I've never owned a monster truck but I assume that if I did I would want to run over everything. Norman Nowling thought the same thing, especially when he was at the Redneck Yacht Club and monster trucks running over cars is normal there. He saw a Toyota Camry near the mud hole and decided it was going to be flattened by him, but not before asking every security guard in the area if it was okay first. He got the go ahead and proceeded to run it over. Turns out it belonged to a 16-year-old who was off mudding somewhere else. Nowling is a stand-up guy and paid for the car, even though he was arrested and banned from the RYC. That's after security told him it was okay and police watched him do it.

This is a classic case of a huge misunderstanding. Obviously I'm assuming the 16-year-old broke down in tears after realizing her car had been crushed by a monster truck but at least the guy paid for it. If it was me I would've started pointing fingers at everybody else because it's not really my fault. When everybody tells you it's okay and is cheering you on, including security and police, you have to assume somebody else is responsible for that. It's the equivalent of everybody telling you it's okay to get naked in a Walmart then immediately being arrested for getting naked in a Walmart. That's not fair, it's hard to turn something down when people are cheering you on.

TL;DR A guy ran over a teenager's car with his monster truck but paid for it even though he was told it was okay.

Monster truck driver pays for crushing teen's first car [autoblog]

Posted by Atkins under Auto

In California, and pretty much every other part of the U.S., it's illegal to drive without a valid driver's license. Well soon enough that won't be a problem anymore for the Golden State, come January 2012 your car can't be towed if you're driving without a license. Its aim is to restore rights to illegal immigrants who can't obtain a driver's license. It's also so those that are too poor to afford one but still need a way to get to and from work.

All I can think of is what I always hear from police officers when they pull me over drunk: "driving is a privilege, not a right." Oh really? Then I guess California never got that memo, because they want everybody to drive without a license. My question is if illegal immigrants basically don't have to follow any laws, why do I? Because if I got into an accident with one and they had no license what happens then? I'm guessing that creates a whole new list of problems that we would have to create new laws for.

TL;DR Illegal immigrants need more rights in California, so your car can't be towed if you drive without one now.

California bans law allowing vehicle towing of unlicensed drivers [Left Lane News]

Posted by Atkins under Auto

There's something to be said to anybody that has never driven a high performance vehicle, they don't drive like a normal car. Take me for example, I've never driven a Lamborghini or Ferrari, but my assumption is that they're really fast. That's what David Dopp should have assumed when he won a Lamborghini LP-640 from a convenience store. Not sure why a convenience store is giving away Lamborghinis in contests, but that's for another day. A few hours after having the car he lost control and drove it into a field. That has to be one of the most embarrassing moments in a person's life.

I'm not someone to say I'm something I'm not, and one thing I'm not is rich. I would assume Dopp isn't rich either because he's a Frito-Lay truck driver. I don't imagine them rolling in the money. What do non-rich people do when they obtain a car that could easily be sold for $200,000? Sell it for $200,000 and pay your bills. I'd like to have a nice car as much as somebody else, but just the costs to keep it tuned would be expensive. This isn't like a woman buying a nice pair of tits that stay like that for the rest of her life. When you start trying to buy more than your wallet can handle that's when you end up like Tara Reid, and nobody wants that.

TL;DR If you can't handle driving a Lamborghini you should probably just sell it.

Truck driver wins Lamborghini, crashes it hours later [Yahoo!]

Posted by Atkins under Auto

On a highway in Japan some car fanatics somehow mangled some of the nicest cars on the planet. If you're thinking it was due to some awesome street racing involving some powerful machines, think again. Police don't think this happened because of street racing, they think it happened because the lead Ferrari slid on wet pavement causing the pileup, making this story way more uninteresting other than the fact that inept drivers caused $4 million worth of damage.

If I was one of the drivers I would just lie and say that it was an accident because of racing. Nobody wants to be part of a news story that highlights the fact that you can't drive a sports car if there's a little bit of rain. When you've created the biggest waste of money having to do with cars, you want to go out in spectacular fashion. Sure you'll probably have to pay a fine and maybe some jail time, but it's better than looking like a loser.

TL;DR Driving in the rain is apparently dangerous for people who can't drive.

Eight Ferraris, Lamborghini in $4 Million Pile-Up [The Wall Street Journal]

Posted by Atkins under Auto

Charles Preston is a doctor in Santa Clara, California, and he needed a minivan. So he went to Thrifty to buy a used one (why a doctor would be buying a used minivan from a car rental place is beyond me) which he got for $14,000. He had the car for quite some time when he had to bring it in to get the brakes worked on. When the mechanic looked at it they found $500,000 worth of cocaine. Then he contacted police and they told him to return the van, in case drug dealers are looking for it. Best part is Thrifty was only going to take it back for $4,000 less than what the guy paid for it, right up until they realized they sold somebody a car full of coke.

This is the point in the story where you have to commend some people for not immediately breaking the law. $500,000 worth of cocaine? Some people might think they could make a lot of extra money on the side, I'd take it as God wants me to become a drug addict. Why else would there be that much cocaine in the car? I would sell maybe half of it and use the rest to keep me awake for a year straight, just to party. If there was ever something you were supposed to do with that much cocaine, that's definitely it.

TL;DR Guy finds $500k worth of coke in his car, for some reason turns it over to authorities.

Man buys used Chrysler minivan from Thrifty, finds $500K in cocaine [Autoblog]

Posted by Atkins under Auto

There has been much debate about old people in general. Should they be allowed to drive? Should we just put them out of their misery at a certain age? What makes them smell weird all the fucking time? I do have the answer to the first one because of this story, and that answer is no. 86-year-old Mary Fine somehow took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and drove her car into a pool, instead of to the local grocery store. 

This is a good example of how bad old people are at lying. Fine says she had to climb through the passenger side of the car because somebody parked too close to her car, and in climbing to the driver seat she must have hit the key or the gear shift to put the car in motion and send it into the pool. You are a dirty liar you old bag, none of that is possible. You mean to tell me in the process of climbing into the driver seat, something I've done before, you somehow turned on the car, put it in drive and the car somehow got enough acceleration to drive through things into the pool? Bullshit. I'm sorry to say, but if you had just told the truth your license would've been taken away. Now you have to be put down because you're clearly a danger to everybody around you.

TL;DR An old woman makes it clear why old people shouldn't be allowed to drive.

Security camera catches elderly woman driving into pool [Autoblog]

Posted by Atkins under Auto

When you think of street racing you probably think of it like I do, highway racing in traffic, not what you see in The Fast and the Furious. Mainly because nobody in their right mind would shut down roads to have a race. Well not in Canada it seems, when street racers decided to shut down a portion of a highway in order to have drag races, in which the police were immediately called. That's not why this story is interesting, it's the list of cars that were confiscated. You had your run of the mill Ferrari, Maserati and Lamborghini, but you also had an Audi R8, Aston Martin DB9, two Mercedes SL's and three Nissan GT-Rs, with not one driver over 21. Police arrived after the racing though which only left the drivers with a $196 fine.

I'm bullshit about this because I've had more in parking tickets in the past year than that fine, and these are rich kids who drive cars that are worth my salary of five years. If there is a definition of unfair, this would be it because I know I'm a better driver than all of them but I drive a Scion, which I'm pretty sure is a girl's car but it was the best option at the time. Now I have my friends making fun of me, "my girlfriend has the same car. She likes to spray perfume in it and has the inside painted pink, is yours the same way?" No it isn't dickwad and you're an asshole. I think this might be why poor people hate rich people.

TL;DR Teenagers were caught racing with cars that I'll never be able to afford.

Canadian police nab $2M in exotic cars after street race bust [Left Lane]

Posted by Atkins under Auto

A seven-year-old boy in Michigan decided that he couldn't wait for his mother and wanted to go see his dad. His mother had taken a nap and left a note for him to wake her up. He thought to himself, fuck that, and took the Pontiac Sunfire for a ride to his dad's house. He probably didn't want to wake her. That was when Michigan police had to chase him down because you can't drive at seven years old as far as I know.

Now everybody's already blaming this on the mother, and while I usually point my finger at women to take all the blame, this isn't really anybody's fault. She took a nap, the kid is seven, he can handle himself while his mother is in the house sleeping. At seven I didn't even need to be watched and I'm pretty sure my parents were already making me do my own laundry. The real culprits here are divorce and the fact that parents can't beat their kids anymore. If the parents here were together he never would've had to leave the house in the first place.

And if parents could still beat their kids this definitely wouldn't have happened. Would I have ever tried this when I was little? Probably, but you have weigh out the pros and cons. If taking the car is worth the ensuing pain from the beating I undoubtedly would've gotten, then ya I would take it. But 10 times out of 10 it wasn't, so I just left that car in the driveway and went back to video games. Nobody ever beat me for playing video games.

TL;DR A seven-year-old takes his mother's car for a ride and America should re-instate beatings.

Video: Watch MI police pull over 7-year-old boy trying to drive to dad's house [Autoblog]

Posted by Atkins under Auto

For those of use who are a little older (I've been driving for damn near a decade) and I think of myself as a good driver. I've been in three accidents (two of which my car was parked and I wasn't in it) and have one speeding ticket. Granted I have so many parking tickets I could build a house out of them, but I digress. Leasetrader.com set up an example written test for 500 people to take to assess how well people know the rules of the road. 75 percent of them would have failed their driving exam. That's a big number of people who pretty much don't know what to do when driving.

I, personally, would have most likely aced this test. You can always tell who I am because I'm the pissed off guy screaming out my window who has right of way all the time. I've almost been hit by so many people who don't understand the concept of right of way I've lost count. Sadly none of them hit me because if they did it's like Christmas. I get sent a giant check from the insurance company because I forged my assessment, then I fix the damage myself and go on a shopping spree.

TL;DR If you don't understand right of way, you shouldn't be driving.

Study: 75 Percent Of Seasoned Drivers Would Fail Written Exam [The Car Connection]

Posted by Atkins under Auto