car shopping, an exercise in futility

The title says it all. Once upon a time, we were a two car family. Two paid in full cars. Until one got stolen. And it didn't have theft insurance because it was such a beater. And so we perservered with one car for one year because we didn't want to make a "rash" decision and then another five months because we didn't have adequate fundage to commit to such a purchase and because gas was SO HIGH and we were used to it all. Now the time has come to purchase a second car. And loathe as we are to take financing, it's just going to have to happen. We're not picky, really. If we were going to write a personal ad, it would look like this:

Hot mama needs hot car. Fuel guzzling road hogs need not apply. Import a
plus, and if you're RED, so much the better. Leather seats turn me on. Must have
adequate entertainment features for those long hauls.

The reality is, finding a CLEAN, low miles, appropriate (think three kids in car seats) vehicle that is in our price range is nearly impossible. Bah humbug. It's not like we're on a deadline or anything. It's not like August 24th is LOOOOOOOOMING or nuthin'.

Harumph.

Go Lynx & Take The Magic With You!

I know the title sounds weird, but bear with me. When I lived in Hotlanta, the war chant for the Braves was "Go Braves & take the Falcons with you!" This was solely because both ball teams sucked pretty bad. Lynx is our local public transpo (similar to Atlanta's MARTA but without the spiffy light rail). The last time I rode Lynx, was in 1980. The busses were pretty much not airconditioned that great and it took FORever to get anywhere.

As you know, the Prince Consort's car was thefted a couple of months back. So we've been doing the one car bit with me having ZERO car and the Prince Consort has been taking my car to work. Why? Because I'm a lazy butt and don't want to schlep the kids out of the house at 7:30 every morning to take him to work and then drive home and then drive back to get him and then drive home again. And who could blame me? Gas has gone from LOL to WTF. See what I mean?

Anyhow, how this relates to the lackluster Orlando Magic and Lynx...

The last two days, I've been using Lynx to tote the children on errands and what-not. It beats walking. The busses are now icy-cold and are like knock-off Disney busses. If you've ever ridden a Disney bus, you'll know what I'm talking about. A one-way fare is $1.75. An all day pass is $4. 7 days? A mere $14 (bought one yesterday). 30 days? $30. A buck a day. Now THAT you can't beat with a stick. I can't even fill my gas tank up for less than $30. Let alone carry insurance or car maintainance. So I think I'll keep doing the public transpo thing for a while. We're saving our pennies to get a hefty down payment on a Mazda5 in 2009. See?

Now I will say for the record that the Blue Mazda5 Grand Touring has NOTHING to do with the Orlando Magic. We just like a sporty color. And we're tired of red. On the topic of the Magic? Please, stop threatening to leave Orlando if you don't get a bigger, better, badder arena. You suck. You can't keep a decent coach. So explain to me WHY?! you deserve a bazillion dollar arena paid for by taxpayers?

So Go Lynx!!! You rock (except for the bus yesterday that was an hour late on account of breaking down).

Go Magic (on the bus out of town)! You won't be missed. Except for the drain on Orlando taxpayer pocketbooks.

Putting the DUH back in Florida again...

Welcome to Florida where every vote counts and you take your life in your hands (or those of the nonagenarian drivers) every time you take to the road.



Before I get into my little rant, let me say that I love Florida and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else (after living elsewhere, I might add). I was born here and I'm proud to be a native of the Sunshine State (East).



Here are some interesting tidbits about Florida:

• There were 576 pedestrian fatalities in 2005


• There were 3,533 traffic fatalities (including those above) in 2005


• Accident statistics from the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles show that people 85 and older are the second most dangerous drivers, after teen-agers.


• Motorcyclists aren't required to wear helmets OR carry insurance


• According to census.gov, Florida was ranked #11 in both 1991 AND 1995 for insurance expenditure per 1 vehicle on average


• Children 4 and over need not ride in a carseat/booster seat of any kind


• Persons over 16 need not wear a seatbelt in the back seat

How does that fit with the title of this post? I'll tell you.



Florida is a "No Fault" state when it comes to insurance. And this drives the average insurance rate UP for those of us who drive the speed limit, don't take chances, don't drink and drive and obey all the laws. You know, us SAFE drivers. The Florida Legislature recently repealed No Fault and before you could say AFLAC!, they put it back in place.



Let's look at what this means in light of the statistics above:



Motorcyclists don't have to wear helmets, nor do they have to have insurance coverage. You get in an accident - even if THEY CAUSED IT - and your insurance pays out. And your rates get jacked even if you were the wronged party.



Elderly people shouldn't be driving. Statistically, they cause accidents which - again - drive up insurance costs for EVERYONE. And does Florida have any laws about yanking their license when they are too senile to drive? NO. Hell to the no. They DO require an eye exam though. Both my grandmothers live in Florida - a few blocks away from me, actually. Both of them recently lost their cars to their respective children due to their inability to drive SAFELY.



Grandma (the alcoholic one with dementia who has been known to drink and drive) had her license renewed by the DMV even though she's frail and can't really get out of her own way when she put on the "waterworks" for the clerk behind the desk. My aunt (her daughter) was SURE they weren't going to renew her. She prayed they wouldn't. But they did. The straw that broke the camel's back was grandma getting lost for a half a day after leaving my aunt's house and heading to her retirement high-rise 1 mile away.



Nana (sweet but lacking in reflexes) has been a poor driver for 20 years. She's gotten so frail of late that my parents confiscated her car (in the nicest possible way) and chauffeur her around whenever she needs to go anywhere. She's been having little incidents with mailboxes and whatnot for the longest time but still kept getting her license renewed.



Both the grandmothers will not be getting their licenses renewed on the next round - unless they decide to go online and do so without their children knowing... And they could. I renew my license from the comfort of my home office while in my PJs, secure in the knowledge that I don't have to show up for an eye exam or get a new (horrible) picture. And it only costs 50 cents extra.



Add to this the fact that the No Fault laws here make it such that any time you have an incident with your car, YOUR insurance has to pay out (rather than making the at-fault party pay), everyone is paying for the drivers who shouldn't be on the road.



Here's the solution:



All drivers over 70 need to be signed off on by their doctor when they renew their license. If the doctor says they are capable and that person causes an accident, the doctor needs to be help accountable. Renewals should happen Every Year.



All drivers with a handicapped placard need to present a doctor's statement that they are capable of operating a motor vehicle safely.



All motorcyclists would be REQUIRED to wear a helmet AND carry a minimum amount of liability insurance.



Abolish No Fault. Everyone pays for what they cause. Safe drivers get credits for being good drivers.



Raise the drivers license age to 18 from 16 at a MINIMUM. My preference is actually 21 but good luck with that.



Require a minimum amount of driver training (40 hours) similar to that required in Germany before granting a driver license.



All children should ride in some form of a child safety seat until they reach 8-10 years old or a decent weight.

Grand Theft Auto - Redux

Just a quick note to let loyal readers know that the Prince Consort's car was found - 7 days from the day it went missing. According to the Men In Blue (not to be confused with the MIBs), it is in [quote] undriveable condition [unquote]. What that means remains to be seen, but I'll leave you with a picture of what it DID look like BEFORE it got thefted:

I know the picture isn't the greatest, but you get the idea. This picture is actually almost 8 years old at this point. It was taken just after we closed on this house in April of 2000.

Good Morning, Good Morning!

Nothing quite starts the day out right like having your car thefted from in front of your house in the dead of night. Yes indeedy, you get this bizarre feeling that you are not in Kansas anymore, Toto. So what do you do? Get mad? Get even? No. You blog. You blog because it is funny. You blog because you know what the car is REALLY like. And you know the joke is on the perp.

Let me begin by saying it wasn't MY car that was stolen. Nosirreebob. It was the Prince Consort's vehicle - aged and decrepit as it was - that was heisted from the street in front of our house. Apparently the remote transmitters for the alarm died 2 days ago. Because that is ALWAYS how things work. The alarm system dies and THEN the car gets stolen. And why not while we weren't even HOME for a month?

Anyhow, the car is gone, it had no theft coverage because of it's age and (lack of) value and so now we're a one conveyance family. Which is to say that we are shuffling schedules to make this work until tax time. We love tax time. Because tax time is bonus time and that means a nice little nest egg with wich we will part company almost as quickly as we make it's acquaintance. And that is fine.

You may be asking yourself why the joke is on the perp. Well, would YOU steal a car that needed a new timing belt? Or that had body damage from a recent fender bender? Or that had a SERIOUS roof leak that let in copious amounts of precipitation Every Time It Rains? See, YOU, faithful reader, are SMART. Or at least have a healthy sense of Good vs Bad Karma. I figure it like this: that car was a beater. It STUNK to high heaven because the carpet was permanently moist from the roof leak. The stereo speakers were busted. It needed a 135,000 mile service and then some.

So, now, faithful readers, I leave you with the following sentiment:

Murphy's Law

Is alive and well. Remember what I said about the puke carseat cover? Well, here's the 411, since I know you all are DYING to hear the adventures of the Barf-O-Matic 3000 (aka The Younger Princess Ella).

Since today wasn't the 1st Saturday of the Month (aka Jason-is-teaching-Kickboxing-class-today-day) and it isn't May yet (aka I-teach-ballroom-dancing-at-our-local-YMCA-on-Saturdays-starting-in-May), we decided to make a day of it and have Dim Sum down in our local Chinatown. One thing we can always count on is that the kids eat GOOD at Dim Sum. So many choices and everyone gets their favorites. After Dim Sum, I wanted Boba from our local Lollicup store. The Younger Princess Ella decided to share with me since no one else wanted any (a rare occurrence). So I procured a large Thai Milk Tea with Boba and brought it back to the car.

Earlier in the week, I'd had business in that part of town and meant to stop by this store. So, I convinced my husband to pull in and let me run in to see if I could jog my memory as to what I needed there. That proved to be an exercise in futility and so I returned to the car in under 5 minutes. In that short amount of time, The Younger Princess Ella had polished off about 2/3 of the Boba and was looking rather green. I barely had time to utter the words "You aren't going to throw up are you?" before, you guessed it, a flood of regurgitate Boba drink and Dim Sum spewed forth. So we pulled around the block, parked the car, de-pukified the back seat, the child, the carseat and ME and we went on our merry way. We're pros at this since she's done it before after Dim Sum and Boba.

Now you might think that this would be the end of our troubles... We were tooling down the highway in the left lane, kids are resting and I'm reading the autobiography of Apolo Anton Ohno (now available at my local Dollar Tree for a whopping buck) when all of the sudden...

That's right...

CAR TROUBLE! The car jerks like the tranny is slipping and the engine light comes on and bells start to ding. We get off the highway and onto the shoulder and turn the car off thinking that it's the oil thingy. I recently had an oil change at the local Mobil place (not a happy camper about that trip) and so we thought maybe we might be spilling oil. Tried to restart the car and NOTHING. Nada. Husband checks under the hood and wouldn't you know it... The timing belt broke (or so we think). Either way, the car is not driveable. The irony of this? I got the title in the mail yesterday. Sweet irony. We got our tax refund back April 18th.

So the Paid For PT Cruiser is sitting in the lot of our Chrysler dealer awaiting a diagnosis on Monday. And it may or may not be under warranty. So we may or may not get a rental car. I've got my fingers crossed, though. The fun begins on Monday morning when we have to cram 3 kids in car seats and two adults into a '94 Integra.

And this my children is why I'm tempted to take a thousand bucks and buy a junky looking car that runs decently and garage it "just in case".