Police in British Columbia pulled over an Acura doing 80 mph in a 50-mph zone — a surprising feat considering the car was “held together with duct tape and wishful thinking.”
That’s how police described a 22-year-old Junior MacGyver’s attempts to make his vehicle roadworthy in January. While the driver had put work into hammering out dents and spray-painting repairs, police were more concerned about the rear window that had been replaced with rebar and duct tape, and the driver’s door that was held on with a welded garden gate latch.
“It’s amazing that this particular car could go that fast without disintegrating,” said Cpl. Michael McLaughlin of the British Columbia Highway Patrol in a statement.
Police ordered the vehicle off the road until it completed a long list of repairs and passed a proper safety inspection. The driver was ticketed for excessive speeding, billed for the tow and seven days of impound fees, and will face higher insurance premiums for the next three years.
McLaughlin reminded drivers that “any time you modify an essential component of your vehicle, including door locks, windows, steering, brakes, or suspension, you need to get that vehicle inspected.”
And if you don’t, then McLaughlin recommended common sense. “If you’re driving in a vehicle that’s obviously not roadworthy, you probably shouldn’t speed.”
Bridges on Borrowed Time
New York’s bridges are now doing what the rest of us do in bad weather: breaking down, acting up, and refusing to function.
Last summer, the Third Avenue Bridge in the Bronx, a swing bridge that spins open for passing boats, expanded so much during a heat wave that it got stuck in the “open for maritime business” position, stranding drivers until firefighters gave it an emergency cold shower.
Engineers say that mechanical meltdowns like this will become more common as bridges are forced to survive in a world of heat waves, flooding, and sea level rise. Concrete cracks, bridge supports erode, and suddenly every overpass is one bad weather event away from becoming a very expensive traffic sculpture.
Paul Chinowsky, a professor emeritus at the University of Colorado, said the system was designed for “normal” conditions — not climate change. With New York City already facing more than $19 billion in needed bridge repairs, he warned it’s becoming impossible to keep up.
“I think of it like whack-a-mole,” Chinowsky said. “It starts slow. But the climate’s making it go faster and faster, and eventually you can’t keep up with it.”
New York’s bridges are also getting old. They average about 70 years in age, far beyond their intended 30- to 50-year lifespan, and repair costs have jumped 46% in just three years. Agencies are trying everything: special asphalt mixes, lighter steel decks, elevated electrical systems, and even air conditioning for overheating security cameras.
At this point, we may just have to admit the bridges are aging worse than the rest of us.
Cognitive horsepower
If you thought race car driving was just turning left very fast, you haven’t been listening carefully enough.
A recent study claims that the way a race car driver thinks shows up in the way they drive, and the way they drive shows up in the sound of their engine.
The research, developed through a collaboration between motorsport groups in Italy and researchers at the University of North Texas, argues that a driver’s cognition — their decision-making, attention, motor control, and personal driving style — affects how they accelerate, brake, and shift gears.
Those actions create distinct acoustic patterns in the engine noise. By analyzing engine sounds during a race, researchers believe they can detect structured “signatures” of how a driver is processing the race.
They compare it to music: just as a pianist’s playing reflects skill, intention, and emotion, a driver’s engine sounds reflect their internal cognitive organization.
The study, titled “Engine Sounds Reflect a Racecar Driver’s Cognition,” analyzed real-world audio data from Formula 4 racing events to build predictive models that could identify individual driving styles and cognitive patterns.
Researchers believe this approach could eventually help study motor control, rehabilitation, and even neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
Finally, an excuse for motorsport fans: it’s not entertainment, it’s cognitive research.
David Matthews has been chronicling the unexpectedly humorous side of transportation news since 2000. The stories are all true.
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