I’m indifferent to the debate about it. My frustration with this entire story is with the journalistic incompetence of not giving the full context for why he was sentenced so harshly. The coverage seems to focus on contrasting a trivial mechanical failure to an over-the-top punishment, but they’re downplaying the…

The brakes on Aguilera-Mederos’ semi-truck failed, and he crashed into stopped traffic, killing four people.

It’s a federal interstate that thousands of trucks drive on each day. The issue isn’t that the road is too steep, it’s that the driver was young, inexperienced, under-trained and likely not fluent enough in English to read the signs. Do we even want this person driving a semi truck in town?

And everyone in the paddock had been told beforehand the goal was to finish under green.

but why was he put on such a route, with no assistance, with little english skills, and the company walks away free from liability

Looking at the topology now it’s not “perfectly flat” but it feels flat compared to what you just drove down. You basically come out of a fast winding downhill and end up on a wide, straight road on the far western edge of Denver. There’s a number of large fields on this stretch that he could have driven his truck…

I assume both manual and automatic trucks have the ability to down-shift, and that a driver is required to know how to do it on whatever equipment he’s driving.

I wrote the “FJ Cruiser Buy/Sell Guide” on FJ Cruiser Forums years ago, but I’m not here to recommend an FJ Cruiser.

Some context for those of you not from Colorado, who don’t know the circumstances of what happened beyond what you’re reading in this article.

Toyota didn’t really advertise the FJ after the first few years, sales dropped like a rock from 2009 to 2011 and barely broke 10,000 for the last 4 years it was sold.

I help run a large FJ club here in Denver. We drive past Crosstreks, Outbacks, Foresters parked at the trailheads and keep going.

My wife and I have owned as many as 5 cars at one time, I pay gasoline taxes on the cars that use gasoline and I pay state registration on every car.

As a contrast to Tesla build quality. I’ve had both extremes, panel gap issues on the Tesla don’t matter. It’s a lazy way of dismissing their accomplishment.

And you don’t even want to imagine the shit storm that would have followed, had the title been decided under a safety car.

Then create the “Elon Musk” rule for when a company gets so big that the subsidies can be repaid easily.  Or better yet, make the company re-invest that money in other companies that can benefit.  I just don’t understand the point of criticizing somebody for becoming wildly successful when we waste a ton of money…

1) He’s a colossal douchebag. This is undisputed. I could expand for pages, but I’m sure you have google and twitter and whatever else so rehashing here isn’t beneficial.

I’m not saying that mine didn’t have issues.  Mine had panel gap issues and the hood was flimsy, I’m saying it didn’t matter.

This is my major annoyance with the new Supra, it was not Toyota letting the engineers off the leash but the beancounters slotting a car at a price/performance point that doesn’t steal sales from anything below it (86) or above it (RC-F). I jokingly say I’m going to get a REALMK5 license plate, which would be…

I made $6K on my Y after 18 months / 16K miles, but these times aren’t typical.

Somebody had to buy one :-) and yes the car is stunning, the number of heads it turns on every drive is nearly countless.