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Bad boy in Smart Car leads police on "high-Speed" chase

This example makes one wonder if self-driving cars are the solution to chronic drunk driving.

The 2013 Smart Car, a Mercedes Benz product sold in the US, is said by Mercedes to be the most fuel efficient non-hybrid car in the US. That may be true, but what the Smart Car is not is fast. Consistently denoted in bold as the slowest car tested by many publications, the Smart Car can barely get out of its own way. It cannot get out of the way of the police as proven by a man in Houston who police say was driving drunk.

Hilariously, the various media outlets who reported on this “High Speed Chase” as many called it, did so with a straight face. In the video below, which is sped up to make it watchable, if you look closely, you will see that during the freeway section of the chase other motorists actually pass the fleeing Smart Car as they go about their normal commute. In order to hype the “High Speed” nature of the chase, one media outlet actually reported the top speed of the allegedly drunk, but environmentally conscious bad boy in kilometers per hour instead of miles per hour in an attempt to exaggerate the speeds. The TV reporter calls the speed “In excess of 100kilometers per hour.” 100kph is about the average speed of a commuter on the way home from work in traffic.

According to media reports the driver has other drunk driving convictions. Perhaps the driver was aware he had a chronic problem and bought the Smart as a way to reduce the danger to the public? If so, that would make him not only environmentally responsible, but in a weird way socially responsible as well. This makes one wonder if the next step in this logic might be for a chronic drunk driver to either choose, or be forced to use a self-driving car like the new Google Prius now in final testing. How would motorists react to a bright pink Prius with a large sticker that says ”Drunk Driver Inside For Your Protection.”

There is nothing funny about drunk driving, but Smart Cars always bring a smile.

Video courtesy of Youtube.com and LearningTo Code
Photo courtesy of the manufacturer

Comments

Tish Forster (not verified)    August 2, 2012 - 8:58PM

I thought this article was hilarious. I have a 09 Brabus, I love the little thing but I am still learning to get ahold of my road rage, it kinda forces you to.

Nicolas Zart    August 6, 2012 - 2:32AM

That is great! It's hard to take these "high speed chases" seriously as it is, this one takes the cake. There is a local shop that tunes these Smart cars and some manage to squeeze in some pretty exotic motorcycle engine with great performance.

Anonymous (not verified)    August 9, 2012 - 10:20AM

Yes, the Smart is comically small, and no I do not own one, but I want to know when it became cool again to make fun of someone because of what they drive?

Apparently if is politically incorrect to make fun of this dumb lush for being a dumb lush that is endangering the lives of others, so we have to make fun of his car to make ourselves feel better.

Every day hundreds of millions of people in this country get up and go to work in cars that I am sure they would much rather not be driving, and they do it sober, we don't make fun of their cars because we all appear to understand that we all own cars we don't like. Then along comes a drunk on a small car and he leads police on a chase, do we make fun of him for thinking he can elude police while drunk? No we make fun of his car. Over the years many people have made questionable choices in escape vehicles, without having fun being poked at them like the man that tried to run from police in a Class A camper, campers are slow, heavy, and made of plywood yet people somehow view these plywood behemoths as more of a getaway car than a Smart.

Why don't you people look at your own car, then think back to when you were in high school, and how what you are driving fits with what you thought you would be driving.

Now what's funnier than a stumbling drunk? A stumbling drunk that thinks they are going to get away from the cops no mater what they are driving.