This weekend we did the 4th of July travel thing, and took the 944. I had the cruise set on 62 on a rural two lane, and watched in my mirrors as a lunatic in a Prius picked off 2 cars in the distance on curves, etc. Anyway, she got up to me, still set on 62 mph, and pulled out directly into an oncoming truck. She jerked back in line just in time, and moments later, flew by me, missing my front by inches, with me slamming on my brakes to miss her. Of course what did she do, immediately set up doing about 45mph holding everyone up.
The first clear moment I went by her north of 100mph and slowed down to 30 mph in an area she couldn't pass. A bumper sticker said something like its green to slow down or something, idiot, true idiot that's not destined to live long.
Many of my customers will tell you they hate driving. They view it as a neccessary evil, but at the same time they want neck snapping acceleration combined with supreme comfort and they want to be completely isolated from the nasty old road. Their kids have to be electronically amused so they don't have to actually converse with the little bastards. They simply can't be bothered to learn to drive as well, they want electronics to relieve them of the responsibility . Unfortunately, this type of person outnumbers the enthusiast when it comes to buying new cars so the manufacturers listened to them.
So we end up with huge cars sprung with marshmallows, 500 pounds of sound deadening, DVD players and airbags in every conceiveable nook and cranny and orifice, every kind of electronic nanny that can spring from the fevered imagination of the marketing departments and then we wonder why 3000 pounds is the new 2000 pounds. Or why people tailgate at ridiculous speeds. Or why people are so disconneceted from the (full time) job of properly operating a motor vehicle and instead text message, yak on the phone, peruse furniture flyers via the dome light while driving on the Interstate at night (true story, I saw that with my own eyes!) and in short do everything but safely pilot 4000 pounds of steel and glass.
In the words of the immortal Pogo Possum:
ignorant wrote:
More big SUV's than anything in the ditches along 81 outside syracuse.
Yup. We use our Rangie to tow people out of ditches every winter.
