IN WHICH WE WAX INDIGNANT OVER RUN-FLAT TIRES

Theoretically? Great idea.


Reality? They go bald after 30,000 miles or less, they're insanely expensive, you almost always have to replace at least two tires at a time, they can't be repaired like regular tires, they've got lousy road feel, they stink in winter conditions, and there's no way to tell which tire your car's low-tire-pressure indicator light is talking about, or whether the warning is real or fake, or whether the tire is going to suddenly give out altogether at an ungodly early hour of the morning, in the rain.


Since we attempt to make this something of a family-friendly blog, you will have to imagine for yourselves the Anglo-Saxon fricative curse words now queuing up in my brain.


Yes, there are class-action suits pending against the tire manufacturers.


In the meantime, it's our considered but non-expert opinion that regular tires plus a spare and a jack are the way to roll. If your tires go flat and you find yourself unable to change the tire yourself, you can get a Triple-A Plus membership that'll get you towed pretty much wherever you need to go.

HELLO, MURPHY - WE WERE WONDERING WHEN YOU'D POP BY

Her Awesomeness has been in a bit of a vehicular scrape on Route 9. She's fine; her car, not so much.

UPDATE: totaled. And off we go to shop for a car, because it's not like money's tight or anything.

THE EVIL OF OLD MEN IN SMALL TRUCKS

It's easy enough to spot the old ladies who toddle along down the road maxing out at 45 - the powder-blue Buick with the tissue-box in a knitted cozy on the back deck is a sure sign, along with the presence of small stuffed animals next to the tissues. But there's a male equivalent: the small truck, almost always an old beater with a cap on the back. Like this:

It's one thing to settle in behind the elderly female driver - not a problem, set the cruise control at 45, turn off your mind, relax and float downstream. (And save gas.) But the geezers? Their move is to average 45 but never actually drive at 45, so everybody behind them is forever speeding up, slowing down, waiting for that one open stretch of passing-lane blacktop that never comes because that's the moment when the alte kacker opens up the throttle and gets it all the way to 53 for the few crucial seconds you needed. The moment an oncoming vehicle pops into view, you're back crawling again. 41, 40, 43, 45, 49, 51...say, maybe we'll actually make decent time for a--

37, 36, 40, 38...

I have not one, not two, but four such nemeses who vex me on my morning commute to Poughkeepsie - and I'm a guy who commutes at 4 in the morning, so when somebody's causing a traffic slowdown at that hour it tends to stick in the memory. It's also messing up my hypermiling experiment. No, I'm not doing some of the extreme things they recommend like overinflating the tires to reduce rolling friction, but with gas at $3.70something a gallon around here I'm trying to squeeze every last drop out of the tank by not driving like we got a big ol' convoy rockin' through the night. Alas, the hypermilers' feathering-the-pedal technique goes all to heck when I'm constantly guessing what the old fart in front of me is up to.

And so for serenity I chant my mantra through gritted teeth: blood, blood, blood, blood...

(BTW, gas mileage is up from 19 to 21 without really trying - and that's including some work covering the Minnewaska fires, and hilly country will really do a number on gas mileage.)

A MILLION TICKETS

...is how many the state police handed out in 2007. None of these tickets went to the Darwin's-waiting-room inhabitants who went screaming by you zigzagging in their ricers on Route 9 this afternoon.

And apparently not enough of the tickets went to Jim Leyritz to get his attention, either.