Who Do I Talk To About This?

I wrote some time ago about the phenomena that no one ever sees a fancy sports car pulled over and getting a ticket. It is like the police avoid the one group of people who can probably afford to pay the speeding ticket and always seem to focus on the people driving the crappy Ford held together by duct tape.

Well, I was driving to work and I actually saw a Nissan 350Z pulled over and getting a ticket. Did the 350Z not qualify for the “can speed all they want” list? Did someone forget to send in the proper paperwork? I mean I realize it is a Nissan and that has to work against it somewhat. But it is also one of the fastest cars you can buy today. It is not meant to be driven at 65 MPH. Maybe it is the fact that it doesn’t have the same price tag as a Lamborghini or a Ferrari. But if that is a determining factor, all you Boxster drivers had better look out. The Porsche name will only get you so far.

I used to be able to drive my Jaguar worry free on the highways as the XK8 apparently qualified for fancy sports car status. Now that I only have the hybrid to drive around, I have relinquished my carefree status. I must actually pay attention to my speed and slow down when I see a police car parked on the side of the road. Who knows, maybe the police will learn to have a soft spot for all of us GREEN drivers. It really isn’t a stretch as most of you don’t do over 50 MPH anyway.

And speaking of people driving on the highways…I would like to personally thank those of you out there that have taken it upon yourselves to make sure that the rest of us don’t speed on the highways. I know it is grueling work to drive on every highway at 5 MPH under the speed limit to protect the rest of us from ourselves. It is especially nice when two or three of you get together on the same road to help us all. Although I appreciate your tireless efforts, do me a favor, let me worry about my own speed and get the hell out of my way.

Here are a few tips for all of you commuters that would greatly reduce the overall frustration on the road:

1. Keep up with the car in front of you. This is probably the biggest thing that you can do to eliminate traffic. I am not asking that you tailgate the car in front of you, but don’t let the car get 20 car lengths in front of you. All the impatient people behind you, me for one, then just feel the need to go around your slow ass and that causes more traffic. Keep up!
2. Learn how to merge. All of my trouble spots on the way into work are caused by merging. If you are even somewhat considerate and leave people a little room to merge, then everyone behind you won’t have to come to a complete stop every time someone has to squeeze in. And if you are the mergee and someone leaves you some room, take it and stop trying to wait until the last second to merge in.
3. And the very last thing that I implore you all to do while driving home is this: GET OF YOUR DAMN CELL PHONE! I don’t know how many times I notice the person causing the traffic jam has their cell phone attached to their ear. Holding a phone to your head is not only distracting, but it blocks half your peripheral vision. How can you pay attention to what you are doing if you are busy having that conversation that couldn’t possible wait ten more minutes for you to get home. Use a headset if you have to, but stop holding the phone to your ear.

Thanks for listening and happy commuting.

MBA Final Exam

I have a scenario for all of you MBA types. Let’s see if that $50,000 in tuition was well spent or not.

Imagine you are a C-level executive at a petroleum company. Your company is and has been doing very well over the last few decades with the huge dependency that the US has on gasoline for our everyday lives. But a few years ago the price per barrel of oil started to go up and gasoline began to hit record high prices. Now most of the overindulgent American citizens didn’t pay much attention, but you did.

Then Al Gore got on his Global Warming soapbox and started to point out the negative effect we are having on the planet. Couple the rise in popularity of the global warming bandwagon with the ever increasing oil prices and all of a sudden the public decides that 20 MPG is not good enough.

Next thing you know the auto industry is developing more fuel efficient vehicles and the suddenly popular hybrid. There is even talk that the government will mandate that all vehicles get 40 MPG by the year 2012. So here is your final exam question. Which of the following do you think those C-level petroleum executives would do next?

1. Would they look at the revenue they currently generate, which is in the billions, and decide that, if ALL cars got 40 MPG instead of 20 MPG, it would be OK to generate half the revenue they generate today because it will be better for the country, the environment and the planet? Or…
2. Would they think they need to generate the same revenue once ALL cars get 40 MPG instead of 20 MPG and the only way to do that would be to DOUBLE the price of gas? Would they double the price of gas over night? Or would they gradually increase the price of gas over a span of years to make it more acceptable to the public?

Which one did you choose?

Mark my words…when all cars get better gas mileage, a gallon of gas will cost $6.00 to $8.00 a gallon. We live in a greedy, capitalistic society and there is no way that a large company looks into the future and thinks it will be OK to make half the money they do today. It is not as if this is unprecedented. If you have ever visited a country in Europe, you will notice that gas prices in Europe are much higher and, guess what, cars get 50 MPG. You probably just didn’t notice the price of gas because they charge by the liter – sneaky bastards!

As a recent hybrid owner, I wanted to acknowledge my part in causing the increasing gas prices in the US. It is people like me that have caused the petroleum companies to consider new revenue strategies. So for my part in the ridiculous gas prices, I apologize to you all.

I wonder if we all went out and bought monster trucks instead, would gas prices drop back to under a buck? Owning a monster truck would be fun and it sure would make traffic jams more interesting.

Why I don’t have a gun rack in my car.

I was driving up to see my new niece Sam for the first time on Friday and the 240 mile trip that usually takes me about four hours ended up taking me over five and a half hours to make. I spent over an hour traveling about 6 miles on highway 78 in Pennsylvania. A two lane road that was supposed to be under construction. They had one lane shut down for three miles and it caused about a five mile back up. Now normally I wouldn’t make such a fuss about a little traffic, well at least I wouldn’t write about it. However, as I was trudging along on the road, trying not to commit a violent act of road rage, I happen to drive up-on one of these.

Radar Sign

So the speed indicator that I happened on was nice enough to tell me that the speed limit through that pass was 40 MPH. And it was also nice enough to tell me that my speed at the time was a whopping 5 MPH. Really, did they need this thing running on the side of the road? Isn’t this sort of adding insult to injury?

It was at that moment I realized why I don’t have a gun rack in my car. I would have taken out my shot gun and blown that sign away. Another good reason that people shouldn’t carry guns in their vehicle. Oh, and by the way, the trip home only took three and a half hours.

And Baby Sam was great this weekend. She is beautiful and lives the life we all strive to have, she eats, she sleeps and she poops – a life of bliss. She did get to take her first trip into NYC this weekend. I think she had a good time, well she slept through most of it. Can you imagine being in NYC and sleeping the whole time? Next time we can take her shopping in SOHO. She might like that more.

How Did They Know?

You know what I got in the mail this week? Of course you don’t. I got some AAA cards. This is only interesting considering the weekend that I had and the fact that it took me two extra days to return from NJ because…wait for it…my car broke down on the side of the highway. This is the first time in as long as I can remember that I have found myself on the side of a freeway as cars whiz by me at 100 mph. Anyone who has had this happen knows that this is not a fun experience.

Luckily I was only 20 miles from my friend’s house when it happened. Oh what is it, you ask? As I was speeding along dreading the four hour ride home, I heard a strange noise, like I had run over a stick or something. I should have stopped, but who really does. The next indication that something was wrong was the warning light on my dash that stated “Batter Is Not Charging.” This made me look at the battery gauge and sure enough it was no longer at 13 volts. It had dropped down to under 10 volts. As I was thinking, what the hell does that mean, white smoke started to pour out from under my hood. This was a sure tell sign that I needed to pull over.

I stopped and opened the bonnet (it is a Jaguar after all) to see my car overheating and smoke coming from everywhere. It was immediately apparent that I had blown my radiator hose, or at least that is what I thought. In reality the hose had slipped off the manifold and water was steaming everywhere. I wasn’t really sure what to do. I let it cool for a few minutes, cursed that I didn’t have AAA and then decided to try and fix the problem. I pushed the hose back onto the manifold, tightened it down with a quarter (MacGyver like) and poured my bottle of water into the cooling system. My goal was to make it to the next exit and find a station to fill up the cooling system.

I drove about a half a mile before smoke stated coming out again. I was approaching the toll gate (Pennsylvania charges people to leave NJ, as they should). I pulled into the Welcome Center right after the gate. I again opened the bonnet again to see that the hose had again slipped off the manifold. I again tried to secure the hose and then used my water bottle to fill up the radiator this time. I was smart enough not to try and leave the Welcome Center right away. I mean I still had 200 miles to go so no need to break down in the middle of Pennsylvania. I started the car and let it run for a few minutes to see if the hose would hold. Yeah, it didn’t hold. It slipped off and water started shooting everywhere. Now one thing I was very smart about was I always monitored my temperature gauge to make sure I did not over heat the engine. Jaguar engines can cook if you let them overheat. My problem was more a loss of coolant and water than an overheating problem.

At this point, it was already about 8 PM, I gave up and called my buddy to come get me. He did and I went back to his house for the night. I had the car towed in the morning to a local Jag shop and let them look at it. Here is the strange part. Apparently that “stick” I heard on the highway was actually one of the belt pulleys that connect to my water pump and alternator. Battery Is Not Charging starts top make sense. The pulley had just fallen off the car. It might have hit the hose which in turn cracked my manifold (it’s plastic) and cause the coolant to shoot out onto my engine which is why I got all the white smoke.

The dealership ordered my parts and had me on the road the next day. My new mechanic did tell me that this problem was probably caused by my old mechanic not understanding how to set up the cables. It looked as though the old mechanic had loosened that pulley to try and tighten the belt instead of doing it the right way. Just goes to show you that a good mechanic is the most important thing when it comes to owning a vintage expensive car.

You know the bad part about breaking down on the side of the road? It isn’t the hassle or the cost of repairing the car, it is the loss of confidence in your vehicle from that day forward. I spent the entire 4 hour ride home

Now let me get back to my surprise mail from AAA. Needless to say I have never gotten junk mail from AAA and I find it really suspicious that they have chosen now to send me this offer. Talk about targeted marketing. I started wondering how they knew I broke down this week. I mean did my mechanic give me up. Or maybe it was the tow truck guy getting a kick back from AAA. I started thinking maybe they are much more sophisticated than that. Maybe they are using spy satellites to monitor the highways in our country just waiting for some unfortunate soul to break down. Then they zoom in on the license plate, run a cross check with the DMV and presto…three days later you get an offer in the mail. I think I remember seeing a job posting for computer hackers at AAA some years ago.

Some Random Rants

The drive to NY this weekend was miserable. The trip is about 230 miles from my place to my buddies house. It took me 3 hours to travel the first 60 miles and 2.5 hours for the next 170 miles. The traffic in and around DC and Baltimore on a Friday is ridiculous. But fear not, I know how they can reduce the traffic significantly. I am actually surprised that this is not already used in such a high traffic area. So for those people who design, construct or maintain the highways, I have just two words for you:

"Metering Lights"

I mentioned this to a few people this weekend and no one seemed to know what they are. We use them in California, where traffic is also a nightmare. They are placed at on ramps, bridge tolls or freeway mergers. They basically control the number of vehicles that can enter the highway at one time. This eliminates much of what I dealt with on Friday, where 100 cars all enter the freeway at once and try to merge into the highway, which causes a mess and my particular road rage. Metering lights limit it to one or two cars merging at a time. This would also help in areas like that damn tunnel in Baltimore where they split 4 lanes into 15 at the toll plaza and then expect those 15 lanes to merge right back in the next 100 yards. Which idiot thought that up. Of course there is traffic there. We do the same thing on the bridge in SF, but right after the gate the 15 lanes go to metering lights and the lights help the merging process.

Next...I know many of you have heard me complain about HOV lanes in California. Well, let me tell you. There is actually a freeway, yes I said freeway, in Virginia that is entirely an HOV freeway in the morning or afternoon depending on which direction you are going. You are not allowed on it if you do not have two people in the car from 6-9 AM for example. So for those people who can't carpool, too bad. Find another way to get to work. Now that is messed up.

Lastly...I was in a restaurant last week and went to the men's room so I could, well you know why. They had three urinals in the men's room. The first was pretty low to the ground, for you ladies, you generally find this in most men's rooms for the vertically challenged guys or say, kids. The next one was pretty much the normal height. The last one was so high that I couldn't even use it. I am six feet tall and there is no way I could ever pee in this urinal. I mean, really, do we need special urinals for guys who are like 7 feet tall. Come on, how often does Shaq come into your restaurant. I can pee in the low urinal if necessary, I am sure Shaq could use the urinal us non-abnormally-huge guys use.

Anyway...Have a great week.