Julie Hamp No. 10 in PR Week’s “Power List”, No. 1 in Badly Timed Awards
Resigned Toyota PR chief Julie Hamp was named to PR Week’s “Power List” two weeks after being busted for allegedly importing illegal prescription painkillers into Japan last month. Hamp allegedly...
View ArticleEditorial: BP’s Settlement and a Pound of Flesh
Last week’s news of BP’s $18.7 billion settlement with federal and state governments brought to close the second act of one of the worst environmental tragedies of all time. There’s no promise that the...
View ArticlePolice Releasing Former Toyota Executive Jailed for Pain Pills
Former Toyota communications chief Julie Hamp will be released from jail Wednesday, according to Bloomberg News (via Kyodo News). Hamp was jailed June 18 for allegedly mailing herself 57 Oxycodone...
View ArticleDrivers Hogging Electric Spaces in Illinois May Get Ticketed
An Illinois bill that would make it illegal to park a gasoline-powered car in an electric car charging spot is awaiting the governor’s signature, Green Car Reports writes. The practice, also called...
View Article“I Really Do Think This Is Going To Be The DUI Of The Future”
I am utterly convinced that our descendants will look on the aggressive prosecution of “distracted driving” the way hipster kids today look at the “Reefer Madness” scare of the Thirties. As police...
View ArticleUber in Finland? Cops Say Hail No
Police in Helsinki are asking residents to skip the fare and call the cops if they spot an Uber driver within city limits. Cops sent out a tweet Friday asking people to call emergency services (112 if...
View ArticleMaserati May Have Falsified Monthly Sales Before FCA Went Public
According to a report by Automotive News, Maserati North America may have falsified nearly half their sales in December 2014 and an undisclosed amount for other months through a demonstration car...
View ArticlePhotographer Charged with Trespassing, Battery Near Tesla ‘Gigafactory’
Police say a photographer with the Reno Gazette-Journal on Oct. 9 trespassed at Tesla’s battery factory in Nevada and struck security guards there with a car. According to Storey County Chief Deputy...
View ArticleBurglary Suspects Take Time to do Leisurely Donuts During L.A. Chase
Two suspects in a non-violent Los Angeles burglary decided yesterday that if you’re being watched on TVs everywhere, you should at least entertain your audience. The two men, who were pursued by police...
View ArticleConstruction Rivals Cause Big Trouble in Little China
Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop, as the saying goes. Now imagine those hands are on the throttles and control levers of heavy, wheeled machinery. A street battle broke out in China’s Hebei province...
View ArticleCalifornia Car Thieves Still Doing Their Part to Encourage Walking
Where is a parked car not a parked car? The answer is California, where your vehicle will magically transform into an empty spot with a scattering of window glass on the pavement. The National...
View ArticleAll in the Family: F1 Boss Ecclestone’s Mom-in-Law Rescued
Rarely does a high-profile hostage-taking resolve itself in such a nice, PG-13 film manner. Aparecida Schunck, the 67-year-old mother-in-law of Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone, was found tied up in...
View ArticleDealership Wheel Theft Turns Deadly in Ohio
Opportunistic thieves are making off with high-end wheels from dealer lots more than ever, but one Ohio man’s nighttime excursion at a General Motors dealer just cost him his life. Employees at Ron...
View ArticleThe Pilot Did It: Ecclestone’s Helicopter Chauffeur Arrested in Kidnapping of...
In old mystery novels, it’s usually the butler, gardener or maid that police nab for committing a dastardly crime. In 21st Century São Paulo, Brazil, it’s the helicopter pilot. After rescuing Formula...
View ArticleMotor Association Allegedly Defrauded of Millions by IT Executive Who Bought...
How do you buy an Arizona vacation home, a boat, two Porsches and an office building on a $210,000-a-year salary? According to the CBC, the vice-president of information technology for the Alberta...
View ArticleAccused Rapist with a Mile-long Rap Sheet Is the Latest Blow Against Uber
Uber claims it conducts lengthy background checks for all of its would-be drivers, but an investigation conducted in the wake of an alleged Boston-area rape says otherwise. Darnell Booth, 34, of...
View ArticleBosch Can’t Escape its Past as American Lawyers Close In
Lawyers representing U.S. Volkswagen owners claim European auto parts supplier Bosch was a willing accomplice in the scheme to deceive diesel buyers and regulators. The scandal forced the automaker...
View ArticleMassive Wheel Heist Leaves Another East Texas Dealership up on Blocks
It’s the latest in a string of similar nighttime thefts, but it’s not surprising — after all, when four hours’ work can net you hundreds of thousands of bucks, who expects thieves to stop? This past...
View ArticlePiëch v. Winterkorn Row Triggered By VW Dieselgate Scandal: Report
Former Volkswagen chairman Ferdinand Piëch resigned his position a month after questioning and failing to get answers from ex-CEO Martin Winterkorn about the company’s defeat devices, an internal probe...
View ArticleAustralian Driver’s Kitchenware Joyride Doesn’t Pan Out
Anything that happens in Australia is already sort of funny, because we all remember the Simpsons episode where the Aussie locals play knifey-spoony and Homer salutes the toilet. Well, from the land of...
View ArticlePennsylvania GM Dealer Indicted for Phony Loan Scheme
An Erie, Pennsylvania Buick-GMC dealer, its owner and general manager, and another man were indicted this week for wire fraud over a bogus loan application scheme. A U.S. District Court handed down the...
View ArticleDon’t Leave Your Gun in the Car If You Live in One of These Cities
Not all car owners carry a gun, but most gun owners still use cars to get around. If you happen to have both, you may want to reconsider what you do with one when you park the other — especially...
View ArticleFreaky Friday: Beating Carjackers off with a Stick (Shift), and Malevolent...
Because we haven’t yet adopted a Utopian work calendar, it’s now the day before the weekend and time for some unusual automotive news. While there hasn’t been any reports of people or cars being...
View ArticleFreaky Friday: Man Discovers his 2014 Jetta’s Street Value is Much Higher...
Have you ever bought a secondhand car, only to find the previous owner forgot his or her favorite CD in the stereo? Well, that didn’t happen to a Kentucky man. That Volkswagen owner’s discovery is just...
View ArticleGuam Residents Unknowingly ‘Owned’ Luxury Vehicles in Export Scheme
Guam, besides having the highest per-capita Spam consumption in the world (16 tins per person, on average), is also home to a recently uncovered fraud scheme that placed high-end vehicles in the...
View ArticleChicago: Where Crime Scenes Increasingly Have Lane Markers
There’s no shortage of ink spilled about the sky-high murder rate in Chicago, but the Windy City’s most overlooked crime scene isn’t a particular neighborhood or address. It’s the freeway. In a year...
View ArticleAs Volkswagen Exec Heads to the Slammer, an Engineer Awaits His Fate
The first person sentenced in the sprawling Volkswagen emissions scandal is headed to jail in South Korea, but the man who helped design the defeat smog-spewing engines will have to wait for his...
View ArticleSix Volkswagen Executives Indicted by Department of Justice
The United States has now laid charges against six former or current Volkswagen officials for their role in the diesel emissions scandal. A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Michigan...
View ArticleVolkswagen Exec Could Get 169 Years; Top Managers Warned Not to Go on Vacation
After a Volkswagen official was collared in Miami while on vacation, other top company officials have been warned to stay close to home. Oliver Schmidt, who allegedly lied to environmental regulators...
View ArticleOwner Payouts Revealed as Volkswagen, Bosch Settle 3.0-liter Diesel Claims...
Owners of certain Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche vehicles caught up in the diesel emissions scandal will receive hefty payouts, even if their vehicles aren’t bought back by the manufacturer. Volkswagen...
View ArticleBrits Continue Tradition of High-cost Heists, Rob Jaguar Land Rover Plant Twice
It wasn’t exactly the Great Train Robbery, but it was daring and ballsy nonetheless. And quite expensive for the victim — in this case, quintessential British automaker Jaguar Land Rover. The company...
View ArticleFired Audi Engine Developer Kept Secret Document that Could Sink CEO
There’s no end to the layers of intrigue swirling around the upper echelons of Audi. Last week saw four engineers who worked on the company’s emissions-rigged diesel engines fired, with one of them,...
View ArticleVolkswagen’s Top Emissions Man Pleads ‘Not Guilty’ in Detroit Courtroom
Based in Germany and nabbed by federal agents in Florida, Volkswagen’s one-time top emissions compliance manager for the U.S. made an appearance in a federal courtroom in Detroit today. Indicted, along...
View ArticleVolkswagen Pleads Guilty to Criminal Charges, Will Pay $4.3 Billion Fine
The Volkswagen diesel emissions saga has reached a logical legal conclusion. The automaker entered a guilty plea in a Detroit federal courtroom this morning, admitting to a vast, 10-year conspiracy to...
View ArticleA Detroit Jail Will Remain Home Sweet Home for Nabbed VW Exec
Suspecting that a Volkswagen executive might fly the coop if released on bond while awaiting trial, a U.S. District Court judge slammed the cell door shut until early next year. Oliver Schmidt, who was...
View ArticleIn an Odd Twist, German Authorities Raid Volkswagen’s Internal Investigator
At some point, a scandal grows so big that investigations begin to overlap. When the scope widens even more, investigators suddenly begin investigating each other. That’s the current situation in the...
View Article“Houston, We Have an Armored Car Robbery Problem”
For a major city, Houston drivers spend far less time in rush-hour gridlock than those in other large U.S. metropolises. Last year, residents spent an average of 51.5 hours in gridlock, a number...
View ArticleCriminals Planned to Steal and Hold Enzo Ferrari’s Corpse for Ransom
Italian investigators said on Tuesday that they had prevented a criminal plot to steal the body of automotive legend and Formula One racing pioneer Enzo Ferrari. The scheme involved using two cars and...
View ArticleSomeone Must Have Cursed the Long Beach Grand Prix this Weekend
This weekend, the Long Beach Grand Prix saw more than its fair share of misery. It all kicked off days before the actual race when two thieves stole roughly a million dollars worth of parts from Global...
View ArticleVW Fined Billions of Dollars for What Looks Like the Last Time
Oh my God, it’s finally almost over. After a 10-year conspiracy and almost 600,000 rigged diesel cars, VW’s legal battle with the United States is coming to an end. Volkswagen pled guilty last month to...
View ArticleAnother Reason To Avoid Mass Transit: Flash Mobs Of ‘Teens’ Attacking Families
Here’s the good news if you own a car in San Francisco or Oakland: property crime is down by a bit compared to last year. Furthermore, there’s a new “auto burglary task force” to increase the chances...
View ArticleIn This Florida County, 62 Percent of Car Thieves are Kids
Twitter users are well aware of the hilarious and perplexing misadventures — usually fueled by alcohol or meth — of “Florida Man” and “Florida Woman,” but in Pinellas County, the person behind the...
View ArticleQOTD: What Strange Object Made a Sudden Impact With Your Ride?
It came out of nowhere — abruptly, suddenly, and violently — like an action scene in a Martin Scorsese movie. A deafening bang drowned out the music on my radio and rattled my one good eardrum. This...
View ArticleQOTD: Would You Fight a Carjacker for Your Car?
In a classic case of fight-or-flight response, a Milwaukee woman named Melissa Smith has just filled up her Subaru Outback and realizes there’s a man on the driver’s side about to steal her off-roading...
View Article‘Fat, Dumb and Happy’: Fourth Executive Charged as Feds Dish on UAW-FCA...
Federal prosecutors charged a fourth player in the widening United Auto Workers-Fiat Chrysler Automobiles corruption scandal on Friday, providing a clearer picture of how the years-long conspiracy went...
View ArticleCity of Detroit Fires Back at Towing Company Accused of Car Thefts
The only people who like towing companies, it seems, are those who make money off them. A Detroit-area towing company is accused of doing something that will make the rest of us hate towing companies...
View ArticleDodge the Security, Ram the Gate: New Pickups Stolen From Factory
Police in Michigan are flummoxed and frustrated after a theft of nearly a dozen brand new Ram pickups from the Warren Truck Assembly Plant. Like a scene from Gone in 60 Seconds, the ne’er-do-wells are...
View ArticleCrime Pushes Bulletproof Vehicle Production to Record High
It’s an exciting time to be a manufacturer of bulletproof cars. Violent crime in Latin America is booming right now. For example, growing levels of drug-related violence made 2017 Mexico’s most...
View ArticleHere’s Why We Don’t Post Videos of Ourselves Speeding
This seems like a silly public service announcement to have to make, but it’s imprudent to post videos of yourself breaking traffic laws. Beau Alan Rogel of Rankin County, Mississippi found that out...
View ArticleLos Angeles Car Crime Reaches Record High
Los Angeles car thefts hit record highs in the second quarter of 2020, with some claiming the matter is the direct result of the coronavirus pandemic. Despite LA being infamous for car crime, the...
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