The People That Keep Us Moving

I recently read about a solemn ceremony held every year at the International Towing and Recovery Museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee that hit me with something that I know I never think about.

Each year, probably like many of you, I send some money off to the Automobile Association of America without much thought. Our AAA membership is just something we renew each year as a precaution should one of us become stranded while driving.

It has probably been a good five years since we actually called AAA. The battery in my wife’s car died while she was at work, and I cannot even remember when we used our membership for roadside assistance the time before that.

Regardless of how often we use it, we send that money off to AAA every year because it provides us with the reassurance that if, for whatever reason, we become stranded, while in one of our cars, or even someone else’s, help is just a phone call away.

AAA members make a call, sit and wait, and usually within a pretty reasonable time frame, a tow truck driver that AAA trusts and has certified shows up and either charges a battery or puts on a spare tire, no matter where in America a member may be inconvenienced by a stalled vehicle or a non-functioning tire.

And while we’re thankful for the person that has made it their job in life to be the person to answer that call no matter what time it might be, how often do we actually think of the peril that person may be putting themselves into to help us get back on the road? I know that I seldom think of their job as dangerous. 

But the solemn annual ceremony in Tennessee I mentioned earlier is to honor the people whose names are being added to the Wall of the Fallen at the International Towing and Recovery Museum. This year’s ceremony saw the addition of 22 names to the over 400 that have been added to the wall over the past decade.

These are the names of Americans who get up and go to work everyday and at certain points in their career put their lives at risk to help us keep moving and to get us out of danger. This job actually puts these folks so much at risk that over 400 of them have lost their lives in the past 10 years.

Before reading about this ceremony, I must admit that even after spending over 25 years on the road, I never truly considered the danger that these drivers sometimes place themselves in to assist us.

For this very reason, in many states, including California, tow trucks have been designated emergency vehicles and are afforded the same protections for their operators as any other emergency vehicle.

This means that when drivers in these states approach a tow truck on the side of the road, they are strongly encouraged to slow down and move out of the lane directly closest to the tow truck or other emergency vehicle if at all possible. This gives tow truck operators and other first responders some space between their person and your car, which I cannot argue to be anything other than a pretty good idea.

Robert T. Bouttier, Chief Executive Officer of AAA, writes: The next time you see the flashing lights of an emergency vehicle, please remember to slow down and move over when it’s safe to do so. It’s a simple way we can all help these heroes of the highways to do their job safely.

So, the next time you see a tow truck with its lights flashing, I hope you remember this article and give the driver the same courtesy you would any other first responder.

Photo via Splitshire

A Much Bigger Issue With Auto Financing

I recently read a local news article with the headline, “Toyota Must Pay $22 Million for Charging Minorities Higher Interest Rates”. The article went on to explain that the U.S. Justice Department and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reached a settlement with Toyota under which Toyota agreed to pay out the large sum to resolve allegations that it “discriminated against black and Asian/Pacific Island borrowers in auto lending.”

The article also stated: “The agencies contended that the average African-American victim was obligated to pay over $200 more during the term of the loan, and the average Asian/Pacific Islander victim was obligated to pay over $100 more, because of discrimination.”

While I am definitely an advocate of equal opportunity and believe that one’s skin color or racial origin should in no way shape or form have an effect on the interest rate they would pay on a loan, the purpose of my article actually stems from the local news article’s second paragraph:

“Through the settlement, filed in Los Angeles federal court, Toyota agreed to limit the discretion of its dealers to charge interest rate markups on Toyota loans. The company also agreed that it will not increase the interest rates it quotes to car dealers in order to fund additional non-discretionary dealer compensation.”

I’ll explain that a little better in normal, understandable words in a second, but first, let’s also take a look at two additional paragraphs from later in the article which I’ve combined into one here:

“Toyota’s business practice, like most other major auto lenders, allows car dealers discretion to vary a loan’s interest rate from the price Toyota initially sets based on the borrower’s objective credit-related factors. Dealers receive greater payments from Toyota on loans that include a higher interest rate markup.”

So, what does all of this mean and why is this even more important than the settlement about racial discrimination in auto loan interests rates? Well, what this amounts to is the fact that Toyota, like many other auto manufacturers, provides a company-sponsored financing option for customers through their dealers. I’m sure you already knew that, right? What you probably don’t know is that Toyota’s financing arm provides a baseline interest rate that they want as compensation for making a loan to customers, but then, allows the dealer to add points to that interest rate, essentially raising the rate, at their discretion, and in fact, on top of that, provides dealers with incentives to charge customers higher interest rates.

Do you see why this is an even bigger deal than the race issue in this story? If not, go ahead and go back and read the previous paragraph again.

I am willing to bet that when you purchased your last car at a dealership and sat down with the dealership’s finance guy, when you were presented with an interest rate and a contract that showed all of those thousands of dollars in interest you were paying on your auto loan, you thought your rate was based solely on your credit score. I bet you had no idea your interest rate included additional points added by the dealer based on their perception of you, or any other factor the dealership decided to take into consideration.

Do you see what this means for the auto finance customer? If the dealership has hit hard financial times and needs more profit, they can charge you more in interest on your loan. Does the dealership owner need to put in a new pool at home so his kids stop bitching at him about being bored all summer? Well, then he can charge higher interest on your car loan to pull in some extra cash. And, of course, as the article reports, it was this discretion of adding additional points to the auto loan interest rate that gave the humans writing and approving the loan paperwork the ability to charge you more interest if your skin was a certain color, or if you had a certain last name or eye shape, or really, add additional interest if anything about you led them to feel you would have more difficulty paying back the loan.

Would I have paid a higher interest rate had I walked into the dealership in flip-flops, board shorts and a tank top instead of a suit, regardless of my credit score? Would I have paid more in interest based on whether I was sold the car by the salesman who was not my same race, or by the salesman who was my same race? Would I have paid more in interest at one dealership as opposed to another based on the color of my skin or the ethnicity of my last name? What this article and this settlement are saying is….yes.

I know the car buying process can be long and stressful, especially if you take the time to get the best price, look at a lot of different options, makes and models, but what this article tells me is that not only do we need to consider a car’s features, options, color, longevity, gas mileage, and repair and service costs, but we must also ask some very important questions of the dealership when it comes to financing as well. Ask the dealership what the rate from the manufacturer is and what their mark-up of that interest rate is, and be sure to ask them why there is a mark-up. Know your credit score BEFORE having the dealership run your credit and contrast and compare the interest rate that your credit score is earning not only with different manufacturers, but also different dealerships. Look into whether or not you can secure your own financing through your own bank so your interest rate is not at the whim of the manufacturer, dealer, finance guy, or salesman.

While it is nice to see that Toyota is trying to take steps to stop discrimination and dealer incentivized rate increases in the lending process, the fact remains that as long as the major auto manufacturers continue these types of captive loan practices, consumers have a very real prospect of paying higher interest rates for reasons that are not disclosed to them.

I am hoping that after reading this article, the next time you finance a car, you’ll do a little digging on the reason behind your interest rate before signing that contract.

Photo via Pexels

Yet Another Tax...The "Crash" Tax

According to California AAA CEO Thomas McKernan, "more than 50 California cities have imposed a new fee for police, fire, and other emergency services that respond to traffic crashes." In some cities, the taxes are only imposed on those who are at fault, but in some cases, even drivers who were not at fault are forced to pay a crash tax, even though they were minding their own business being a model driver and in possession of state-mandated car insurance, and paid up on their vehicle license fees.

Time and time again, this ridiculous state and these ridiculous local governments never cease to amaze me. We pay sales tax - we pay property tax - we pay business tax - we pay income tax - we pay gas tax - we pay car tax - we pay phone tax - Do I need to continue? So, now, greedy government officials are telling us that even with all of these taxes, there is no money to pay police, fire and paramedics to show up at the scene of a car accident?

To top it off, there are even more sinister forces at work with these crash taxes...the slimeballs at the collection agencies. That's right, I said slimeballs. While I have never been on the collectee end of the collection agency equation, I did at one time hire one to collect some money that was owed to me. What a mistake that was! They took my fee money, collected my money from my customer, then turned around and spent it without giving me a dime. Like I said, slimeballs.

So, where was I? Oh yeah, the slimeballs at the collection agencies. While local government officials might not be the dullest tools in the shed, they are not necessarily the masterminds of this tax. Collection agencies who are preying on cities strapped for cash are encouraging city governments to pass these ridiculous taxes so that the collection of them can be turned over to...you guessed it...their collection agencies...of course, with the agency getting a cut of the taxes they collect. A private company encouraging government to tax you, then getting to keep part of the money they collect for said government? That sure doesn't sound right, does it?

You will have to keep an eye out for a bill next time you are involved in a traffic accident here in the fine state of Taxifornia. With all of that being said, there may, however, be a slight glimmer of hope. Some of the folks that make up the Taxifornia State Taxislature are introducing a bill that would ban these crash taxes. Imagine that...the revenue-hungry Taxifornia State Taxislature even thinks these crash taxes are wrong! I guess we'll have to see what happens.

Motorists Unfairly Targeted As Cash Cow For Government

My readers know that I am a huge fan of traffic cops and traffic tickets and how, acting as the state's prostitutes, these officers work the streets, making money for "daddy". Turns out, even the CEO of the Automobile Club of Southern California agrees with me. While he doesn't use the same colorful terms that I tend to use, Thomas V. McKernan does agree that motorist are enduring treatment that is "inappropriate and unfair".

"Everyone agrees that state and local governments need sufficient resources to provide California's citizens with vital services, such as education, public libraries, law enforcement, and emergency services," McKernan writes, "but more often these days, state lawmakers and local officials turn to motorists to generate funds to plug budget holes and underwrite spending on a variety of projects - which, frankly, is inappropriate and unfair."

McKernan goes on to state that while it is reasonably fair for drivers to pay taxes and fees that go to roads, the CHP, the DMV, and other driver-related services, it is not right that drivers are forced to pay for services unrelated to driving.

Cars are an easy thing to target as a quick way to generate some revenue here in Taxifornia because there are so many of them. A $5 increase in fees gets the greedy politicians $150 million.

"What's more," McKernan says, "state and local governments have discovered less obvious ways to obtain money by raising fees. A good example is traffic tickets, which now consist not only of a simple fine but also of multiple added penalties that can quadruple a violation's cost." Your $100 car pool violation comes with NINE added fees and penalties that can bring its total cost to $440. Ironically, one of these fees is to help pay for the construction of courthouses, despite the fact that very few people actually go anywhere near a courthouse when they pay their traffic tickets.

You already pay taxes to pay for fire and police services, but some cities will also charge you a "crash" fee when you use those services at the time of an auto accident. The money from your "crash" fee usually goes into a general fund, not directly to police and fire budgets. Some cities, like Laguna Woods and their famous cameras at El Toro and Moulton, and at Leisure World Gate 12, fine you the same $430 for turning right without making a complete stop as they would if you just flat out sped through a red light. This generates large amounts of money for these cities.

In Taxifornia, we now pay 1.15% of the value of our car as a "vehicle license fee".

In summary, McKernan says, "Government must come up with real solutions to budget issues, fairly allocate appropriate taxes and fees among the population, and not focus on a single group, such as motorists, which are perceived to be an easy target."

Americans Owe Less...

You have no doubt heard by now, or perhaps have experienced first hand, that credit is a lot harder to come by than it was just a couple years ago. This may, in fact, not be such a bad thing for American consumers, forcing them to live within their means and drive down debt balances.

In March 2009, outstanding non-mortgage debt in the U.S. was $2.54 Trillion. By March 2010, that number had dropped to $2.45 Trillion. That's just about $9 Billion, but it is a good start in the right direction.

There have now been 18 straight months that have seen the level of revolving debt drop, with $935 Billion in March 2009, down to $853 Billion in March 2010.

Also, there are 16% less Americans that are 90 days behind or more on their credit cards today than a year ago, and 20% less that are 60 days behind or more on a car loan.

"Oh man, homie, Toyota's tryin' to kill me..."

Fans of the movie Fight Club will tell you that it contains an excellent explanation of the unwritten agreement you make with an automobile manufacturer when you buy their product. Flat out, they will not issue a recall until their legal and settlement expenditures in settling their accident cases from a defect are projected to be higher than the monetary and reputation costs of issuing a recall.

We are going to find over the coming months and years, as we are already starting to find out, that the first death that was caused by two major problems that Toyota is working to correct now occurred quite some time ago.

We will also hear that while Toyota was "investigating", more people were losing their lives. We will hear from accident victims (the ones that survived) that they knew something was wrong with the car and that they approached Toyota, but Toyota insisted, even after examining their car, that there was nothing wrong.

We will find that the accident victims that filed suits were offered, and usually accepted, an out of court settlement in exchange for keeping quiet and no longer holding Toyota accountable.

We will learn that, of course, as soon as Toyota came to the realization that there was a problem, they worked at lightning speed to correct it. We're already seeing the apology commercials telling us that of course Toyota loves its customers and are concerned about their safety.

America will be mad at Toyota for a little while, but soon, we will forget, stop questioning why it took years to get from the first death to a mass recall, and sales of Camries and Priuses will resume.

Toyota is the focus of my comments today because they just happen to be the manufacturer who is under the spotlight right now. Remember when Ford found out that the tires it was putting on its Explorers were falling apart while people were driving? Same thing. They did not come out and offer to fix it until legal and settlement costs were going to exceed the cost of replacing the bad tires.

While Firestone was the culprit in that recall, and some nameless part manufacturers are the culprits this time, it is the auto manufacturer who bears the brunt of the costs and losses. They all keep quiet until the recall becomes a cheaper alternative to the bad press and drop in sales. While it was Ford during that time, today, it is Toyota, and tomorrow, it will be another one of them. It is just a matter of time.

What Americans need to do, however, is to stop living in the delusional world where we think these huge auto conglomerates are going to come out and issue a mass recall as the result of one death. That is just not going to happen.

We need to be more aware as consumers of this unwritten agreement we are making with the auto manufacturers when we buy their cars. If their product kills you early on in the discovery of the problem, the best your loved ones can do is seek a cash settlement, sign the non-disclosure agreement, and accept the apology commercials. We all just have to hope that our car's problem doesn't materialize until further down the line, after mounting legal and settlement costs have led to a recall.

An Elusive Kitten Stowaway

It was the stereotypical firefighters-try-to-rescue-cat story, but with a twist.

Firefighters from the South Florida city of Weston spent a sopping hour in pouring rain Tuesday trying to extract a kitten squeezed in the undercarriage of a stranger’s Volvo.

The crew tried jacking up the car and taking off a wheel, all for naught.

The feline ducked out of reach at each attempt to grab it.

At some point, the cat escaped undetected, prompting the crew to spend another hour peering in bushes and scouring a Walgreen’s parking lot.

They finally gave up and headed back to the station, answering at least two more calls on their way.

Five hours after the saga began, the elusive cat reappeared: At the station, in their fire truck’s rear wheel well.

This time, firefighters used chunks of meatloaf to try luring it out. It was un-enticed, so the crew resorted to an ultimately successful three-pronged strategy: One firefighter poked the feline in the backside with a Slim Jim, another used a hose to force it into an open compartment so a third person could pull it out.

The feline was dirty but unharmed.

"Oh, It's The Alkylate's Fault..."

Experts are predicting pump prices, which jumped by almost a dollar a gallon in each of the last two springs in many parts of the United States, will spike again this year as refiners and gas stations switch from winter- to summer-blended fuels.

The increases, starting as early as February in southern California, could push the average national price to a record $3.50 a gallon or more by June. Prices in urban areas on each coast could approach $4 a gallon.

And the reason for the spring price shocks? Analysts say it’s linked to a shortage of alkylate, a little-known and expensive gasoline additive that some in the industry are calling “liquid gold.”

It has become a must-have ingredient since refiners stopped using MTBE two years ago when the potentially cancer-causing additive was found to be seeping into ground water.

The alkylate shortage has become the most important driver of summer gas prices, said Doug Leggate, an analyst at Citigroup Global Markets. “Supply of (alkylate) will set the price of summer gasoline — not inventory levels,” he said.

Oil companies deny they are purposely limiting production of alkylate, which like gasoline, jet fuel, and asphalt is a by-product of the oil refining process. But only recently have some started studying how they can boost output, and alkylate prices today are more than 15 percent higher than spot gasoline prices.

That means overall costs will jump when it is added in larger quantities to summer-blend fuels.

Without additives, gasoline doesn’t burn completely, increasing tailpipe air pollution. And untreated gas evaporates more quickly in hot weather, potentially causing vapor lock when it changes from a liquid to a gas and blocks fuel lines.

The federal government long ago required refiners to boost the oxygen content of summer-blend gasoline to make it burn more completely, a problem that was solved by adding MTBE and, more recently, ethanol.

But ethanol also has a high evaporation rate, so refiners increasingly have turned to alkylate, which Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J., calls the “magic bullet” in making summer gasoline.

Bibendum, The Michelin Man...

We all know him and just about all of us love him, whether or not we’ve ever purchased his tires, but how much do we really know about the Michelin Man?

I hadn’t given him much thought until my wife pointed out that the Michelin tires I bought a few months back had the Michelin Man right on the sidewall. Then, just a few weeks ago, there was an article about him in Fortune Magazine, so I just had to read it.

His name his Bibendum, which is a Latin gerundive which means, "Drinking to be done." To understand why they gave him a name synonymous with drinking, you must remember that 107 years ago, only wealthy well-to-do’s could afford cars and drinking and driving wasn’t really frowned upon yet.

Though he has become such a lasting icon, Bibendum came from pretty simple beginnings. Bibendum first came to the mind of Edouard Michelin when he and his brother Andres were at an auto expo in Lyon in 1894 and Edouard commented that some stacks of tires in a row looked like a line-up of tire men...all you had to do was add the arms.

It was just four years later in 1898 that Bibendum appeared in his first Michelin ad, a poster that depicted him as being so tough that he was eating broken glass.

Later in 1898, Bibendum was depicted as having just triumphed over two other tire men in a fight who looked notably like John Boyd Dunlop and the then-chief of Continental Tire.

Bibendum as a mascot made his debut in Paris in 1898 as well when an actor was paid to stand behind a cardboard cut-out of Bibendum at a cycle show to entertain the show’s patrons.

Bibendum was so popular an attraction at the show that Michelin’s rivals started shoving patrons, trying to get them away from the Michelin exhibit, and police had to be called in to restrain them.

It might seem a little much, but early tire manufacturing was a very competitive business that in those days catered only to the folks who were affluent enough to be able to afford motorized, wheeled transportation.

The industry's competitiveness even sparked a series of Bibendum ads in the early 1900s that had him standing in triumph, sword-in-hand, over fields of battered and bloodied tire men, crying out for mercy.

Then, in 1914, we finally saw the makings of the Bibendum of today when he appeared in an ad as a middle-aged good samaritan driver, cigar-in-mouth, lending a fellow motorist his best tire from his mid-section.

Today, you can catch the Michelin Man at auto expos and trade shows. Due to the risk of liability in today’s world, the actor inside Bibendum is under strict instructions not to say anything. Bibendum will take a picture with you, but he won’t put his arm around you, and keep his hands visible in front of him at all times. They’ve kept his name, but you won’t see today’s Bibendum bibending anymore...

When It's 2010, 2015, & 2050...

When it’s 2010, the average life expectancy of men turning 65 will be 81.4 years, while women turning 65 in 2010 will live to 84.1 years.

Mean household income, which is $92,553 today, will get up to $113,361 in 2010 and $133,831 in 2015.

Americans’ taxable payroll which is at $4.7 trillion today will go up to $5.4 trillion in 2010 and $6.1 trillion in 2015.

The U.S. GDP which is at $12.1 trillion today will shoot up to $13.9 trillion in 2010 and $15.7 trillion in 2015.

Today, Social Security revenue is 12.73 cents per $1 of taxable payroll with 11.05 cents of revenue being paid out and 1.68 cents of revenue being put into the surplus fund. In 2010, Social Security revenue will go up to 12.83 cents per $1 of taxable payroll with 11.34 cents being paid out and only 1.49 cents being put away. By 2015, Social Security revenue will reach 12.95 cents per $1 of taxable income with 12.26 being paid out and only 0.69 cents being put away.

Today, U.S. unemployment is at 5.25% and is expected to go down to 5.21% in 2010 and 5.20% in 2015.

The U.S. population, at 288 million people today, will go up to 309 million in 2010, 323 million in 2015, and reach 421 million in 2050.

Within the U.S. population, people over the age of 65 make up 12.4% today, will make up 13.0% in 2010, make up 14.5% in 2015 and make up 20.7% in 2050.

So what else is in store for 2050?

According to Elizabeth Gardner from Financial Planning Magazine:

• There will be "solar" paint with embedded semiconductor particles that can power the electronic devices that are painted with it
• Wearable electronic devices will run on power generated by the wearer’s skin (a process patented by Microsoft in 2004 that will help the company reach $1.4 trillion in market value by 2050)
• People of two or more races will be so common in the U.S. that the Census Bureau will consider dropping the "race" question from the census (the CB will actually drop the question sometime after 2100)
• Printable transistors will be woven into clothing so that people can sell commercial time on their clothing to advertisers
• Distance learning will replace institutions of learning like Harvard for the most part (where annual tuition will be $320,000 in 2050) and individual instructors who teach students all over the world remotely will become the new icons of learning
• California will be forced to institute once again an English-only policy for official city and state signage as ethnically-centered populations have resulted in entire cities having official signs in only that city’s most popular language
• Human tissue, bones and organs will be custom-made using devices that build three-dimensional structures of living cells, revolutionizing prosthetics and the plastic and restorative surgery industries
• The penny will finally be officially eliminated by congress, but other cash and coin in the U.S. will still be around for private, in-person transactions, while a new form of currency that is worldly universal for use over the Internet and electronic shopping methods will have been popularized and replace the U.S. dollar as the defacto standard for the world’s currency
• Land-fill mining companies will be becoming popular, mining old landfills for metals, minerals and other materials whose natural resources have been exhausted
• The youngest baby boomer will be 86, the oldest 104
• Books will be a retro luxury much like vinyl records are today with some pretty common books by today’s standards being displayed in museums while book-binding will become a well-to-do hobby like home wine-making or beer-brewing is today
• To deal with seething social unrest caused by an excess of single men, China will offer attractive financial packages to Chinese girls adopted buy U.S. families to get them to come back to China
• There are 800 million cars on the world’s roads today, but there will be 3.25 billion by 2050

Back In 1904...

Back in 1904...

...the average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.
...only 14% of U.S. homes had a bathtub.
...only 8% of U.S. homes had a telephone.
...a 3-minute call from Denver to New York City cost $11.
...there were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.
...the maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 miles per hour.
...Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.
...California was only the 21st most populous state with a mere 1.4 million residents.
...the tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
...the average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents an hour.
...the average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
...a competent accountant could expect to earn $2,000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
...more than 95% of all births in the U.S. took place at home.
...90% of all U.S. physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard".
...sugar cost four cents a pound.
...eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
...coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
...most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
...Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason.
...the five leading causes of death in the U.S. were: 1. Pneumonia and influenza, 2. Tuberculosis, 3. Diarrhea, 4. Heart disease, 5. Stroke.
...the American flag had 45 stars.
...Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.
...the population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was 30.
...crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn’t been invented yet.
...there was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.
...20% of U.S. adults couldn’t read or write.
...only 6% of all Americans had graduated high school.
...marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."
...18% of households in the U.S had at least one full-time servant or domestic.
...there were only about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.
...letters could take months to travel the world. This information came to me in an "electronic" mail, "copied and pasted" by me into a "software program" on a "computer" and delivered to you via the World Wide Web that involves no paper, writing, or teamsters (who drove horses in 1904), in just a couple of seconds...try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years...