One of my all time favorite tickets was from a young lady in my class who worked for a funeral home.

One day, she was transporting a body in a casket either to or from the funeral home, and hopped into the HOV lane under the assumption that there were two people riding in the car.

The police officer that pulled her over didn’t quite see it that way, and neither did the judge. She tried to fight the ticket, explaining that there were two of them in the car. The judge explained to her that a corpse didn’t count as a person, that’s why autopsy reports are public record, and they refer to the deceased’s ‘remains’.

When I retell this story in the classroom, many of my students tend to take her side.

During one class where I was telling this story, a young lady there that day — not the brightest bulb in the chandelier — asked “Was it like a hearse of something?”

No, we tried to explain, she found it on the side of the road.

Few brand names inspire the kind of loyalty that Ford does.

In fact, when I was growing up here in northeast Texas, it was very easy to divide the world into three groups: Ford people, Chevy people, and everyone else.

And not many of everyone else, to tell the truth.

Year after year, through good times and bad, people are loyal to Ford vehicles in a way that other car manufacturers can only envy. And there was an impressive public display of this loyalty this past weekend in the Ford Car Club’s Western Regional auto show, Fabulous Fords Forever, held April 10 at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, California.

For a nice photo slideshow of the cars present at the event, check out AutoWeek.com.

- Wes Williams

Last week the US Department of Transportation website posted a few stories of groups of ordinary citizens who have taken action to draw attention to the dangers of distracted driving.

The article includes the story of Longfellow Elementary School in Houston. When budget constraints prevented the school from putting up warning signs, students and parents banded together to create and post their own signs. Read the full story here.

Though drinking and driving gets more attention, distracted driving continues to be just as dangerous. In the case of texting while driving, it’s even more dangerous, because it involves all three kinds of distraction simultaneously. At Comedy Guys Defensive Driving, we work hard to make our students aware of the dangers of cruising down the road without dedicating most of your attention to the act of driving.

Designers work hard to design vehicles that will function well and appeal to buyers.

Sadly, though, not all designs succeed.

Neatorama has giving us a listing of some of the failures in a piece called Ten Modes of Transportation that Never Got into Gear. Check it out for some interesting reading.

And if you’ve ever wondered what happened to personal jet packs, they’re on the list, complete with a cool technical drawing.

So you know something about cars and you have this friend you want to prank.
What could be better than wiring his brake lights to his car horn?

Well, try convincing him that it will fix itself if he just keeps driving.

Here’s the video, uploaded to YouTube by dfdmedic38.

Grace Q. of Ft Worth had this to say about how the Comedy Guys online defensive driving course kept her interested:

“The online course covers all the topics of driving safety in a very user-friendly and understandable style! I liked how the course incorporated reading, videos, maneuver pictures and even jokes!   It’s a combination that offers enough change in format to keep you focused, learning and entertained.”

When it comes to auto repairs, all of us are interested in the price and most of us are also a little worried that we’ll be taken advantage of. It’s hard for the average driver to know enough to see through deceptive practices and outright lies.

And there are enough disreputable repairmen out there, ready to take advantage of a customer’s ignorance, to make the entire profession look suspect.

Ted Olsen has written eight books and numerous articles on the automotive service industries. He has an ASE (Automotive Service Excellence) certification and numerous other certifications from auto manufacturers such as  Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and General Motors.

He is also the author of an online article called 10 Things You Just Never Say to Your Mechanic, which is certainly worth reading. Like poker games and dating, getting your car worked on is one of those situations where a few badly considered words can be very expensive.

J Goods at CarGurus.com is also helping out on the subject of auto repairs with his article Car Repairs for Dummies. He offers good advice on finding a repairman that you can (probably) trust and provides several links to useful online resources.

What advice do you have for someone who wants to protect themselves from being taken advantage of when it comes to an auto repair job?

Okay, now let me see if I got this right: You came into my Comedy Guys Defensive Driving class not for ticket dismissal but because a judge ordered you to do so. It seems that you were caught riding your motorcycle down one of the busiest freeways in Dallas, Texas, at a speed of one hundred and thirty six miles per hour. As the icing on the cake you were standing your “donor cycle” up on one wheel, popping a wheelie in the middle of traffic. Is that what you’re telling me?

Now what was your question again?

Oh, that’s right. Do I think that the police academy that you’ve applied to will find out about this ticket and will it affect your chances of being accepted?

Gee, how do I put this gently…

After being a licensed driving safety instructor here in Texas for almost 16 years, I have heard hundreds… nay, thousands of criminals — er…uh, students — with sob stories and asinine excuses for doing dumb things behind the wheel of their car or as in his case on the back of a motorcycle.

What has always amazed me is the sincerity with which they defend their actions. Whether it’s the young high schooler trying to get back home before curfew or the band equipment salesman who had forgotten to leave a trombone at the last junior high school he visited, they all argue adamantly that they were justified in doing the dangerous deed for which they were cited and sent to spend the day with me. When I asked one high schooler how his excessive acceleration effort turned out, he showed me the large obvious divot in his skull and the Frankenstein-ish track left by the surgical staples all down his right arm. It seems that when a Honda Civic tries to take a sharp corner at eighty-three miles per hour and misses, it has the ability to completely sheer a telephone pole in half, but a tree? Not so much.

The laws of nature will not be violated without consequences. You may get a temporary stay of execution for a period of time, but the Piper comes a callin’ eventually. He’ll take everything he can as payment: cash, credit, careers, and mabe even a life.

The fact that this young crash test dummy starter kit was still alive was indeed amazing, but when he revealed that at the time of his aforementioned audition for “World’s Dumbest Drivers,” he was very drunk and barefoot and actually left the scene before the cops arrived. His confession made more than a few jaws in my classroom drop. The fact that he was drunk — even at seventeen and under the legal drinking age — unfortunately was not the reason for dismay. That happens all too frequently.

What was shocking was that he was able to leave the scene of the crash in something other than an ambulance, a police car or a body bag considering the injuries he incurred. The time he spent in the hospital and the doghouse he was in at home seemed to have dimmed his little bulb but there was still a detectable amount of smug invincibility about him that told me that this probably wasn’t his last adventure.

It’s this bullet-proof mentality that both gives me job security and scares me at the same time. Regardless of the results some people will keep doing dangerous stunts until the consequences become scary enough. He hadn’t reached that point yet. His parting comment was something about going to look for a newer and faster car.

When I’m performing in a comedy show and one of the audience members makes a comment as asinine as this, it’s to be expected because alcohol is usually involved. But when a stone cold sober person sits in front of me and ten to fifteen fellow felons and tries to convince me that he or she is a “safe speeder,” you have to wonder if there actually was one child left behind. Way, way behind. Considering the fact every year in America over 30,000 lives are lost on our roadways, and the most common factor in those fatalities is speed, it might lead one to believe that ignorance abounds.

The young Evel Knievel-wannabe who was popping wheelies in traffic actually stated that since he was eventually going to be a police officer and upholding the laws of the land he figured he would have as much fun now and “get it out of his system.” I informed him that the only thing he was most likely going to get out of his system was internal organs and life-giving fluids.

You would think that he would be aware of this since he shared with the class the fact that he had lost his best friend six months ago. It seems that his best friend was riding his crotch rocket down I-35 at over a hundred miles per hour and hit a reflector attached to the road. Oh yeah, he was popping a wheelie at the time, and the laws of gravity are still being enforced.

Sad but true.

Over at The World’s Biggest, you can read their excellent compilation of the most expensive cars sold on eBay.

You can see the list of the 16 cars that brought the highest prices at the online marketplace — the lowest price was over $300,000 — as well as comparisons of the eBay price with the original sale price when the car was new. As my rather incoherent nephew would say, “inflation gone wild.”

Found via The Presurfer

Okay, I’m not sure whether to categorize this under “Inventions & Gadgets” or “Uh… Don’t Do This,” so I’ll just go with both.

And I offer 10 Pointless Points to the first person to explain why this works.

- Wes Williams

Repairing a wheel using gas and a lighter from MechanicsHubdotCom on Vimeo.

Found via Fail Blog’s There, I Fixed It.

And from FailBlog’s That Will Buff Out comes this further proof
that some people have really twisted priorities.

Autoweek has a nice write-up on the Porsche Museum in Zuffenhausen, Germany.

With a very cool architectural design that fits well with the Porsche reputation, the museum contains objects and photographs documenting the auto design careers of Ferdinand and Ferry Porsche. Much of the archives was lost during World War II, but the remaining records make a fascinating and largely unpublished catalogue of auto history.

If a visit the museum itself isn’t possible right now, this article and the photos with it are a nice substitute.

This is a small-scale model of an unbuilt 917 exercise. It’s six inches tall and not quite one foot
long, and it’s a hollow, unfinished model of a car that was never built, but it’s worth
so much more than my actual car that I don’t like to think about it.

When we pointed out various Halloween costumes for your car, we didn’t know about this Millennium Falcon in Hyperspace treatment for your rear window.

Impressive. But somehow I can’t see anyone getting a Wookie into a Fit.

Found via That Will Buff Out

If you’re one of those people who decorate everything you own for a holiday, you can’t forget to turn your car into a Halloween mobile.

And if you need some ideas for
inspiration, check out the World
Auto News collection of 20
Halloween costumes for cars.

Or Grayline‘s 9 Creepy
Halloween Cars.

And over at Webshots, a member
called hpangel2 has amassed
a nice collection of photos
from a Halloween Car Show
in Virginia. Those are sure to give
you some ideas of your own.

For just practical advice on
designing and making your
own automotive Halloween
costume, check out Halloween
Magazine‘s Decorating Your Car of Halloween. It has a lot of tips, like dealing with wind resistance and explaining why to avoid any kind of flashing lights.

Whether you decorate the car or not, please drive carefully this weekend while you’re out having fun. And try not to lose candy corn into that crack in the upholstery, because when you find it months later it will be all sticky and fuzzy.

And all that carpet fuzz really messes up the flavor.

Car Gurus has been collecting a few stories of celebrities and their first cars. Check it out and take the opportunity to add the story of your own first car.

Jay Leno and his 1955 Buick Roadmaster,
with more than ample head, leg, and chin room.