Cars

(non-koran post)

One day while I was driving down the street, a wheel went rolling by. It was mine! My right front tire had come off. It drove past, made a turn into a gas station, ran up to the gas pump and fell over. Maybe it ran out of gas? I followed it in and parked by it. Had to, because when I slowed down enough the car pitched over so the right axle plowed into the pavement. Then I put the wheel back on and drove off. Really tightened those lug bolts.

Another day, midway across a really narrow bridge that was exactly a mile long, my hood came up. It hinged at the driver's end, the wind caught under the front and pushed it up so it stood vertical in front of the windshield. Couldn't see a thing. Also couldn't pull over, or stop really, up there a thousand feet over the water, and with the windows up I couldn't just stick my head out. It raised my pulse. By scrooching down I found a little crack to peek out through, just enough to see the oncoming traffic partly, and judge where I was going. Hood stayed straight up vertical in the air until I got to the other side of the bridge.

One night, tooling through an S-curve on a windy road through the woods, in the pitch dark with no moon, my headlights abruptly went out. That was interesting.

Once my electrical shorted out and the whole car  filled instantly with toxic smoke. While I was going down a really steep hill. By the time I got the window rolled down, and my head out, and the car stopped, and air, I was halfway poisoned, my lungs were hurting, lots of coughing.

Had a high speed blowout on the freeway doing about 75 when my tire exploded. Three times. Not the same tire; apparently the previous owner had used really cheap retreads; it was the first long trip I'd taken in that truck. The worst of it was that I crawled under the truck at one point and didn't notice a fire ants nest. At first.

One car had rusty floorboards and my foot went right through so I was driving with one foot under the car. I've had my brakes go out, and lost my steering, and once even had both those happen at the same time. I've had my pedals stick, from something mechanical or stuff on the floor caught under them, or once my shoelace wrapped around the brake pedal so I couldn't move my foot. I've had the throttle stick, both open and closed. In every one of those cases, I've gotten the car home and fixed it. Myself. Not necessarily in that order.

A Chevy I had once came to life in my driveway, when no one was in it, and crashed itself into the front porch. Got rid of that sonofabitch the next day. The car I drive now was made in 1962 and there's nothing on it that I don't understand, that can't be fixed, probably has been fixed, probably by me, will probably break again, and get fixed again.

After all that I find out OMG, PEDALS MIGHT STICK!!1! The Toyota Prius is Christine! You're not an incompetent dumbass who can't drive and won't take responsibility for your own actions, no, it's a manufacturing defect. Insurance should cover it. You should get paid a large monetary settlement, instead of having your sorry ass kicked. Now this 94mph grampa comes along with a  story that's fishier than the Pike Place Market, how his Toyota tried to kill him, and it's bullshit.

Toyota. Best reputation of any car on the road. Toyota Prius. The most environmentally friendly, most economical, best selling car, in other words the biggest threat to the carmakers in Detroit. You know, those ones who just got bailed out for going broke for making shitty cars that can't compete with ... the Toyota Prius?

What I want to know is, how much did GM pay this guy to say this?