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Traffic Safety Film of the Week

At a time when hip kids across the world are spurning the joys of automobile ownership, this social reprobate blows a gasket at receiving an inferior ride for his birthday. I would expect nothing less from the offspring of Hummer owners, of course.

(via Streetsblog)

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 12:23 pm and is filed under Traffic safety films. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Traffic Safety Film of the Week”

  1. Lucas Says:
    July 27th, 2009 at 2:21 pm

    After watching several of those, I’m getting the impressions 1. that they’re actually not staged, and 2. that the kid really may have severe spectrum autism. Gee-whiz.

  2. Treadly and Me Says:
    July 27th, 2009 at 3:14 pm

    Looks staged to me:

    * easiest parts to damage-windows, lights and wing mirrors-all untouched

    * the big dude in the black shirt was close enough-and he’s big enough-that he could have had the bat off the kid in a second

    That said, if this is any real indicator of that kid’s ability to deal with things that frustrate him, he has absolutely no business whatsoever behind the wheel of anything with a motor.

  3. Josh R Says:
    July 27th, 2009 at 5:11 pm

    I’m also suspicious that it was staged. Either that or the kid had a lot more self control then he was letting on, and was “smashing” the truck without actually smashing it in the hope that his parents would relent and buy him a better ride.

    He also may very well have been that angry, but realized after pulling the bat out that smashing the windshield or lights would get him in far more trouble then he was prepared to handle.

  4. DoctorJay Says:
    July 27th, 2009 at 11:28 pm

    “Hey, I spent $300 on that truck!”

  5. Tony Toews Says:
    July 28th, 2009 at 2:57 am

    That pickup the kid trashed was exceedingly ugly given all the paint on it. And given the, in my opinion, idiotic H2 Hummer and the jacked up 4×4 pickup we saw in the background I’d say that the parents could’ve spent a few more hundred dollars on a slightly better pickup.

    That said the kid is really going to tick a cop off some time and find himself in deep trouble.

    Unless it was staged of course. I do agree with the one poster that bashing in headlights, windows and mirrors would be much more satisfying.

  6. Tickletext Says:
    July 28th, 2009 at 4:39 pm

    Assuming that the video is not fake, while the kid does indeed behave insufferably, I also detect an element of cruelty on the family’s part. A family with a nice house and expensive vehicles building up the boy’s anticipations with a blindfolded surprise only to reveal a two hundred dollar truck covered over with painted slogans (”I just paid two-hundred dollars for that truck”!), all while videotaping the display–it has the feel of a rather vicious joke.

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Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

Please send tips, news, research papers, links, photos (bad road signs, outrageous bumper stickers, spectacularly awful acts of driving or parking or anything traffic-related), or ideas for my Slate.com Transport column to me at: info@howwedrive.com.

For publicity inquiries, please contact Kate Runde at Vintage: krunde@randomhouse.com.

For editorial inquiries, please contact Zoe Pagnamenta at The Zoe Pagnamenta Agency: zoe@zpagency.com.

For speaking engagement inquiries, please contact
Jenna Meulemans at the Knopf Speaker Bureau.

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