TheWeatherman

Now, I know a lot of you may have some different opinions than I do, but watching CNN this morning and afernoon, this is getting ridiculous. I work for the news, but this is out of hand. The way some of the media is handling this and the way our government is talking down to Mr. Toyoda is awful. The media and government should be ashamed at how they are handling this.

I am trying to put into perspective how many people have been killed or injured from the acceleration problem. I have seen an uncountable amount of Toyota cars pass me on the road. They've all been completely under control. There may have been cars that have accelerated uncontrollably, but come on. Now everyone is nitpicking. If people had time to make all of these phone calls while they were accelerating out of control, that shows me they were capable of thinking of other things. My first panic reaction wouldn't be to hope on my freakin' cell phone. That's what makes me the angriest about this. I remember learning how to stop an out of control car in drivers ed for God's sake. Throw the damn thing in neutral or park and get on with it.

I really needed to vent about this because now the media is jumping on every foreign carmaker for every little recall. Hyundai was the big news this morning on CNN because of a door latch that doesn't work. That's enough! Through my years either on the road or before I had my license, there have been WAY more American recalls that were more serious. Multiple GM, Ford and Chrysler products went under the gun for different parts causing fires. Yes, burning down peoples' houses. Anyone remember recalls like this? You can't stop a switch or relay from starting on fire, but you can certainly shut your damn car off or throw it in park.

Go ahead and flame me away, but this is being blown way out of proportion. You have a better chance of getting hit by lightning than having your Toyota kill you. You know how I know that? I know the stats. So folks, don't ever step outside ever again. Make this breaking news. Lightning can kill you IN your house while you're sitting on your couch. Oh guess what? It even can kill your kids as well!

This stupid media circus going on is going to cause thousands of people to lose their jobs. You know who's jobs will probably go first? The American Toyota plant jobs. If people remembered what they were taught in drivers ed, this wouldn't be such a big issue. I've seen recalls on failing brakes, wheels falling off their mounts, fires starting from bad switches, glass randomly breaking from frame pressure, total electrical failiure, etc. etc. Those all seem just as serious and were even more frequent in some respects, but for some reason, the accelerating Toyota is the biggest car problem EVER! Ick. Get over it. If family members don't remember what to do, review the info with them. Remember the days of throttle cables? OH NO! Sometimes they'd get frozen in some conditions! Duh, put it in park, neutral, or shut the car off. Americans, stop being such a bunch of money-hungry, lawyer-loving, babies. Suck it up and deal with something instead of pointing a finger and saying, "It's their fault." Deal with it. (Yes, I'm from the US. Born here and live in Milwaukee.)

Rant over.