Interstate highways are supposed to go from one state to the next.

That fact is in the very name: “inter” meaning between and “state” meaning. . .   uh. . . state. So interstate highways should go between states. Sure, Texas drivers can drive on the interstate for hours without hitting a state border, but  they’re original purpose was to make it possible for people to go from one state to another.

So this question comes up from time to time: Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?

And usually it seems to be asked by some smart aleck who thinks he’s just thought of something really clever and original. (You know who you are.)

In truth, Hawaii does have three interstate highways — H1, H2, and H3 — all of which were built to connect important military facilities on the island of Oahu. So not only do they not connect to other states, they don’t even connect to the other eight major islands.

And that mention of military facilities is a big part of the explanation of why they’re called “interstate highways” even when they’re obviously not inter-state highways.

Following World War II and during the Cold War, the US government had been concerned about the ability to rapidly move military personnel and equipment rapidly across the country. President Eisenhower in particular had returned from Germany very impressed by the Autobahn system that Hitler’s National Socialist had created to move their army around. So a movement was begun to build a similar system in the USA, which led eventually to the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. This act called for the construction of an enormous highway infrastructure to connect major cities and military facilities, even the three in Hawaii.

And that’s why Hawaii has three interstate highways, even if they’re not for travelling inter-state.

Orange cones. Orange barrels. Orange signs. Orange vests. Orange! Orange! Orange!

When most drivers are puttering down the road, they know what the color orange means. Construction Ahead.

Although most drivers know what the color orange means, they choose to ignore it and continue to drive the same way they usually drive.

It should be obvious to any driver that if there is construction ahead, you should slow down and use caution for two important reasons.

First, the road is being mended or repaved or widened. That means the road surface isn’t as safe as normal and you should approach it with more caution. Texas has more than 305,000 miles of roadway, more than any other state. Consequently, we’re going  to have more construction zones too. READ MORE

For more useful articles about buying a new or used car, click here.

The Car Gurus blog keeps giving us great advice about buying or selling cars.

For those of you looking to buy, the Car Gurus have two recent articles that can make the process easier.

On Feb. 22, they gave us Buying a Used Car? Wait for the Price to Drop, which shared the results of their survey into used car pricing. Basically, 53% of used cars listed for more than 30 days had their prices dropped at least once. CarGurus surveyed more than 2 million car listings and there’s more to the findings, so you should definitely check out the article.

Writer Travis Griffith gave us more buying advice a couple of weeks later with How to Buy an Out-of-State Used Car. With so much  business being done online, it’s easier than ever to get used car listings from far away, and you need to know more into order to avoid getting ripped off. This article will help.

It’s not just about buying used cars, though. There’d be no buying unless people were selling, and the Car Gurus have advice for those people, too.

On March 3rd, writer J Goods gave us Selling Your Car Directly to an Individual — Without Problems. I don’t quite get his seemingly superfluous use of the dash there, but his advice is — as always — useful. Two weeks later, J Goods returned with A List of “Don’ts” to Consider When Selling Your Car. This is a list of five common mistakes that car sellers frequently make, and the list is general enough to be of use to everyone looking to list a car.

Here’s another clip from Gene McGuire, one of our defensive driving instructors, filmed at Crackers Comedy Club in Indianapolis in 1996.

The mid-90s were a great time for comedy clubs. For a while there, it seemed like a new one opened every week, filling our cities with dimly lighted rooms that smelled like ashtrays where unhappy couples could spend a couple of hours laughing at the comedians’ jokes and then more time afterward recalling the jokes to each other, in a desperate attempt to avoid talking about how they didn’t love each other anymore and delaying the next inevitable fight about nothing as they both pretended it wasn’t over between them and they’re both one step closer to spending the rest of their lives alone and miserable.

Oh, sorry… I got a bit autobiographical there for minute.

The clip has that wonderful orangey color of old video tape, but the jokes are still funny, though some of you may have to run to Wikipedia to find out who the Menendez Brothers are.

The language is pretty clean, too. He does use one “bad word” when talking about telemarketers, but most everyone who owns a phone has done that at least once.

ComedyGuys.com continues to make mobile defensive driving more fun and convenient for Texas drivers with their online defensive driving course for Google’s Android smartphone operating system.

Richardson, TX — Recently, Comedy Guys Defensive Driving made online defensive driving in Texas  more convenient by formatting the online version of their comedy driving safety course  for Apple’s iPhone and iPad. Not satisfied with making their online traffic school work with Apple’s mobile technology, ComedyGuys.com has now made the course compatible with Google’s new Android operating system for multiple smartphones and carriers.

After registering online, customers may take the course from any computer with Internet access or using their iPhone, iPad, and now Android smartphone. And because nothing is downloaded and all information is stored on Comedy Guys’ servers, switching back and forth among different devices is no problem.

“Time-wise, our online defensive driving course is flexible because people can login and out whenever they want,” says ComedyGuys’ Cash Cooper. “Now by making it available on mobile devices, our course is available wherever our customers are.”

Offering online defensive driving to mobile phones allows users to login when they have time to kill and no computer. Regardless of where a customer is — at their desk during lunch, on the treadmill at the health club, or on the bus or train ride home — as long as they have Internet access via their smartphone, they can work on the course, making defensive driving fit into their schedule instead of the other way round.

“A lot of our customers really like not having to sit at the computer,” Cooper adds. “They love the fact that they can take the course sitting in a lounge chair at Starbucks or even laying in bed. It really makes our course the most convenient in the defensive driving industry.”

“Having our course work on Apple’s iPhone and iPad is great, but we don’t want people to think we have a man crush on Steve Jobs. With the course working on Android phones, we are now able to deliver online defensive driving to customers of other mobile broadband providers. Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile all have new Android phones.”

The company’s state approved defensive driving curriculum covers all required content for a Texas driving safety course, but Comedy Guys uses professional comedians to make the course more entertaining. Comedy writers wrote the original curriculum and the text for the online course, and comics appear in the video clips throughout the course.

In addition to the online course, ComedyGuys.com continues to offer Texas defensive driving courses in over 30 locations. A complete schedule of defensive driving classes is available at the Comedy Guys website or by calling 877-826-6339.

Most people know the common methods for keeping auto insurance rates down. Keep your driving record clean. Comparison shop for the best rates and coverage. And the urban legend about not driving a red car.

But there are some factors that you might not have considered, but that your insurance company has. For a short list of seemingly harmless driving behaviors that might affect your insurance rates, check out this article from Yahoo! Finance.

As for lowering your insurance costs, don’t forget that most drivers can get a discount on their auto insurance by taking a defensive driving class. Ask your insurance company for details about a possible discount.

And ask Comedy Guys Defensive Driving about when and where you can find the most entertaining defensive driving classes in Texas.

First, I saw an ad for motorcycle helmets that don’t actually exist, courtesy of a Russian advertising agency called Good.

And that made me wonder what kind of creative and artistic motorcycle helmets are being made. So I went looking.

One of the biggest photo collections I found can be seen at Dazzling Design. Comic book heroes like Spiderman, Ironman and the Incredible Hulk all seem popular. (Hmmm… Why all Marvel and no DC? Hawkman would make a killer bike helmet!)

I liked most of all was the helmet worn by bike racer Valentino Rossi who decorated his helmet with a photo of his own screaming face. (Although to be honest,  before I saw his photo I thought the face on the helmet was PeeWee Herman.)

— Wes Williams

Toyota is trying something either revolutionary or a little crazy.

Possibly both.

Toyota Sweden has announced its new A Glass of Water program, intended to make drivers more fuel conscious by asking them to drive as if they had a glass of water set on their dashboard.  This idea, Toyota hopes, will encourage drivers to slow down a bit and drive more carefully, with gentler curver and smoother starts and stops, all with the goal of saving 10% of your fuel consumption.

They’ve even created an iPhone app that is a virtual glass of water. It uses the iPhone hardware to measure external forces and simulates the effect these have on a glass of water, monitoring how much of the water would have been spilled if it were real water in a real glass.

Please understand that they don’t want anyone to drive with a real glass of water on the dash. That can spill into the electrical system and cause expensive repairs. Or spill into the carpet or upholstery, eventually giving your car that lovely locker room smell. Or just spill into your lap, causing wet stains that are hard to explain.

But the idea behind the glass of water is what matters: making drivers more conscious of their own driving habits and styles with an eye toward increasing fuel efficiency.

And that’s an idea that Comedy Guys Defensive Driving can get behind. Anything that makes a driver think more about the act of driving will make us all safer.

Are you really hard-core when it comes to cars? If so then Car and Driver has a game for you: Name that Exhaust Note.

They play a recording of some mystery car’s exhaust system, and you have to identify the make and model from just the sound of the exhaust.

Check it out here if you think the eardrums are up to it.

Driving alone, you say scathing and funny things about the bad driving around you. Use some of that wit here to add a caption to these pics of impossibly bad drivers.

Harold was so confused that he threw the frisbee into the garage, too.

(photo from wickedexotics.com)

21-year-old designer Kevin Scott has invented a bike frame that he hopes will frustrate bike thieves.

A graduate of Britain’s DeMontfort University in Leicester, Scott has constructed a bike frame where the center section consists of interlocking segments around a ratcheting cable. Ratchet the cable tight, and the frame is sturdy enough to ride. Loosen the cable, and the bike can twist around light poles and streets signs, making it easier to secure the bike by locking it to itself. And, incidentally, easier to fit into the back of a car or store in tight places.

Read the full story at The Daily Mail Online. Photo credit to Rex Features.

We’re not sure how we missed this, but on July 3rd — just in time for the Fourth of July — CarGurus.com published their Salute to 10 Independent American Car Brands. Check it out and see a great display of American engineering, style, and craftsmanship.

Matador Trips online has offered up a photo collection of The World’s Most Spectacular Roads. It’s a matter of opinion, of course, and more than half the roads mentioned are in the USA, but there are some beautiful photographs of outstanding driving experiences. If you can’t travel these road, let them inspire you to take a road trip of your own.

And, because Comedy Guys Defensive Driving cares about the safety of all drivers on all roads, we urge you to plan your road trips carefully and be careful and responsible on the road. Stop and rest at least every two hours, and keep yourself and your car in good condition.

After all, the best part of any road trip is returning home again.

Driving alone, you say scathing and funny things about the bad driving around you. Use some of that wit here to add a caption to these pics of impossibly bad drivers.

Yes, I can read the sign. But there were no cops around
so I thought I could get away with it!

(photo from GPSmagazine.com)

Cool, huh? This is one of the 20 Amazing Photos that are not Photoshopped,
courtesy of  Web Design Core. And who decided it was okay for “photoshop” to be
a verb. Mrs. Kirkman would be throwing a fit if she saw that.