DRIVING ODDITY #8: Reasons Why You Should NOT Drive A Green Vehicle
Put simply: Every single “driving mishap” I’ve had in my lifetime took place in a green vehicle.
Said another way: Every single green vehicle I’ve owned was involved in an accident of some sort.
Get this…
- Each time it was a DIFFERENT green vehicle (4 in total).
- Every incident took place in a different STATE (Florida, Indiana, Texas, and Tennessee).
What are the odds?…
I don’t know. Perhaps I should get Rob in on this one… he’s all about probabilities and numbers.
All I know is what I, personally, have experienced — in 4 different green vehicles, in 4 different states.
Other cars I’ve owned were brown, white, blue, and black… NONE of those was ever involved in an accident OR an incident.
What Happened To All Of My Green Cars?
First, I was a senior in high school in Indiana. My grandmother gave me this car — a 1972 GREEN Plymouth Fury — in perfect shape. I had driven to my friend’s house. Parked it along the curb on a side street. Hours later, the police were knocking on the door asking whose car was parked out front. It was mine. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I had parked “illegally” by facing the wrong direction while parked at the curb.
But that wasn’t why they were there. The cops were there because an old lady had driven INTO my parked car — she claims, because she didn’t see the tail light reflectors (that one would normally see on the back-end of a vehicle parked along the curb).
Whatever…
If you’re interested, here’s more funny stuff about that car, and some of the fun times I had in it.
This 1985 GREEN Buick Century was the first vehicle I purchased on my own (used, in 1988). At the time, I didn’t have a clue about the things you SHOULD be looking for in a vehicle. If I knew then what I know now about cars, I would NOT have picked a Buick, nor a Century… and especially not a green one!Fortunately, I was side-swiped when a girl ran a stop sign on a side street in Lubbock, Texas — where I went to grad school. I say fortunately, because it made me a quick $3,000 (which I pocketed… to a college student, that’s a lot of money!) and it gave me another reason to get rid of it.I traded it in on a hip & cool Nissan Maxima… a blue one.
This 1992 GREEN Pontiac Grand Prix was another of my least favorite vehicles. Mostly because it was big and clunky and very “manly”. The doors weighed a ton, so even getting in and out was a pain.I guess it’s “heftiness” is what saved me in the end though…I was involved in a little fender-bender where I was one of two vehicles waiting to merge into traffic on a very busy main road in Orlando, Florida.
When I noticed that “now” would be a great time for the car in front of me to merge, and that there was even enough space for me to immediately follow him… I watched him crawl quite a ways into the traffic only to STOP suddenly and wimp out.My momentum was too great… Despite the fact that there was STILL plenty of time for the both of us to merge into the traffic, he decided to just sit tight, causing me to nudge into his back-end.There was some damage to his vehicle. None to mine. The police were called. A report was filed. I didn’t have to pay a thing… it was his fault (even though I was in the rear).
My current vehicle, this 1994 GREEN Jeep Grand Cherokee has lived a hard life. Nearly 200,000 miles… virtually every major (and expensive!) part has been replaced… plus a number of squeaks, creaks, and leaks — all evidence that this baby can take a licking and keep on ticking!Its story is actually the one that prompted the whole “green vehicles are cursed” theory.Driving down I-65 on my way to work in Nashville Tennessee one morning (who am I kidding, I was COASTING to work… it was bumper to bumper stop & go traffic like usual), I was rear-ended by an SUV much larger than mine.No damage to my car… minor damage to his. The funniest part is the fact that it was a trailer hitch that kept my vehicle scratch-free!
