Biggest. News. Moron. Ever.

In his editorial column in today's Atlanta Journal Constitution, Jim Wooten spewed forth the following blather:

"DaimlerChrysler’s tiny new Smart car is coming to the U.S. from Europe next year. It may be ideal for congested urban streets filled with bicycles and motor scooters, but micro-cars shouldn’t be allowed on interstates, where there are big cars and trucks, without an SUV escort."

Any comment I would make would be almost entirely superfluous. The idiocy speaks for itself.

I'm small. I like small cars. Why are these big bully cars on the roads? They just obstruct my view. (I'm joking to some extent but serious about the fact that if you can ban vehicles for being too small, you can also ban them for being too large.) As for the argument that large families and large cargoes necessitate large vehicles, small families and small cargoes (and small people) need small cars. I can barely see out the rear view mirror of my small car. I would never be able to see out of the rear view mirror of an SUV.

. . . doesn't it appear, judging by the balance of his column, that he was just attempting to make a wry comment or something? If anything, his crack could just as easily be taken as a swipe at SUVs as at micro-cars.

Sheesh. Some people are capable of taking issue with every last little thing . . . .

He's known for taking some fairly extreme right-wing positions. I wouldn't put it past him.

After parking the Smart Car in a handicapped parking space, they'll pull out a scooter to drive around inside the mall.

Or was I hallucinating?

I've had far too many closecalls with crazed truckers screaming along the 75 north to disagree with him entirely. One trucker with a double trailer almost drove me and three other cars off the road.

While I would love to drive a smart car, I would be very worried about using them on the highways around Atlanta.

Through trucks (those not stopping within the I-285 perimeter must use 285 to bypass downtown. My understanding is that it's almost completely unenforced.

I drove over the road for almost 20 years and passed through Atlanta scores of times. The overwhelming majority of heavy trucks do indeed follow I285 when traveling north or south on I 75 or I 85.

As far as it being enforced, here is how it is done, when it is done:
A cop pulls over a heavy truck inside the I285 loop and asks to see his Bill of Lading. If it does not have a consignee or shipper address inside the loop, the driver is ticketed and fined. The problem is, do you check each and every single tractor trailer on I 75, I 85 and I 20 that is inside I 285? How? Where? The logistics of it is prohibitive.

At the end of the day, driving through town as opposed to going around saves maybe 15 minutes in speed limit traffic. Most guys don't want to risk a several hundred dollar ticket for 15 minutes not to mention that the only time of day that it is really going to save much time is at about 3:00 AM.

I had the misfortune to have to travel down to Forest Park the other day. It took an hour and a half to go past 6 exits, due to traffic. We were literally walled in by trucks on the way home. It was so bad there were nutcases in big SUV's driving up the shoulder to cut in further up the highway. Not a cop in sight for miles.

However, I got off the highway and spotted *4* motorcycle cops working in tandem with two police cars, chasing down people on regular streets to write speeding tickets in a quiet neighborhood. A total of 8 cops were needed on a quiet neighborhood street - while the highway was clogged with trucks?

The cops in my area do the least amount of work they can get away with. Chasing soccer moms is easier than enforcing laws on the highway.

We only hear about these laws during elections. And then it's ignored, while the police stake out spots in neighborhoods to write traffic tickets to soccer moms.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju6t-yyoU8s

zalinda

I don't think that was a literal comment.