1) Dude, you’re gonna lift weights and grow. Skinny and short is not your forever; sell the fucking Triumph.

the very first time I got into my brand-new 1997 5-speed Maxima, I broke my knee cap on the emergency brake handle. One the one hand, quite a sturdily built car, on the other, who the @#$%! tested the ergonomics? I owned the thing for 10 weeks before I put a mile on it. 

Some of us worked for insurance companies as young people. One of the best things to come out of that gig for me was that I met people who specialized in cleaning the sort of things that would either give one nightmares or cause involuntary regurgitation. They hipped me to products and processes that made a huge…

A guy’s gotta draw a line...

Please call it what it is, a station wagon. At no time in the US did we ever call cars “shooting brakes”, “saloons”, or “estates”. When people use the idiom of a country not well known for its quality vehicles (c’mon, we all know it to be true. To paraphrase a certain Mr Stephenson, the British will build a mailbox…

Malicious use. You’re right that the easiest path is civil - reputational damage, etc, but you don’t need to damage a system to get in trouble for unauthorized use and manipulation. Fucking with the content of their formatted communications could certainly be considered damage, though.

She had been convicted before she conceived the second kid. She should name this one “Strategy”.

I did not even need to check the plate or read to the end to know that this seller is in a legal-marijuana state. The headline immediately made me think, “That dude is high.”.

Unauthorized use of a computer system to cause damage is most assuredly criminal. 

One could argue that the kid who accessed the equipment to change the labels did commit a crime. He had no permission to change the dealer’s notification sticker, and had to know it was going to cause economic injury to the business. I’m pretty sure some ADA, even in North Carolina, could figure out a plausible charge.

Calling flat-out racism “racially insensitive” is a little racially insensitive, no?

“Dodgy M & S tires”? Nobody’s driving Skodas in Boston, man.

On the upside, we have a constant source of water and don’t have wildfires, such as the one that destroyed my aunt’s place. Plusses and minuses to everything.

The average person from Syracuse would, after rolling their eyes at the gross ineptitude, stay out of their car until it was safe. Just because they can’t drive in the snow, any amount of it, doesn’t mean they won’t.

There’s something to that. I’m tall and big (not fat). I’ve made multiple cross-country trips in small cars, and each one was like a prison sentence. Insufficient leg-room is my biggest gripe - where are all the fucking Lilliputians for whom these cars are apparently being built? Don’t even get me started on shoulder…

I’ve spent a bunch of time in Nordic countries and Iceland. They have their share of big rides and Utes. It all depends on where people live and what their needs are. Of course Saab (RIP) and Volvo made cars that were good in cold-weather conditions, and the price of fuel militated against low-mileage vehicle…

Yes! Last week, I lampooned Land Rover’s reliability and some dude was not only defensive, but swore that he and his friends have all had stellar owner experiences - told me JD Power didn’t know shit. Now, I appreciate an anecdote as much as the next guy, but I can only assume that they had’em for maybe a week.

I am a confirmed East Coaster who lived out west for about 8 years. People who have to drive to even see snow are hopeless in actual winter conditions. Their tires and wipers always suck. They think cars with 4WD have mystical powers over ice, and that driving too fast for conditions is a perk of 4WD ownership. Don’t…

I’m someone who didn’t own an automatic as a DD until I was 50. I have had a horrible time adjusting. However, it’s time we admit that the affordable, three-pedal manual is going the way of the dodo in the US.

I’m all for women in sports - I coached team girls’ sports forever. I do think though, that some things that I’ve witnessed for decades were really glossed over.