I always wondered why anyone who parallel parks badly would leave their car parked badly and unless I stop a person and ask them I guess I’ll never know. I don’t expect people to parallel park perfectly but I do expect people to stay on the street. I know most people have at one point or another seen someone else partially parallel park their car on the sidewalk, not the whole car but a part of it.
Maybe I over analyze it but I figure that if you see you have parked your car incorrectly and you walk away from it then it tells me that you don’t care. This also tells me about your driving ability and skills. If you are lacking the ability and skills then chances are you should not be driving. If a person doesn’t care about how they park then how do you know they care about the things around them when driving. Think about that while you are driving, texting, talking, drinking coffee and changing the songs on the mp3 player.
I don’t assume anything on the road, everyone around me is a potential danger and living in the province of Quebec, well that holds true. There are a great deal of drivers and motorcycle riders that think they are pro’s, they are the ones usually speeding and zig-zagging through traffic. They are a mix of young and old, men and women, black and white, domestic and foreign, cats and dogs. Maybe not the last one but you get my point. I witness this type of “pro” driving everyday, whether I am riding my motorcycle or driving my truck. Spike strip anyone?
Where was I? Ah yes…parallel parking! Sorry I get off topic once in a while.
Yes, parallel parking is easy to some and a complete panic for others. I’ve seen some real nasty ones where a good half of the car is up on the sidewalk while others park about 3 feet from the sidewalk. There is a technique and once you know it and understand it then parallel parking is a breeze. You can’t be too far or too close to the curb. I have friends admitting that parallel parking for them is a complete nightmare and I tell them that they should practice it b/c practice makes perfect. Some get it and some will just not parallel park unless the space in question is big enough for 3 1976 Cadillac Eldorado convertibles to fit in (app 56 ft). Yes, that’s probably an exaggeration but at the same time it’s not.
If you can’t park it proper then try again until it is, that’s if you care enough.

Close but no cigar!

Toyota recalls and blah blah blah. It’s not that I don’t care but really, I don’t care. It’s a recall and because it’s gone global it’s big news. At the same time, I think some people are going way out there saying that Toyota should give them a gazillion dollars for the misinformation and inconvenience that this has caused them.

I was reading a few news bits and bites and there were quite a few on the Toyota thing and one caught my attention . Basically, it mentions how one lady crashed her Echo because her accelerator got stuck and yap yap yap. Well, it would be great and everything except her car is not on the recall list and it’s a 2004 Echo, the Echo does not have the pedal problem. The systems affected are drive-by-wire systems aka-ETCS, check here for a detailed explanation by Popular Mechanics. As for the Toyota Echo, it’s a model that has had few if any serious problems but don’t quote me on that b/c I really didn’t check but I do know that it does NOT have a drive-by-wire system (ETCS). Now, I’m not saying that it’s not possible but I think that maybe, just maybe, the lady may have mistakenly pressed on the accelerator instead of the brake or it may have gotten caught on the floor mat, see the Edmunds video below. But I wasn’t there so I can’t say for sure.
Anyways, I think this is one of those stories where the person is trying to get onto the “Sue Toyota Bandwagon!” because of their own error. Hey everyone makes mistakes but should we sue someone else b/c of our own errors? Well…

So, the lady tells her story and so on and like all the stories I have heard, even with the runaway Prius, none of these drivers knew what to do. Let me tell you a little story:

Before I had my truck I had a car, I won’t mention the brand but I will say that it was another Japanese brand and a fairly fun zoom zoom type of brand, if that’s not obvious then go watch some commercials. The car was about 10 years old and some problems were starting but it didn’t matter b/c I was going to get a pickup truck. So I am at stop light in the car with my foot on the brake pedal and the engine starts to creep up in rpm’s. Next thing I know the motor is up to 2200 rpm’s and it wants to go but the brakes are holding it in place. The light goes green and I am off and realize that the engine is not idling down. I wasn’t sure if the brakes would be enough to stop at the next intersection so I put the car in neutral to aid in stopping. Sure, the engine is revving but at least the car will stop. Every car has a neutral and for those that don’t look as though they have a neutral, well guess again, they do. Look @ the Prius video below and you’ll see.

Alright, let me slow things down.
Everyone seems to forget that other car companies had recalls and problems. Ford with those pesky Firestones (bad bad Firestone), GM with their executives etc. Maybe there were more severe problems but the public was just kept in the dark, that’s because social networking and the inter-web weren’t invented yet, or was it? Dum dee dum dum.
Is Toyota sorry for what is happening, yes they are. Are they trying their best to resolve the problem, yes they are.  Is it better to suggest that they go out of business? Some seem to think so. Something is being done and Toyota is still taking the body blows and jabs for it but to continue on and drag them through the mud and stones and tar and crap and sludge and cow dung and blah blah blag is just ridiculous. They have put  ads on TV apologizing for what has happened and trying to reassure the public that they are doing their best. I think Toyota learned their lesson and I don’t think they’ll be making this mistake again. If you made a mistake how far would everyone else take it?

Whenever I go on a small road trip I like to look around the area for anything interesting and if I see something I like then I take a note of it. I have gone on a few road trips and those trips that I have done more than once, well, I have my favorite spots to stop and relax. I remember when I used to drive to Toronto, I would stop in Cornwall and grab a box of soft-shell tacos form Taco Bell, it was a tradition for me. There is no more Taco Bell in Cornwall so I just stop at any one of the multitudes of Tim Horton’s along the route.

Everybody has their favorite rest area or rest stop and I’m no different and one place that I have stopped at and have come to enjoy is Herb’s. Anyone who has driven to Ottawa from Montreal or vice versa knows Herb’s or has seen it from the highway. Herb’s is a truck/car refueling area with a store and restaurant located in Ontario next to Route 417. There is a small air strip next to it, I’ve never seen an aircraft land or take off from it but I assume the planes on the side means that it still operational, I’ll need to make a better observations next time I am there.

Every time I have passed through to fill up there has always been something interesting to look at and on my way back from the conference in Ottawa, Herb’s did not disappoint. There was a fellow there who had a small pickup truck that looked serious and sounded the part too. The guy who owns it has tat’s and piercings and spoke like a person who has tat’s and piercings not that it’s bad, the language matched the look, that’s all I’m saying but a nice guy. Back to the truck, it was awesome. I’ve seen some people fix up their ride and made it look clean but this was obviously not meant to be a sleeper, it was in your face modified. What I should have done was made a video of it with it running. Small truck, big attitude, oh YA!

The all too familiar red and white that makes it Herb's, not to be confused with Pet Can

The little truck that could

Not everyday you see that

Not bad at all