Roads Report
Drive-thru snafus
For generations, getting food from a restaurant meant ordering from a menu and being served at a table.
Then in 1947, the fast-food drive-thru changed everything. People could deal with their hunger without even getting out of their car. It was a glorious convenience.
Fast...
Stop rodent road dents
Warning: California drivers, be on the lookout for giant rodents with huge orange teeth!
Known as nutria, these creatures are 2.5-ft long (not counting their 12-in. tail) and can weigh up to 20 lb. They are often mistaken for beavers or muskrats, but don’t be fooled. Nutria...
Tough luck
When the country of Turkmenistan announced an import ban on black cars in 2015, it wasn’t to curb pollution or reduce congestion.
Local media reported that the country’s superstitious president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, made the order because he believes the color white brings good...
You’ve cat to be kitten me
A pet owner in Sandy, Ore., was surprised to get a phone call from the police in January inquiring about the well-being of his cat.
Which cat, he wondered. He has three.
Police said they were most interested in the one that was recently filmed riding around a Taco...
Caught off guard
San Francisco is known as a hub for technology and innovation, so when a local animal charity needed to boost security, they took a modern approach.
Rather than simply hiring a human security guard, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) hired a security...
Changing lanes
Nothing ruins a perfectly good morning quite like a traffic jam. They’re frustrating and stressful, and studies show that over time, they can even take a toll on your health.
Most commuters accept congestion as a fact of urban living, but one man in China decided to take action...
Mobile home
We all remember the classic Saturday Night Live skit where Chris Farley played a motivational speaker who warned teenage slackers to get back on the right track before they wound up like him: 35 years old, thrice divorced and living in a van down by the river.
While “living in a van...
Leap of faith
Parents: “Did you have fun playing at the Naphys’ house today?”
Daughter: “I sure did! First their dad jumped his car over an open drawbridge with all of us in it, then we . . . ”
Parents: “Hold on, he jumped his car over what?!”
This is not the conversation you expect to have...
Buyer beware
Life isn’t always fair. Sometimes things go your way, and sometimes you get screwed over by a municipal tax sale property auction.
Such was the case with Norma Parnell when she bid on a “vacant lot” in her neighborhood at a New York City property auction. She bid $30,000 and won the...
Stark raving mad
A wildlife documentary producer was caught on video in a feral fit of road rage over an accident that he wasn’t even involved in.
The incident began as Mom Louise, Dad Simon, their 11-year-old son and Grandma Victoria were driving home from a classic car show on a Saturday...
Get in gear
It’s always the simple things that trip you up.
Recently, two would-be thieves in two different countries were both foiled by the same basic automobile control: the clutch pedal.
In June, a man in Sydney, Australia, approached a vehicle stopped at a traffic light and ordered the...
Catching heat
Most communities have their share of bad drivers. However, not many have a driver who is so notorious that she has earned herself a nickname and a community-run Facebook page.
Patricia McDonald of Topeka, Kan., is just that driver. Nicknamed “The CRV Lady” for the blue 2008 Honda...
I’m lovin’ it
Workers at a McDonald’s in East Palestine, Ohio, thought they were being pranked when a van rolled through the drive-thru driven by an 8-year-old boy.
But this was no hidden camera show, and there were no grown-ups hiding in the backseat.
The boy and his 4-year-old sister were...
Death defying
James Sundby is lucky to be alive after surviving two near-death experiences in one night.
Late one Friday night this past March, Sundby ran a stop sign at a T-intersection in Alexandria, Minn., barreling over the curb, through someone’s yard and straight off a 40-ft embankment....
Going out with a bang
Police in Cumbria, England, are trying to figure out what led to an embarrassing discharge at their station this winter.
In February, a Vauxhall Corsa had been parked outside of the Workington police station for nearly a week before officers on the overnight shift noticed...
Totally crushed
In the face of devastating misfortune, Georgiy Karpekin still feels like “the luckiest guy.”
One blustery day earlier this year, Karpekin was leaving Sacramento City College when he discovered that strong wind gusts had caused his truck to be, in his words, “taco’d” by a very...
Melt down
Winter is here, and millions of tons of salt are being sprayed on roads and streets across North America.
That’s 10 times the amount of salt that we’ll use for food production this year. But all that salt doesn’t just disappear with the snow in spring.
Scientists say much of the...
Suspend your fears
More than 26 million people cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Maryland every year, and for most the scenic 4-mile bridge offers breathtaking views.
But for those with gephyrophobia—a fear of bridges—it’s one of the most terrifying places on the planet.
Drivers on the double-...
Burning up the road
They say that nothing has a greater influence on a child than a parent. If that is true, then as motorists we are all in deep trouble.
Take the Australian father who believes that getting kids interested in cars at an early age can keep them out of trouble later on.
Alex...
Memory blanks
Earlier this year, the Automobile Association in England discovered an alarming phenomenon: More than one in seven drivers regularly experiences memory gaps while behind the wheel.
Researchers polled more than 27,000 drivers and found that 15% were “quite often or very often” unable...
