The new golden rule

Sept. 4, 2018

Do unto others what is most convenient and beneficial for you

Take what you can get

For most people, having no money and no car make dating impossible.

Kelton Griffin is not most people.

The 21-year-old Memphis, Tenn., man’s ingenious plan to take a girl out began by asking her godsister, Faith Pugh, out on the same night.

Griffin got himself dropped off at Pugh’s house and then convinced Pugh to let him drive the pair to dinner in Pugh’s Volvo.

Then on the way, Griffin pulled into a gas station and asked Pugh to buy him a cigar. While she did, Griffin drove off in her car, leaving Pugh stranded.

A short while later, Griffin picked up his intended date, Pugh’s godsister, in his “new” car to take her to a drive-in theater.

He let the girl drive the pair in Pugh’s stolen car, and even managed to convince her to pay the admission at the theater.

Griffin thought his plan had worked perfectly, but unbeknownst to him, his date was secretly working with his victim.

After he abandoned Pugh at the gas station, she began contacting family members for help, including her godsister.

The two women unraveled Griffin’s plan, and shortly after the pair parked at the drive-in, police arrived to arrest Griffin and retrieve Pugh’s car.

Get a grip

The rules weren’t the only thing broken when a motorist was stopped in Norfolk, England, in July.

Police could see that the battered Peugeot 206 was missing a front panel, a bumper, both headlights and most of the air in each tire when they pulled it over.

But only when they got a look inside the dilapidated jalopy did they discover just how precarious it truly was.

The front seats were completely missing, so the driver was sitting on a battered upside-down bucket.

Even more alarming, the car had no steering wheel. Instead, the driver was turning the steering column with a pair of locking pliers.

Police described the car as the most un-roadworthy they had ever seen.

Mistaken identity

Sometimes rules aren’t intentionally broken, like when a woman in Cornwall, England, accidentally stole a man’s car for two weeks.

The misunderstanding started when the woman rented a black Nissan Sentra from a local Enterprise branch in June.

On her way home she stopped at a Walmart to do some shopping, and then hopped into a black car that she thought was her rental car and headed home.

Not long after, a man called the police to report that his black Infiniti had been stolen from the very same Walmart parking lot.

The mix-up was eventually sorted out when the woman returned the rental car.

The Enterprise manager was confused when she handed over keys to an Infiniti when she had rented a Nissan. After retracing her steps, they figured out that the Nissan was still sitting in the Walmart parking lot, and for the past two weeks the woman had been driving around in the “stolen” Infiniti.

It seems that the man had left his Infiniti unlocked in the parking lot with his key fob still inside.

When the woman’s key fob seemingly unlocked the doors and activated the car’s push-button start, just like in her Nissan, she was able to drive away without noticing that she was in the wrong car.

Areas of influence

Drivers in some places break more rules than others.

Now, thanks to QuoteWizard’s annual list of the Best and Worst Drivers by City, we know exactly where the biggest rule breakers in America live.

Based on the number of accidents, speeding tickets, citations and DUIs, the city with the worst drivers is Omaha, Neb., followed by Riverside, Calif.; Sacramento, Calif.; Columbus, Ohio; and the San Francisco Bay area.

Despite its reputation for less-than-courteous driving, Florida took the top two spots on the Best Drivers list. Orlando and Miami finished on top, followed by El Paso, Texas; Detroit, Mich.; and Little Rock, Ark.

Fortunately for Florida drivers, illegal lane changes and obscene gestures were not part of the judging criteria.

About The Author: Matthews has been chronicling the unexpectedly humorous side of transportation news since 2000. The stories are all true.

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