I was looking at a magazine the other day and there was an ad for the new Toyota mini-van.  A couple of things really bothered me about it.  First it was a Toyota.  I was always raised that the only cars you should buy should be American.

Right or wrong, those slant eyed Hirotito followers are not going to get any of my money.  Thank you Grandpa.  I guess if you fought the Japanese in WWII you are entitled to that opinion and can drill it into your kids.  I have never owned a Japanese car.

Anyhow, this minivan has a 180 degree camera in the back of it that is hooked to some little communist plot view screen up front so you can back out of the driveway without running over Juniors tricycle or even junior himself.  Bad enough in and of itself, but the tagline “Daddy Like” just made me want to find that copywriter and shove one of those cameras up an orifice.  Choose one, I don’t care.

I am very frustrated that people need to have things like cameras in their cars.  What happened to that simple convention of actually turning around and looking out the back window?  Are we that soft?  What happened to people being able to DRIVE their cars???

I used to work at U-Haul.  There were several employees there that could not park trucks to save their butts.  They couldn’t back up using only their mirrors.  If they lacked the training beforehand, they should have learned fairly quickly.  Some couldn’t even drive a stick, but that is another post.

I want to find an older car for my kids to learn how to drive.  Stick shift, AM radio, no airbags, no air conditioning, power steering if they are lucky.  I want them to be able to drive forward with confidence.  I want them to be able to look, actually look, behind them and drive backwards.  I want them to be able to use their mirrors to back up! I want them to be able to avoid an accident.  They don’t even get a cellphone.  Too distracting.

I think the world would be safer if we didn’t spend so much time trying to make cars safer, and make the drivers better.  I don’t know the stats and I am not going to look them up but I would be willing to bet that there are more accidents now than there were 40 years ago when people didn’t have all of the crap to distract them.  Airbags are great, but so is a 4000 pound car.  Hang up.  Drive.  Learn what your vehicle can do.  Pay attention.  None of this should be hard.

I don’t want any of this sissy crap foreign cars with “Daddy Like” as the tagline.  I would seriously doubt that a man wrote that ad.  At least not a real man who has ever field dressed something.  Or changed an alternator out.

“Daddy Like” in my book should be changed to “Whoever like this ad can cram it and get some real driving skills.”

But I’m just saying.

Tomorrow a digest post!

-Justin