Author: Eric Peters

This country is painted over with double yellow bars – a sort of rolling-ribbon prison, from which escape is not possible. Legal passing zones – always rare – are becoming almost nonexistent. Painted over – for no readily discernible reason. Well, actually, there is a reason: It is the purposeful discouragement of active – as opposed to passive – driving. This to pave the way for automated cars. To acclimate people to soporific transportation. To get them used to being meatsacks. Superficially, the effacing of passing zones is justified on the claim that the act is inherently unsafe – and within the straightjacket idiocy … Continue reading →

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Out on the open ocean, a tsunami is almost impossible to see; but as the wave gets closer to shore, it builds and swells and all of a sudden, it becomes extremely obvious. By then, of course, it is too late. Consider what’s happened to Mazda an early warning of what’s coming. It is the first major car company to become a four-cylinder-only car company. All of its 2018 model year cars – from the compact Mazda3 to the full-sized CX-9 (reviewed here) are powered by four-cylinder engines no larger than 2.5 liters. No more sixes – even in the Mazda6. Which used to offer one. … Continue reading →

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You may have heard about people getting speeding tickets not based on the reading of a radar gun or other instrument subject to empirical verification but solely on the basis of an armed government worker’s “training,” his estimation – that is is, his opinion – about how fast the alleged offender was traveling. In some jurisdictions, this is considered acceptable evidence in court – sufficient to convict. Now comes the Drug Whisperer. A whole army of them.  These are armed government workers such as Cobb County, Georgia’s TT Carroll – who have received similar “training” and been anointed Certified Drug Recognition … Continue reading →

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Ayn Rand, for all her quirks, had some solid things to say. One of these was that civilization exists – or declines – in proportion to privacy. The less privacy you’ve got, the more uncivilized the society in which you live. Which is why this business of Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) technology is so extremely uncivilized. It is meant to make sure you are never alone on the road – even if you are the only car on the road. The concept emulates the bee hive. Each bee is an integral part of a collective and no action taken by any individual bee … Continue reading →

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A great many people – especially conservatives – reverence the Constitution, consider that it has been abused and that if only the doctrines expressed within were revived and respected, all would be well with America again. This, of course, is a kind of children’s bedtime story – and approximates reality to about the same degree as the story of the Three Little Pigs. The Constitution was peddled and imposed on us by men like Alexander Hamilton, a grasper after power who very openly loathed the ideas expressed by men like Jefferson in his Declaration (and even more so in his Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions). … Continue reading →

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It’s been said that good ideas don’t require force – while bad ones rarely get traction without it. True enough. But how about a qualifier? Whose ideas? Yours? Mine? There is a kind of tacitly agreed upon – or at least, rarely questioned – notion that we all agree on what constitutes a “good” idea. It’s the keystone of coercive collectivism, without which that ideology loses moral legitimacy. But in fact, we don’t agree about what a “good” idea is. Millions of individuals tend to have millions of individually variable ideas about that. So the question becomes: Whose ideas will prevail? If there … Continue reading →

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The strangest argument has been put forward in defense of Senate Republicans – who might as well be Senate Democrats – not rescinding the titanic federal subsidization of electric vehicles – i.e., the $7,500 an individual can deduct from his taxes (to be made up for by someone else’s taxes) as a reward/inducement for buying an EV. The argument is that the car industry must not be rattled by “regulatory uncertainty.” It is used to the subsidization of electric cars; therefore, ending the subsidies would be as wrong as – well, let’s see – dialing back the ethanol mandate or making a bother about … Continue reading →

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The strangest argument has been put forward in defense of Senate Republicans – who might as well be Senate Democrats – not rescinding the titanic federal subsidization of electric vehicles – i.e., the $7,500 an individual can deduct from his taxes (to be made up for by someone else’s taxes) as a reward/inducement for buying an EV. The argument is that the car industry must not be rattled by “regulatory uncertainty.” It is used to the subsidization of electric cars; therefore, ending the subsidies would be as wrong as – well, let’s see – dialing back the ethanol mandate or making a bother about … Continue reading →

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It’s surprising the government hasn’t made power seats – and windows – illegal. Well, at least not yet. After all, they are arguably at least as “unsafe” as not wearing a seatbelt. Maybe it will occur to someone. Give it time. The argument for requiring the use of seat belts is that you might be thrown about or even ejected from the vehicle in the event of a crash. But you might also drive off the road, into a pond. It’s certainly possible. And if your car has power windows, you will be trapped inside because power windows don’t work underwater. This is very unsafe – at … Continue reading →

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Sexing up the police state isn’t easy – but Lincoln’s trying. Ford’s luxury line now offers – scratch that, includes as standard equipment– a “complimentary” membership in CLEAR, which is the Department of Homeland Security’s “fast” and “efficient” biometric cattle tag program, already in use at public airports and other public-access venues. Time to buy old US gold coins  But not, it’s worth a mention, at private-access airports – i.e., general aviation, where the Heimatsicherheitsdeinst (that’s Homeland Security Department in the more appropriate – and original – German) does not fondle and grope, nor body scan travelers rich enough to avoid public air travel. This includes, of … Continue reading →

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There’s a kerfuffle in Wisconsin over threatened application of The Law to the Amish. Up to now, they’ve successfully dodged Uncle – been exempted on religious grounds from a great many busybody-isms, including laws requiring the presence and use of seat belts and child safety seats in all motor vehicles. Their horse-drawn buggies lack motors, of course – as well as seatbelts and child seats. They don’t have airbags or backup cameras or tire pressure monitors, either. The Amish don’t believe such things are necessary and therefore do without. They also believe it’s their decision, their business – and just want … Continue reading →

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Is there any upside to electric cars? In the interest of fairness, this question should be fairly answered. As is true of almost anything – Hitler did build the Autobahn, after all – you can find a few good things to say about electric cars . . . if you look long and hard enough – and don’t ask too many pesky follow-up questions. The heat works immediately – An electric car is like a mobile space heater, one of those little boxes you plug in at home or work to take the chill off the room you’re in. They make heat as soon … Continue reading →

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Welfare used to be about government cheese. Today’s it’s about grafting thousands of dollars to rich people so as to “encourage” them to drive around in electric cars. Few seem to mind because electrics are the cablinasians of the car world; affirmative action/diversity hires whose merits must not be questioned – and their deficits never mentioned. Well, congressional Republicans did exactly that – a startling thing, given the GOP’s usually reliable penchant for bringing-up-the-rear acceptance of everything Democrats enact (Obamacare, for example). But this time, they broke ranks. Included in the House version of the GOP’s budget proposal (expect Senate Republicans to out the kibosh on … Continue reading →

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It’s ironic that the state which birthed and came to define the car culture – cruising on Friday nights, the Beach Boys, Ronnie and the Daytonas – has become the state most hostile toward them. No more little GTOs really looking fine or little Deuce coupes. Hell, no more Hyundais  . . . unless they’re battery powered. Under the terms of a fatwa crafted by Phil Ting – a member of the California General Assembly from San Francisco – the only new vehicles which will be legal for use on California roads beginning in 2040 will be “clean” vehicles. “Clean” defined in interestingly incoherent … Continue reading →

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It’s fine to talk theory – what would be ideal. But while working toward that, what about practical changes that don’t require a sea change evolution in consciousness? For example, what can be done – in practical terms –   about law enforcement? That there is a problem is as obvious as Caitlyn Jenner’s Adam’s apple. The big problem – tyrannical laws based on the tyrannical idea that it’s legitimate to order people around and abuse them for not causing any harm to anyone – isn’t going to be solved absent a sea-change evolution in consciousness. But there are some obvious fixes that would make things a … Continue reading →

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