Another Reason To Hate The Computerization Of Cars: Ransomware

Is ransomware in your car next?

A lot of us live in fear of  ransomware

You've probably heard of it. Hackers get into your computer and shut it down, deny you access to all your files, unless you pay a ransom to the hackers.

Often, if you get hit by ransomware, it's because you opened a safe looking email attachment, a fake email you thought was from a friend, and you're screwed.

Technically, that's partly your fault for not being careful, but we all get scammed every once in awhile, and fooled into doing something you thought was innocent. The scammers are crafty.

Now, there's other ransomware to worry about. As Consumer Reports tells us, the threat is in your car.

Says Consumer Reports:

"The reason cars are such inviting targets for ransomware hacjers is that they're increasingly computerized. And as automakers have transferred more and more functions to processors, they've neglected to install the same levels of security found in other modern devices - such as phones and laptops.

'Once you connect the car to the internet, the entire vehicle becomes a threat surface. If the auto industry doesn't adapt, we'll continue to see mistakes and potential vulnerabilities for things like ransomware to take place,' said Craig Hurst, executive director of the Future of Automotic Security Technology."

There's much more interesting things to read about this topic at in the Consumer Reports article.

One thing they don't get into, though, is this:  Unlike your laptop or phone, you don't get to install the hacking safety features in your car. The automaker does.

But if your car should get hacked one day and you get a demand for ransomware, I guarantee the car companies will not be held responsible.

It'll be all on you, because big corporations have all the rights these days, not you.

Why I Don't Like Ceding Control To Technology

Kim Novak was rescued from a burning car by Police Officer
Tim Schwering, but the rescue would not have been necessary
had the door locks and windows not been fully electronic.
Wouldn't it have been better if the car allowed Novak to
manually open the door and escape herself? 

A news report from KTLA in Los Angeles earlier this month is more proof as to why I don't like letting technology always do the work for me.

I like my Toyota Tacoma, but the one thing I dislike about it is I have to hit a button to electronically role the windows up or down.  

Gone are the days of the hand crank.

I know, I know it's sooooo much work having to work the crank than just hitting the button.

But one day, it will rebel against you. This doesn't happen to often, but it does.

Which leads me to the KTLA story.

It involves a woman named Kim Novak who was driving down a street in Spokane, Washington and the car suddenly died. The engine caught fire. But the doors locked themselves, and the window controls did not work. She was trapped in the burning car.

In the old days, all Novak would have had to do is open the car door and get out. Or failing that, roll down the window using the hand crank and spring out to safety.

No, now, we have to die in burning cars because - technology!

On the bright side, technology ultimately saved the Novak. She called 911 and police were nearby.

Windows these days in cars seem to be shatterproof, so the 911 dispatcher's advice that the woman trapped in the car kick out the windows didn't work. They wouldn't budge.

Finally, a cop came and with a lot of work, was able to smash out the window with his baton. He and another good Samaritan got the woman out just in the knick of time, just before the car was fully engulfed in flames.

As you can see in the video, the "safety glass" almost killed the woman, too.  The cop wearing the bodycam really had to hack away at the window for the longest time to get the woman out of the car.

Also, note some of the comments on the video from people who agree with me: Why the hell are the locks in the car fully electronic? Why can't there be manual back up?

The automatic door locks are a small but annoying inconvenience for me. Say my truck is safely parked in my driveway, and I'm working outside, retrieving tools from the truck from time to time. If the windows are rolled up, sometimes the truck just suddenly locks the doors.

If I left the keys in the truck, maybe because I was planning on going to the store in a few minutes, I'm screwed. It's another thing I have to remember: Never leave the keys in the truck because I might get locked out.

What if I temporarily have my dogs in the car with the keys. They can get lock inside. That happened to us once, and we had to get a locksmith to free the dogs. What if it had been sunny and hot. Our dogs could have died.

There have been several instances of kids accidentally being locked in cars. Isn't that dangerous? Why can't we have manual locks?

Car makers don't like manual locks and windows because they've convinced the public they are must-haves. And now there's supposedly no room for both manual and electronic controls on door panels.

Granted, this is a First World problem. But still. I don't like it. Automakers: Just let me do some of the work for myself. Don't do everything for me. I want to have at least a little control.

Here's the video of the rescue from that locked car in Spokane:



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Someday Your Car Might Be Taken Over By Hackers

Imagine this:

Will hackers remotely be able to cause wrecks
by this by taking control of cars'
computer systems?  

You're zooming down a highway in lots of traffic, doing the speed limit of 65 mph.

All of a sudden, your brakes don't work. Your car speeds up even though you have your foot off the gas. The steering wheel swings back and forth wildly, sending you all over the road.

Worse, this is happening to the cars around you. There's a big pileup and lots of people die.

I know that's the plot of some bad science fiction/action movie, but it's a worse-case scenario of what could perhaps happen in the future, at least according to a Vox article called "The Next Frontier in Hacking: Your Car."

Cars are increasingly equipped with super duper navigation, and will integrate with cellphones wonderfully, and will have more and more self driving capabilities, says Vox.

There's already a LOT of computer stuff in cars, and they're starting to become prone to hacking.  Most of the computer components in the past have been internal, but they're increasingly being connected to the greater outside Internet, and that trend will probably just keep accelerating.

You can only hack into these cars if you had physical access to them, just as you would need physical access to cut the brake lines or steal the battery or something.

But already, cars are starting to become hackable without ever getting near the thing.

Says Vox about one Universityof California study of an unnamed late model car:

"They found it was alarmingly vulnerable to external attack.

In one attack, they created a malicious music file that, if played on the car's stereo, would let hackers gain control of the car's computer systems. In another, they demonstrated that they could hack into the diagnostic equipment used by auto mechanics using its wifi connection, and from there install malicious software onto vehicles being serviced."

Some of this is dangerous and not deadly. Hackers would be able to listen in on conversations going on in the car, or disable the locking system, making it super easy to steal the car.

Hackers are already close to being able to take control of cars, or are already there.  From a scary article from Forbes about how researchers showing they ways cars like a Ford Escape and Toyota Prius  can be hacked:

"As I drove their vehicles for more than an hour (Charlie) Miller and (Chris) Valasek showed that they've reverse-engineered enough of the software of the Escape and the Toyota Prius (both the 2010 model) to demonstrate a range of nasty surprises: Everything from annoyances like uncontrollably blasting the horn to serious hazards like slamming on the Prius' brakes at high speeds.

They sent commands from their laptops that killed power steering, spoofed the GPS and made pathological liars out of speedometers and odometers.

Finally, they directed me out to a country road, where Valasek showed that he could violently jerk the Prius' steering at any speed, threatening to send us into a cornfield or a head-on collision. 'Imagine you're driving down a highway at 80,' Valesek says. 'You're going into the car next to yoi or into oncoming traffic. That's going to be bad times.'"

Notice the cars in the above passage were 2010 models. I can only imagine new model cars, like, say my new 2015 Toyota Tacoma could be hacked even more readily or extensively.

The danger of getting yourself killed by a hacker is of course the biggest worry. But there are also fraud worries. They can adjust the odometer. They could also probably alter the computer to hide the fact the used car you're buying has been in a wreck or a flood in the past.

And what if your car is hacked, you steer into a car carrying a family. How do you prove you weren't at fault?

There haven't been many hacks of cars yet, Vox explains, because each model of car has custom software that changes year to year. So you can't get widespread hacks, and it's harder to catch up with the changes.

PCs and smartphones are easier to hack hecause they all have standard operating systems, Windows, Android or iOS. So a single piece of malware can screw up millions of devices, says Vox. Plus, PCs and smartphones are connected to the Internet much more than cars are.

But as automakers keep upping the ante on the sophistication of car systems, the more likely they'll be hooked up to the Internet, and run on more hackable Android, Windows or iOS systems.

Says Vox:

"In the next year or two, most car manufacturers are going to support Android Audio and Apple's Carpay - standards that allow smartphones to control a cars dashboard touchscreen display. These interfaces could provide another potential route for hacking."

Vox said automakers need to do comprehensive security audits of the cars' software as part of a vehicle's safety testing process.

But that's hard to do since the auto manufacturers can't even look at source codes.  Vox says "suppliers consider this proprietary information and guard it closely."

OK suppliers, what's more important? Keeping people safe or making bundles of money?

Oh, right. Making bundles of money.

We hope the the Society of Automotive Engineers and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration go forward with new standards for cyber security in vehicles.

Meanwhile, Miller and Valasek, the guys in the Forbes article above, have a good idea, according to Wired:

"The hacker duo has created a prototype of an intrusion detection system for cars - a $150 device that plugs directly into a vehicle's network to monitor and block suspicious commands."

Nice idea, and it would help, but I bet it could get hacked, too.

To be fair, some car manufacturers are starting to get on board with security.

According to CNN Money, Ford hardware has built-in firewalls that stop malicious tampering, and the company has a team of hackers that are always looking for weaknesses.

Toyota has a similar "good guy and gal" hacking team. Also, says CNN Money, "Toyota embeds security chips in the tiny computers throughout the car, narrowing how they communicate and lessening the chance of outsider interference."

Which makes me feel a little better about my new Toyota Tacoma.

Still, all this stuff in cars makes me nervous. I guess it boils down to our increasing lack of ability to control things. I actually resent even simple things, like car windows that roll down electronically, instead of with a crank.

If the electrical system malfunctions and I have to get out, how do I do it? Should I just carry a crowbar in the truck always, just in case?

Now we have all these computer systems. Convenient and fun, yes. I'm no Luddite. But I still have misgivings about all this, since for me, the point of driving a vehicle is to get from Point A to Point B, not be entertained by glitzy bells and whistles.  

Artist Takes "Wash Me" On Dirty Car Windows To Beautiful New Level

"Hydra And the Nymphs" in dirty
car art, by Scott Wade.  

It's winter.

Which means your car will get covered with road salt and grime and grit and look really ugly. Plus it'll be hard to see out of your dirt smeared window.

On top of that, some obnoxious kid will scrawl "Wash Me" on the dust and dirt covering your rear window.

If only Scott Wade could come to the rescue.

Who?

Scott Wade, an artist who uses dirty cars as a canvas to create some beautiful works. Seriously!

It's called Dirty Car Art, and it's a hit.

According to his Web site, Wade, when he was younger was inspired to go beyond the "wash me" cliche on dirty car windows. He lived on a dirt road, so ar windows were usually dusty in hot, dry Texas.  

Portrait of Carl Sandberg in dirty car
art by Scott Wade.  

He experimented with using his fingernails, pads of his fingers, then Popsickle sticks, and brushes to develop the art on dirty car windows.

Of course, the artwork disappears in the next rainstorm, so he photographs his work, waits for the dirt to reappear on the windshields after a rainstorm and starts another painting.

He says:

"The impermanence of this art form is one of the things I really love about it. For one thing, it helps me to not take it too seriously and to really have fun with it. But most important, it reminds me that all of life is transit, that we won't be here all that long, and to reall enjoy the wonder and beauty while  we're here."

Without rain, the dirty car art can last several days, as he says the turbulence of driving along in the wind doesn't seem to affect the drawings too much.

Wade, who is about 54 years old says he has been doing dirty car artwork for pretty much as long as he can remember, but got serious about it about 12 years ago.

And of course we MUST have the dogs
playing cars in dirty car art, too.  

He makes his living as a graphic artist, but he's gotten enough attention that he derives income from his dirty car art through appearances at fairs, carnivals, events, that type of thing.

PR firms, event organizers and ad agencies also hire Wade.

You can scroll through Wade's fantastic image gallery to see what he's done at various events and for various clients.

I'm not the first person to notice Wade. He's been seen in outfits like Maxim magazine and CBS Morning News. He's hoping his growing popularity will turn his car art into a full time gig.

It can take anywhere from a few minutes to six hours to create the art, Wade said.

At events, there's not always dirty cars handy, so he puts a thin sheen of an oil - cooking oil is good -  on a windshield, gets out a blow dryer and blows dust or fine dirt onto a car window. The oil makes the dirt stick, and away he goes.

He says you and I could do the same thing if we're inspired to create car art. Just smear on the cooking oil. If dust isn't available, try whole wheat flour.

And maybe you, too, can make the winter tableau of ugly dirty cars that much more beautiful

The World's Most Sea Sick Cars and Trucks

Ever bought a used vehicle and found out it didn't work as well as you'd hoped? That maybe it turned out to be a lemon?

A still from the video of an ill-fated
overseas trip from Japan that didn't go well
for some auctioned cars.  

Maybe it was shipped overseas aboard a Russian freighter. If the video in this post is any indication, it's better to buy a local car.

This Russian freighter, bound from Japan and loaded with used cars for resale, hit a big huge storm in the North Pacific.

Some of the cars are now deep down at the bottom of the ocean. The ones that didn't sink didn't exactly make it intact, having taken some  unique and bumpy rides across the deck of the ship.

Somebody didn't tie things down well, did they? It's always fun to watch someone else's disaster, right?

Watch the video before you buy your next car. You'll be happy you did.

Was Yesterday National Car Breakdown Day?

Yesterday afternoon, just a few miles before the odometer would click over to 200,000 miles, my old truck died.

This car burst into flames in Richmond, Vermont yesterday.
The guys with the fire extinguishers managed to put
it out and it looks like nobody got hurt.
But yesterday really seemed like National Car
Breakdown Day.  

Without warning, the battery conked out. The truck had been starting fine all day.

Then, the next time I tried to start it, it didn't. All I heard was the whiny whimper of death from the truck engine.

It was not that big a deal as car repairs go. Just a pain in the butt and an unexpected expense.

It was almost as if the truck decided to celebrate its milestone odometer reading in a memorable way.

Or something else was going on.

Maybe it was just me, but it seemed yesterday was National Car Breakdown Day.

After I got a jump start, I limped over to Sears for a new battery. I found the place hopping. They were busy! And on the way there, I saw two disabled cars on the side of the road.

A couple hours later, revving it up with my new battery, I went back to the business at hand. And I saw three more broken down cars on a 20-mile stretch of road.

Finally, on the way back home, I found guys frantically spraying a heavily smoking car with fire extinguishers. Inside the car were a woman and two big dogs. None looked particularly happy, but for some reason they weren't getting out of the burning car, either.

My guess: An electrical fire in the car disabled the locks, trapping the woman and the dogs.

Luckily, our heroes with the fire extinguishers got the fire out, and the woman, and her dogs, survived another day. Which will also probably yield another car disaster.

Was karma bad in Vermont yesterday, causing cars to malfunction? Was the Evil Car Death Spirit having a lousy day?  Inquiring minds want to know.

I'm just glad my truck started this morning.

Fun and Cringe Worthy: People Who Can't Park

I'm going to brag a bit. I can park in pretty tight places, despite the fact I drive an extended cab Toyota Tacoma.

I've even been applauded by passersby for parallel parking in a very tight space without hitting anything or anyone, having to try numerous times to make it work, and positioning the truck so it's not at some weird angle.

I say this because not everyone is great at parking, and I'm certainly not perfect. It's fun to watch people struggle, as do the makers of this video from HuffPost, who compiled some examples of people who really don't have much of a knack for parking.

Here's the video for a quick laugh for you today:

A Brief Interlude With An Extremely Stupid, Snow Covered Motorist.

It snowed a little here in Vermont this morning, enough to slicken up the roads and cause a few crashes.

I don't know if any of the vehicle accidents were caused by stupidity, but I give you a brief video of one of the world's stupidest drivers. Thankfully nobody who lives near me.

It snowed recently in parts of Britain, and a dashcam video caught an oncoming car, a Jaguar of all things, with the teeniest, tiniest peephole in a windshield otherwise totally covered in snow.

Really, the guy or gal driving couldn't take just one minute to clear that bit of snow from the windshield so they could see? They didn't think they might hit something? Maybe they didn't want to be recognized?

I wouldn't want to be if I were that stupid. Watch for yourself:

Awesome, Passive Aggressive Windshield Notes

I've always resisted leaving notes on car windshields of people who act like jerks when they're driving or parking. Why bother with the ignorant.

Another one of Buzzfeed's windshield notes

But, the notes are fun sometimes, as noted by BuzzFeed the other day when they ran a series of photos of notes on cars.

Two of my favorites: "My name is Jack. I accidently hit your car & someone saw me, so I'm pretending to right (sic) down my details. Sorry, Jack."

Another: "Fxxk your car alarm and fxxk you. You're ruining peoples's lives. Expect a brick through window."

Click on the BuzzFeed link for more fun.

Meteor Flashes on Russian Dash Cam Craziness

A lot of people are talking about how many dash cams caught the drama of that meteor roaring over, and exploding over Russia last week.

 What seems to be a typical view from a Russian dash cam.

As noted in many media outlets, many Russians have dash cams in their cars because police are corrupt, insurance scams are rampant, so people need proof of what really happened during car crashes.

The dash cams have created a cottage industry of YouTube compilation videos of Russian crashes, road rage, road weirdness and general chaos on the country's highways.

You can see an excellent sample of one of these compilations at the bottom of this post.

Although it seems like Vermont, where I live, is full of people who don't know how to drive or are too busy yammering and texting on their cell phones behind the wheel to actually drive, it's much, much worse in Russia.

Here are some of the conclusions I've drawn from watching some of these dash cam videos from Russia:

1. People in Russia drive really, really fast. They especially put the pedal to the metal when it's snowing out and the roads are particularly icy.

2. Russian truck drivers are especially incompetent. If you see a truck in Russia, you know it will soon tip over, plow into a row of cars, take down the power lines at the edge of the highway, run over people or otherwise cause far more chaos than that meteor did last week.

Another typical view from a  Russian dash cam.

3. If you want to start a successful tire mounting and sales business, pack your bags and move to Russia. Tires are continuously coming off vehicles on the highways. Maybe Russians need to know what lug nuts are and what their function is.

4. Russians do not let little problems get in their way. The tire fell off? Keep driving. The tractor rolled over? Tip the smashed rig right side up and keep driving, blocking traffic on the freeway all the while. The guy in front of you cut you off? Just open fire on him with your trusty Glock 9mm.

5. Speaking of Glocks, Russian drivers are amazingly short tempered. The slightest provocation leads to major fist fights or armed conflict. You have been warned.

6. Russian highways are cluttered with an amazing array of hazards, including but not limited to goats, horses, helicopters, jets, falling trees, sparking power lines, helicopters, military surplus parts, crashing planes, dead bodies, live bodies and the aformentioned armed conflicts.

7. Traffic signals in Russia are just pretty red and green lights, they don't actually signal anything, at least in the minds of Russian motorists.

8. Russia surely has incredibly talented stage, screen and television actors, but the swindlers who pretend to get hit by cars are hacks, though melodramatic ones. Many dash cams show the cars coming to a complete stop, followed by a person slumping dramatically on the hood of the car, then bouncing off, and then writhing in "agony"  No Oscars for this bunch.

Here's a 13-minute compilation of Russian dash cam footage. It's worth watching every second of it, and thanking your lucky stars you don't have to drive there.

A Speeding Ticket for Standing Still?

Boy, they're strict with the speeding tickets in Baltimore.

A man there got a speeding ticket generated by one of those traffic light cameras. It said he was going 38 mph in a 25 mph zone. But the accompanying video shows the man was in his vehicle, stopped at a red light, doing a whopping 0 mph when he was supposedly speeding, according to NPR and other news outlets.

A safety feature? Revenue generator? Both?

This gets my conspiratorial juices flowing, especially since there's been other media reports that the cameras attached to traffic lights are often inaccurate. Deliberately or accidentally is unknown, and probably depends on the eyes of the beholder.

The whole thing begs the question: Are the red light cameras for public safety, to discourage dangerous speeders, or are they just an excuse to generate revenue? After all, many people. especially out of towners, don't want to spend, say, $500 battling a $200 traffic ticket.

Maybe some red light cameras are a "visitor's tax," you know, you've got to find the revenue where you can, right?

The lobbying group National Motorists Association opposed red light cameras for a variety of reasons, including the possibility of them being inaccurate, that they might correctly identify the driver of the offending cars, and there's not much accountability.

The Baltimore Sun yesterday editorialized that the city should shut off its red light cameras, in light of the stationary speeder and that the cameras often have a 5 percent error rate.

We'll see how all this plays out.

Vermont Now Fails at Winter

Here in northern Vermont yesterday, we had a typical late November morning. It was chilly, it snowed a little bit, and the roads got kind of icy.

This shouldn't be a big deal, but we've come to a point at which a critical mass of people have become too stupid to drive in the snow. Gridlock resulted. Over just an inch of snow. What is this, Atlanta?

A wet road, a snow flurry, and people panicked
themselves into this gridlock.

I'm willing to give a few people a pass. You can't afford snow tires? Well, OK, just do the best you can. Just moved to Vermont and you haven't figured out how to drive in the snow? OK, you'll learn.  But these types should only be in a tiny minority.

How do you explain the fact that enough people sped, spun and twirled their way on the roads to gum up the works completely. Most of these people have lived in Vermont for years. You haven't realized yet that winter happens here?

It's been getting worse here, year after year with incompetent winter drivers. I wonder what happened?  Did common sense go out the window? Did Congress pass a law in which we now must go 30 mph over the speed limit on glare ice while texting, putting on makeup, drinking coffee and eating Dunkin Donuts?

Because it seems that's what everybody is doing.

Well, actually, I'd imagine most people out there are still OK at driving in winter. Which means the dumb ones made thousands of us late for work, irritated, and broke, since we burned off tankfulls of gasoline just crawling along out there on the highway.

It's becoming an embarrassment, this winter incompetence. We Vermonters had a reputation as winter ready and tough, ready for any kind of cold season blast. I remember about two decades ago, a blizzard billed as "storm of the century" was considered "storm of the weekend" here in Vermont.

Now, we wilt like a petunia in Minsk in January at the first sign of a snow flurry. It's sad.

I know I'm going to be painted as a hypocrite when people read this, since it also has a brief video I took of the gridlock on a wet, non icy highway amid light, inconsequential snow flurries. But in my defense, the traffic was moving more slowly than the pace at which I usually walk, and I kept a big distance between my truck and the car in front of me.

Here's the vid:




It's going to be a long winter. Now I know when it snows, even if it's just the lightest flurry, I have to leave for work two hours before I'd normally need to because Dumb Winter Driver will spin out on the Interstate, clueless as to why going 100 mph through a snow squall is a bad idea. (Somebody in central Vermont actually did this Saturday, and was cited into court for reckless driving. Duh.)

Please, Dumb Winter Drivers: Don't drive all winter. Just hibernate. Or move to Florida. Please. We won't miss you. Trust us.

We have a couple of flurries going on outside now. It's snowing at a rate of about three snowflakes per hour. Which means people will panic, and it'll take me three hours to get home tonight, a trip that normally takes a half hour. Sigh.

Quality Body Shop in Roanoke Is Best in the World

If you ever happen to be in the Roanoke, Virginia area and thinking about fixing that ding in your car door, you MUST stop by Quality Auto Paint & Body.

By all accounts, they do a great job, but the really reason to go is the guy who runs the place, Richard Heneger Jr.

Richard Heneger, left, fixed Jordan Addison's car after
a homophobic vandalism spree, on the Ellen show.

He was on the Ellen Degeneres Show recently because of how he reacted to a sad local news story.

Seems an area college student, Jordan Addison, who is gay, had his car repeatedly vandalized with homophobic slurs by some scumbag who I don't believe has been caught yet. They scratched the words  "die" and "fag"on his car, smashed out the windshield and did other damage in at least three attacks over a few months.

Heneger heard the story on the news, and rang up Addison and asked him to bring the car into his shop so he could have a look. Heneger and Addison didn't know each other, but Heneger said he felt like he had to do something.

So, he took Addison's car and did about $10,000 worth of repairs, free of charge.

All this got the attention of Degeneres, who had Addison and Heneger on her show this month. For added oomph, Cover Girl, the cosmetics company Degeneres does ads for, gave each man $25,000 for their good deed.

I don't know if the whack job who vandalized Addison's car in the first place is even aware of the outpouring of support. But I do like how the moron wanted to make things worse for Addison, just because of his or her ignorant world view. Instead, things are better for Addison and Heneger than before.

Ha!

Here's the clip from Ellen's show:




This isn't the first time Heneger did something big for somebody. One of his best buddies, Jason Clary, asked Heneger to store his dilapitated pickup truck on the Quality Auto Paint and Body while he was serving in Afghanistan.

While Clary was gone, Heneger and a bunch of his friends in the auto body world completely repaired and tricked out Clary's truck to the point of complete awesomeness. 

So, I'll do what Ellen did, and just keep plugging Quality Auto Paint and Body.

Twin Joys: Weather Porn and 1960 Cars

I found a video today that happily pushes at least two of my buttons. It offers weather porn and views of cars from the very late 1950s to around 1960.

Today is the anniversary of Hurricane Donna, a nasty one that swept the East Coast from Florida to Maine in 1960. The Web site Gothamist had a YouTube video, taken from a home video of flooding from Hurricane Donna in Rockaway, Queens. Then-16 year old Joseph Horton filmed the storm with an 8 mm camera.

The flooding is pretty interesting, at least from this weather geek's perspective. But I LOVE the cars. They are HUGE boats. Too bad they didn't float in the flood. The vehicles have these huge wings, enormous, stylized designs and are just so elaborate. Nothing streamlined and compact like the stuff we drive nowadays, no sir!

The video also plays to my affinity to anything connected to the early 1960s. Bad storm, big cars, the start of a big decade. I'm in heaven. Watch!

Extreme Road Traffic: The Very Worst and Best

As a frequent road warrior, I'm always on the lookout for the worst and the best in driver and pedestrian behavior, as the way people drive on and use roads is a great window into the quirks of human behavior.

I found two videos today, illustrating how extreme things could get in two ways.

First we take you to lovely Chechnya, where road rage is, well, all the rage, in ways far worse than anything you've seen in the good old U.S. of A.  It's unclear from the video if this style of driving is the normal state of affairs over there, or if it's a group of people who just don't get along and take to the streets to express their disagreements. In any event, just a little tense over there in Chechnya:




For relief from our Chechnya experience, we now go to the Phillipines, where a very good traffic cop make sure cars and trucks flow nicely and people obey the rules. He seems to enjoy his job, and people really enjoy watching him work, judging from this video:

My "Car Talk" Debut

Yep, that was me this weekend, Matt from St. Albans, Vermont on Car Talk, with my own strange vehicle question.

The call was actually recorded in the summer, when I contacted Car Talk on a whim with an ignition key problem.

Tom and Ray Magliozzi, also known as Click and Clack on
"Car Talk" helped me with my ignition key problem
on their show this past weekend

Seems when I drive down a rough road, the key sometimes falls out of the ignition and onto the floor and I'm going along.  The truck just keeps on, well, truckin.'

My question was, Can I ignore the problem?

Yes, said Click and Clack the ever-ebullent hosts of Car Talk. Unless I have rust holes on the floor of the truck, in which case the issue could become particularly problematic, as you can well imagine.

And I took their advice. As Click and Clack pointed out, the ignition key problem is a particular boon on cold mornings when the windshield is all frosted over.

I can start the truck, pull the key out of the ignition without taking it off the key ring,  and go back into the house. That way, when I leave, I can lock the house door without removing anything from the key ring.

By the way, Car Talk is a bit less spontaneous than you'd think. Click and Clack, whose real names are Tom and Ray Magliozzi, don't know in advance who's calling or what their car problem is, so the actual interaction between caller and the pair are spontaneous and fresh.

But to get on the show, you email them with your car problem. If the producers think your problem might be interesting, they call you back and ask for more details. If they still think you or  your problem, or both is interesting, they set up a time when they call you.

Car Talk calls, and you're told to hold, because Click and Clack will come on the line and say, "Hello, you are on Car Talk."

Then  you're off.

So if you have  a weird car problem, give them a shot. It's fun. But remember, a key that falls out of the ignition while the vehicle is in motion has already been taken. Sorry.

Hey Mechanic, My Car's Not Handling Well, Why?

I found this little video out of Germany, where some motorist appears to be a oblivious to a teeny, tiny little problem with the right front driver's side tire.

Remember, Driving Public: It's always a good idea to keep your vehicle well maintained and road worthy. You want the car to handle well, unlike our friends in the video below:

Driving Wreckage

After a tough winter, it's understandable that people are driving around in dented, battered and mechancally iffy cars and trucks.

All those icy roads, collisions, potholes and frost heaves do take a toll. For instance, I just spent $400 on a new wheel bearing for my Toyota Tacoma yesterday.

But as the following video shows, some people don't abandon their vehicles when they get too battered. We end up with the the following scene on a Russian highway. Don't ask that guy for a ride!