Or are immigrants just too short? Or is it the illegal part, which is a huge problem in this state?

I was complaining to someone just yesterday that things in my apartment are too low, like the sink and spigots in both the kitchen and bathroom, the counters, and even the doorknobs! Much construction in Los Angeles includes many many immigrants, whether legal or illegal, so this may be why my apartment is made for short people.

But cars, too?

Such is a theory offered by The Atlantic (which used to be called The Atlantic Monthly.) She based her investigation on another study by the Washington Examiner.

One of the great mysteries of the Toyota debacle is why Toyota ignored the complaints for so long.

These incidents were highly correlated with three things:  being elderly, being short, and parking (or leaving a parking space).    The elderly are more prone to the sort of neuronal misfiring described in yesterday’s New York Times.  Shorter people have to hunt more for the pedals.  And starting up from a complete stop is the most likely time to press the wrong pedal.

I was interested in Frank’s argument, so I took a look at the LA Times article, which is really admirably thorough.

The oddest “striking” fact is that a disproportionate number seem to be immigrants–something like a third, by my count, which is about double the number of immigrants in the general population.  I have no idea what to make of that; are they more likely to file complaints with the NHTSA?  Maybe they’re shorter, on average, or learned to drive later in life?

If she really wanted to do her homework, she would have looked up how many immigrants are involved in ALL car accidents, to see if her theory or deduction makes statistical sense.

At any rate, when you look at these incidents all together, it’s pretty clear why Toyota didn’t investigate this “overwhelming evidence” of a problem:  they look a lot like typical cases of driver error.  I don’t know that all of them are.  But I do know that however advanced Toyota’s electronics are, they’re not yet clever enough to be able to pick on senior citizens.

Hmm, I don’t think the author is rac-ist, but she sure sounds ageist!

Big HT to commenter Jonathan, from my previous post, who pointed towards this article.

It’s almost Easter. I don’t know if other people know the Bible as well as I do, but Jesus predicted  that a disciple – I had to look this up, it was Peter – would deny that he knew Jesus 3 times before the cock crowed, and he was soon crucified.  Sad for everyone. So I was going to put the 3 denials in this cartoon, like What Would Toyota Say?, but I didn’t think that many people would get the reference.

And Toyota denied even more times than that. I know this because it was a bone, the LA Times could NOT let go of! They wrote about the accidents from the very beginning. Of course some of those famous runaways did happen in the Southlands (here), but I do find it interesting that the Times did such an investigation about Toyota, and yet ignores so many other things around here.

Apparently sales are up, anyhow! I had a Toyota Corolla. It always overheated, even the first year. I never got an answer why, so I drove it mostly at night – I’m a night bird anyway, but it was really unfortunate and aggravating. And the brakes wore out sooner than other cars, but nothing drastic, like the new ones.

Here’s a cartoon of how the powers that be at Toyota may have responded to the reports before the Times got their teeth into it: through cliches, and denial.

Read more »

It’s Friday, and I think that that means Baking Day.

Oooh, one of my favorite Slate cartoons ever! Who doesn’t like a cupcake cartoon, huh?

A baker’s dozen, for you know-nothings, means 13. Bakeries used to be generous, and also smelled even better, and used real butter, and made everything themselves. I mean, really what does dough cost, a few pennies? So what is one more cookie or cupcake, or chocolate croissant, or…okay,  chocolate cheesecake?

However, this is a recession. Well, not now – but back in September things were looking pretty iffy. Now everyone is still unemployed, but they don’t sound quite as depressed. But Wall Street and advisers are careful not to use recession or depression, or Bad Words like that. So, not 13 cupcakes anymore.

I hope I explained that one into the ground.

This is an excellent example of why we need more women cartoonists. I love how melty and feminine and delicate the tinted colors came out.

Cartoon caption for Google: Baker’s Dozen (in a “possible” recession.)

First Day of Spring cartoon. First day of spring is officially March 20 this year (although I’ve always thought it was March 21), but because the clocks sprang forward one hour this weekend (hate), we’ll call this Spring Week.

This made me laugh last night when I wrote it. It still makes me laugh! Maybe I’m just a morbid cartoonist who likes accidents and death, or maybe I am amused by the hoax that that one guy has been pulling on us. Kind of suspicious from the beginning, yet I couldn’t put my finger on why…

From the LA Times:

Toyota Motor Corp. said Monday that its preliminary investigation into a runaway Prius incident a week ago resulted in findings “inconsistent” with the driver’s account.

The automaker said at a San Diego news conference that two days of testing failed to reproduce driver James Sikes’ reportedly stuck accelerator, leading to a nearly 30-minute ride on Interstate 8 before he could get the car stopped.

Okay, it was a Prius, not a true Toyota this time. Big diff – sue me, I’m a girl.

Over the weekend, Gomez said his client was sticking to his story and that a “ghost-in-the-machine” type of software failure, if to blame for the incident, would be difficult to reproduce in testing.
Toyota executives steered clear of saying that Sikes was not being truth- ful.

That’s a weird hyphen in truthful. Sikes’ story is here.

I love the part where the CHP said it was washing its hands of the whole story hoax! Read more »