ROADS REPORT: Hot fun in the summertime

June 10, 2011

Road trip of a lifetime

 

John Belitsky wanted to make his best friend Dan Wuebben’s 32nd birthday in April a memorable one. So on a whim, Belitsky offered to treat Wuebben to a cross-country road trip—in a taxi cab.

 

The first challenge was finding a cab. The duo headed to La Guardia Airport on a Saturday evening where they met 41-year-old driver Mohammed Alam. After some negotiation, Alam agreed to make the 3,000-mile drive for $5,000 plus gas, lodging and meals.

 

Road trip of a lifetime

John Belitsky wanted to make his best friend Dan Wuebben’s 32nd birthday in April a memorable one. So on a whim, Belitsky offered to treat Wuebben to a cross-country road trip—in a taxi cab.

The first challenge was finding a cab. The duo headed to La Guardia Airport on a Saturday evening where they met 41-year-old driver Mohammed Alam. After some negotiation, Alam agreed to make the 3,000-mile drive for $5,000 plus gas, lodging and meals.

Heading off in Alam’s yellow Ford Escape Hybrid, the men reached Chicago on Sunday and then Omaha on Monday, where they stopped to visit Wuebben’s mom. During the break, Alam almost quit due to exhaustion. He had driven nearly two days straight without much rest, refusing to let Belitsky and Wuebben drive because they were not properly licensed. But after a call home to his family, Alam was ready to continue.

By Tuesday the group reached Denver; Wednesday they hit New Mexico; and on Thursday they made a stop in Las Vegas, where Belitsky and Wuebben won $2,000 playing craps and blackjack. Then on Friday, Alam and his fares finally arrived in Los Angeles.

The epic six-day trip would have cost around $17,000 if the cab’s meter had been running, but after paying Alam and covering everyone’s travel expenses, Belitsky was only out $7,000.

More important to Alam than the money was the chance to leave New York for the first time and fulfill a childhood dream of visiting Universal Studios in Hollywood. Good thing because given the price of gas, his $5,000 pay was probably just enough to cover his drive home.

Taking a dispute to new heights

Think your boss is a jerk? Has he ever used a forklift to hoist your car 15 ft off the ground because he thought you owed him money?

If not, then he’s probably not as bad as Mike Walters of Ashland, Ill. Walters was preparing to confront two of his employees at Walters Trucking & Rigging over a financial dispute.

But first Walters took it upon himself to lift the employees’ vehicles on top of a shipping container using a heavy-duty forklift.

His intention was to keep the automobiles out of reach until his money had been repaid. But in the end, Walters was forced to return the vehicles and watch his employees drive off in a huff while being reprimanded by police.

The agony of victory

Researchers at North Carolina State University and the University of South Carolina believe they have found a correlation between sports and auto accidents.

After examining data from 271 professional and collegiate football and basketball games over an eight-year span, focusing on highly anticipated matchups such as rivalry games and playoffs, researchers then cross-checked the NHTSA’s fatality database with the game dates.

The findings showed that the closer the outcome of the game, the more automobile fatalities there were that same day among fans of the winning team, either at the site of the game or in the winning team’s hometown. There was no increase in accidents in the loser’s hometown.

Prior research has shown that winning fans experience sharp increases in testosterone, while losers exhibit sharp decreases. Researchers theorize that a testosterone increase in winning fans, particularly when supplemented by alcohol, could lead to aggressive or reckless driving.

This report came as good news to the city of Cleveland, which immediately issued a press release touting its roads as the safest in North America during any sports season.

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