Hey YouTube! What are you thinking?

So I was showing the British teen texting and driving PSA to my brother-in-law this morning, and found much to my surprise that thanks to flags by the user community, this video is now restricted to the 18 or older crowd. OK, it's easy to lie about your age and watch it anyway, but for heavens sakes YouTube, who the heck do you think needs to see the dang thing? Right, teens! Many of whom are under 18. Use your head, YouTube, and remove the silly age limitation.

Oh hey, just a minute. You don't suppose they suspect teens will be more likely to watch if it's forbidden, do you? Imagine! Still seems kind of stupid to me, but then I am slightly older than 18. What do you think?

Watch out for creepy web DMV scammers

The real Vermont DMV issued a warning today that scammers are trying to weasel credit card information from Vermont drivers by pretending to offer convenient DMV services online. Apparently the setup looks pretty realistic, making it easy to be fooled if we're not careful. So if you find yourself looking for DMV services at a web address other than www.dmv.state.vt.us, it is fake. Get out of there in a hurry, and DO NOT enter any personal information, especially credit card numbers. For genuine Vermont DMV services, you can follow the link above, or navigate to the real site via Vermont.gov. And you can find the complete warning here:
Bogus Vermont DMV website discovered

It's always something, isn't it?

Why you should NEVER text while driving

I know I'm repeating myself, but when the commandment is this important, that's what Mother needs to do, over and over again, until everyone gets it. And that goes double when she has amazingly disturbing video backup from a British public service spot. So here it is, with thanks to Mr. Hughes for creating it and to her friends Laura and Kim for finding and passing it on:



Sure it's staged, but if you are tempted to blow it off on that account, here's why you absolutely should not, in the words of its creator, Peter Hughes:

"Yes it is violent, but the reality of a fatal road accident is much more gruesome, is much more violent and my position on this is that if you are old enough to drive, if you are old enough to want to drive, you are old enough to be aware of the real and serious risks one places yourself in every time you get behind the wheel."

And one more caution from Mother R: As a guy, Mr. Hughes may not be aware of this, but as the daughter, wife and mother of guys, I am, so let me be clear. You guys who are saying to yourselves that this doesn't apply to you because they were girls and that would NEVER happen to you (you know who you are) are wrong, so you can just get over that little delusion right now. And you can stop protesting, because you know I'm right.

In short, just don't do it! Period. And frankly, I'd lay off the cell phone chatting too. Enough said. I'm off to teach my driver safety class now and trusting you all to have a nice safe day, on and off the road.

Parallel parking got you down?

Check out this clever solution from an inventive Egyptian guy:



Hey car companies, this would make a handy option. Get on it, would you please?