10.02.10: Classic! Distracted Driving Facts w/ Crash Rates for Alcohol VS Device, Outlawing VS Mocking Stupid People, Education VS Laws, GH Ideas for Getting Even w/ Distracted Drivers, How Cops Know, + Nasty Vauxhalls, Diesels, SB Cobras & Evos

This is one of those episodes that we weren't sure how it would turn out - esoteric topic, lots of research and numbers, and a host of personal realities that may not jive with the facts. Boy, were we wrong - what a great episode.

Distracted driving: it causes more accidents than drunk people, is ignored by more people, is engaged in by more people, and makes it way more likely that Garage Hour hosts will screw with you on the road.  Stupid drivers, beware: you ARE a target, of both Hostus Maximus Justin Fort, Mr. Dustin (Top Earner) and Dirty Dave, and of any motorist who's sick of your Bott's dot/Braille-driving/lane slowing/exit-missing/signal-ignoring foolishness.

The Garage Hour goons have calls in from Hoosier Eric (didn't crash) and Jaime from Off-Road.com (with tales of seven-second 1-ton diesel trucks), and then it's back to distracted drying, the NHTSA and AAA's failures to recognize (or decision to ignore) the problem, how states with sensible people (Indiana, anyone?) tend to weed out the idiots, why parents are a necessary (and often missing) element of driving fails, and why you're safer with a beer in your gullet than with a phone in your hand.  Batting cleanup: the fact that the cops and carma will get you if the Garage Hour doesn't, but then again, we'd be happy to do it if carma won't, and we list how we'll turn your distracted driving into disturbed ditching.

Following that, we chase down all that other garagey goodness: blown Vauxhalls and their weirdly awesome noises, small-block Cobras and how to flog them around the Nurburgring, the Bullitt crashing sound, Subie wrenching, tractor dodging, propane farts, Evo and STi paint, and why on-ramps should be called "Speed Up, You Moron" lanes.

If you'd like a low-fi/easy-downloading MP3 version of this episode, just search for the same date with an "MP3" tag.