Grand Cherokee. I loved the Jeep, especially when it snowed three feet the week after I bought it and I dug mazes into the grocery store parking lot (yeehaw!). But the damned thing had no real space like my wagon, and it didn't feel so good into the netherlands of 90+ mph on I-95.

I miss wagons, and I don't mean Volvos. My brother and I learned to drive on a 70s-sumthin Buick "Sport Wagon"  and its 355. All I know is that while my bro got the better of it, it could still fly come my day. Oh, and boy did we make it fly on Burdett Drive with my idiot buddies flopping like white perch on the roof while clinging to the luggage rack. Don't try this at home, or with a Chevy Blazer -- you'll bounce like a cowboy, and land like one, too.

Sep. 03 / 03

The same day there's another article on China and automobiles (here), we find this wonderful little notice from the Land of Rasta and Dr. No:

Jamaica Exports First Locally Made Auto
Excel Motors, a fledgling Jamaican automaker, exported the Caribbean island's first locally manufactured car to the Bahamas on Friday.
The two-door Island Cruiser, one of 22 built this year at the company's plant in western Jamaica, sells for $11,500.

Bravo, the "Island Cruiser"!

Since you were wondering, yes, the engine is Japanese. One may also wonder if AP got it right with, "The car's box-like, fiberglass chassis is made with local materials..."
Fiberglass chassis?

Ain't no shame in a third-party engine. Might as well put in the best. In the old, pre-Great Depression days, they called these "assembled" cars. Makers bragged that theirs were made from the best parts available. Excel Motors has made 22 so far. I wish them many, many more!

Sep. 01 / 03

The AAA has finally caught up with our heroes at the Washington Times over camera traffic enforcement. The Times has refused to go down smiling into the surveillance age. "Cheese" tickets-by-mail is the DC area enforcement game. No surprise there, as DC and Virginia long ago banned radar detectors. The Feds