ROADS REPORT

By: David Matthews

When a suburban Chicago couple purchased a fully loaded Ford Expedition in October, they had no idea what they were in for.

A couple days after the SUV was purchased, the couple returned it to the shop because the windows would only roll halfway down. The problem turned out to be simple: there were just too many bags of marijuana stuffed inside the door.

When mechanics found the first two-pound bag in the passenger door, they called the police. The car was then stripped and even more weed was found inside the seats and side panels. In all, 49 lb of wacky tabbaccy valued at $25,000 were found.

The couple bought the Expedition from a Hertz lot, who claim to have conducted a 72-point inspection on the vehicle before selling it. A Hertz spokeswoman said that Inspection Point 73 ("Make sure no bags of weed are preventing the windows from rolling down") was recently dropped from the list, but may soon be reinstated.

Animal experts in Myrtle Beach, N.C., have no idea why a bear harassed a survey team last month along the Carolina Bays Parkway and then took off with their lunch.

The bear showed no signs of intoxication when it approached the team, aggressively snorting and gnashing its teeth. It appeared to be unarmed and wasn’t asking for change, but still scared the surveyors enough that they all hid in their truck. After the bear damaged some of the team’s equipment, it grabbed a cooler and left. Police suspect the incident might have been part of a gang initiation, but won’t know for sure until the troubled bear is taken into custody.

A Seattle man recently learned that siphoning gas out of a car that isn’t yours can land you in a whole load of trouble . . . among other things.

Police were puzzled to find the perp lying on the ground in a fetal position next to the motorhome he was attempting to rip off. Next to him was a pile of spilled sewage.

The man later admitted to trying to steal gas from the motor-home, but accidentally plugged his hose into the motor-home’s sewage tank. The vehicle’s owner declined to press charges, saying that it was the best laugh he’d ever had.

Whenever you can find a choice parking spot right across the street from the restaurant you’re dining at, it’s got to be a good thing, right?

Well, maybe not if you’re parking a moving van, with its blinkers on, in front of a federal office building.

Such was the case with the owner of an Omaha, Neb., moving company recently. While the man had lunch, security guards at the building, remembering the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, called police and quickly evacuated the entire building.

When the man got back from lunch and discovered all the confusion, he was given a 30-minute lecture by police and a $13 ticket.

Some Chicago cab drivers have been finding some pretty big tips in their cars over the past few weeks.

One cab driver dropped off two passengers and accidentally took off with their sleeping 3-year-old in the back seat while the couple was sorting out their luggage. (He was later ticketed by police.)

Then just a few days later, a woman left her 3-year-old and her belongings momentarily in a cab to run into a store. When she got back, the cab was gone. The taxi and the child were later found near Midway Airport.

A construction team working on a Los Angeles street recently surprised to see one of their steamrollers take off on its own.

Well, not exactly on its own. A man who was "tired of walking" hijacked the steamroller and proceeded to engage police in a 5-mph chase. A police officer was finally able to step aboard the roller and bring it to a stop.

While we here in the States are still getting used to GPS technology, Honda is allowing drivers in Japan to surf the web behind the wheel.

Thousands of drivers already are logging on in their new cyber cars to find restaurant guides, gas stations and porn–all without leaving their vehicle.

Here in the U.S., General Motors now offers Internet access in their cars through OnStar.

After a recent chase down the Pacific Coast Highway, a Redondo Beach, Calif., police officer charged the driver of a white Mazda with a DUI.

The car wasn’t driving too erratically, so what made the officer suspicious?

The man was driving around with the upper half of a traffic light pole laying across the hood of his car. When the officer asked the driver about the pole, the man responded, "It came with the car when I bought it."