Fast Five: The Week in Quirky Car News
5. Mardi Gras Mayhem
CARS.COM — Revelry turned perilous on Feb. 26 in New Orleans as the driver of a pickup truck — allegedly with a blood alcohol content nearly three times the legal limit — plowed into a Mardi Gras crowd, injuring 28 people. Police reportedly charged the driver with first-degree vehicular negligence resulting in injury, reckless operation and hit-and-run driving. Twenty-one people were hospitalized with non-life-threating injuries, among them a police officer and a 3-year-old.
4. Infiniti Sticks It to iPhone Users
When a simple thumbs-up, smiley face or praise hands just won’t do, a sporty coupe is now at your disposal from the iOS App Store for smartphone self-expression. Infiniti is staking its claim as “the first luxury auto brand to utilize iMessage Stickers,” with a downloadable pack of more than two-dozen 2017 Q60 stickers that Apple iPhone users can personalize, drag and drop into messages, and layer over their own photos. The stickers include varied body colors, an animated speedometer/tachometer/steering wheel, V-6 twin-turbo and turbocharged engines, interior leather seats and body badges.
This may seem like great marketing, as millennials love to communicate by iMessage stickers — unfortunately, most millennials can’t afford an actual Infiniti.
3. ‘General’ Disarray
However, the landing was anything but smooth as the car came down hard on its right front corner, destroying the front end and sending its passenger-side door flying open before veering to the left and coming to a stop seemingly inches from one of the concrete pillars that support the Detroit People Mover monorail. Don’t try this at home, kids … or anywhere else … ever.
2. Catch a Falling Car
A Houston hardware store owner is going to need more than a hammer and nails to repair the hole in his business’ ceiling after a Texas teen dropped in Sunday — from seven stories up in his car. The teen, reportedly suffering only minor injuries in the fall, crashed through the upper-level wall of an adjacent multistory parking garage and plummeted through the roof of the store, then remained trapped inside as water flooded in until rescuers arrived. The store owner was quoted as saying, “How can that possibly happen?” (Which is what you’re thinking right now.)
1. Signaling Sarcasm
You’ve heard of mansplaining? How ’bout copsplaining. Indiana State Trooper John Perrine drew his none-too-subtle weapon of sarcasm and trained it on discourteous drivers last week in a viral Facebook video imploring motorists to use a seemingly exotic — yet standard — feature on their cars: the turn signal.
“If you look at your steering wheel here … to the left side of your steering wheel, there’s this stick that comes out. It’s pretty incredible,” he deadpanned. “It may require that you put down your coffee or your cell phone, or whatever you have in your hands, so that you can safely drive.” Potshots fired!
Check back next Friday for an all-new Fast Five list!
