Stop the Deadly Retreads

Catherine was feeling safe and happy last Friday night, after a long day on the road. She was cruising down Interstate 95 doing a legal 70, looking forward to arriving home to her beloved husband (me). Suddenly a large truck tire retread appeared in the middle of her lane. Too late to swerve and too much close-following traffic to stab the brake, she hit it. Thank goodness she was OK! But, this is the SECOND time this has happened to us and damaged the plastic shield, air dam, spoiler, or whatever it’s called under our flimsy front bumper. Anyway, she pulled off an exit and into an Arby’s parking lot. She crawled around on the ground tying up the remaining pieces of plastic panels so they wouldn’t drag, and made it home safely.

Big dangerous retreads are all over the highways everywhere and I’m ##^&**#* sick and tired of them. I can only infer that there are no regulations forbidding retreads or shedding of them. If there is any regulation pertaining to this, enforcement must be meager with no significant fines levied. That is a travesty. In addition to the two above incidents we have had other close calls when we’ve witnessed a flying retread close to us or had some retread crumbs hit our windshield. Fortunately we’ve never been injured in any of these incidents but we have sustained several hundred dollars damage to our car. Of course you have to think twice about making a claim on your collision insurance for this. A couple of no-fault claims and your insurance company drops you like a hot potato or jacks your rates up.

There is something called the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. From it’s name, it sounds like it ought to regulate this. I don’t know why it’s not doing its job. My Republican friends will of course say it’s guvmint, therefore intrusive, incompetent, and inefficient, so it should have its budget cut or be eliminated. What a crock! I’d speculate that it’s either already underfunded to do what needs to be done, or more likely has been captured by the powerful motor freight industry lobby to do their own bidding.

Has anyone else had bad experiences with the forest of retreads that trucks liberally sprinkle on our highways? Do you know what laws and regulations exist for retreads and the shedding of them? If so, please comment below and tell your story.

Willy C Becomes Rowdy Beaver

While driving from Liberal, Kansas (actual town name) to Kansas City on Monday my wife and I got hungry about 50 miles before Witchita. This was a natural consequence of the fact that it was two hours past lunch time. I wanted to stop at some reliable convenient place like one of the many golden arches and KFCs. This never works when traveling with my wife. She feels that every meal may be our last or at least our last in that part of the world and thus must be special. It must be delicious, low caloried, and memorably representative of the character and history of the region. This causes her to research all our AAA books and interview numerous passers by in quest of the ultimate dining experience. It drives me nuts.

As we were approaching Wichita, she read all the quick histories and restaurant reviews of Wichita from our AAA and other reference guides. She came up with the "must eat at" restaurant, Willy C's. We dutifully programmed the address of Willy's into our trusty new Garmin GPS. Ms. Garmin got us off at a certain exit then immediately directed "Turn left…" on some street then, "Arriving at destination on right." when we were in the left lane with lots of traffic on the right and no sight of anything called Willy. Almost immediately it was into, "Recalculating: Turn right on Elm St. Recalculating, Turn Left on Oak Street. Oh Golly, Go back". Then my wife starts in with, "No it's got to be on West street; go under the freeway." I respond, "I can't go under the freeway; I'm in the left turn lane." Then all hell breaks loose (this happens all the time) with wife, Ms. Garmin, and me all squawking at each other hysterically and wife insisting that I'm losing my temper and becoming an unsafe drivers so I should stop there in the middle of the freeway ramp and let her drive.

So, to make a long story more tolerable we somehow moved wife into the driver's seat and caught a few honks and middle fingers as we headed off with her in pursuit of Willy's. This time she resolved to stop right where Ms. Garmin said, even though it definitely did not say Willy C. (a rare moment of agreement with Ms. Garmin). It turns out that this was not Willy C's but the Rowdy Beaver. We went in and learned that Willy's had gone bust and the Rowdy Beaver had just opened two weeks ago in its place.

In the end it was good. The Rowdy Beaver was my kind of place. They had much paraphernalia for sale including, prominently, manikins with tiny very narrow-fronted thong bikinis that said Rowdy Beaver on the front. They had many micro brew beers and ales to choose from with good names like "Flying Dog Doggy Style pale ale". They had big burgers with thick beef patties and they weren't all soggy with that crappy mayonnaise and pickle relish that runs downs your forearms when you try to eat burgers at most of the fast food chains. There were lots of flies but we were able to swat them with carefully aimed blows of our menus. I really liked the place. I think my wife did too; she figured it was soooo authentic Witchita.