Not a recall; but a preliminary evaluation. That's the first step that NHTSA takes, it's the data analysis and preliminary investigation to see if there are any common causal factors between the incidents. If evaluation indicates something interesting; it may be moved to an engineering analysis.

By the way, whatever happened to the airlines passing out free pillows?

1st Gear: For reference, there was a NHTSA investigation of Crown Vic police Interceptor(1992-2002) post-crash fires.

Would be perfect location for this:

It's somewhere in Europe. The ECE countries use all white pavement markings, and typically reserve yellow for temporary markings in construction zones.

First gear: It isn't so much lobbying as it is presidential politics. As long as they make ethanol from corn, and they grow corn in Iowa, and Iowa gets the first in the nation caucus; nobody with any asperations for president will ever oppose ethanol.

Here's the quick quote from the official Liertarian Party Platform:

4 goals. Emery gave up 4 goals in 22 minutes of ice time. He faced 19 shots total, and drew 29 PIM. So, basically, he was a big pile of suck.

And all of this can be accomplished with the sorts of cameras already being used by automakers to detect pedestrians, rather than using more expensive radars.

Edsel ran a contest — name the Wagon Train Pony. Apparently, each dealership had a winner for the 'best' name; which meant that the company send ponies to every Edsel dealership. Most opted for the cash prize, leaving all those ponies unclaimed.

I found a picture of a prototype:

Unless you're making major mistakes in a German meat-processing plant, then it would be "You're fucking the wurst!"

Neutral: In theory, if you knew how the OBD II port really worked, you could build a little something that sat in between the port and the tracker and limit filtered the raw data. You could even skip plugging it into the port altogether and make up data.

There are two big issues about backup cameras, and why the rulemaking has been delayed.

Here's the view the driver of the Mazda had making that left turn from SB E 66th Street to Gaylord Drive N.

Did Peter Dinklage deny somebody's favor to get a pop singer into that new war picture?

The interior trunk release is regularatory, mandated as part of Kids and Cars.

Not to belabor a somewhat lame joke; but I knew that. The title of the book is a play on the homophone gray (the US color) and Grey (the dude). But that play on words only works if, for non-US markets; you use grey (the non-US color) and Gray (the dude).

I wonder if they are going to retitle it Fifty Shades of Gray for the non-US market.