Recent Streetsblog SF posts about Car Culture

“Snipers for Vipers,” Armor-Piercing Rounds for Your Compensationmobile

By Matthew Roth | Oct 8, 2010 | 12 Comments

I mocked Max Muller of Max Motors last summer for offering free AK-47s with the purchase of a new vehicle from his Butler, Missouri, showroom. We noted the “Kalashnikovs for Clunkers” deal was the second annual offering of guns with new cars, after he offered Glocks or Gas in 2008. At the time I wrote […]

National Fuel Efficiency Standards Could Require 62 MPG Within 15 Years

By Matthew Roth | Oct 1, 2010 | 11 Comments

The Obama administration got a lot of attention earlier this year when it raised fuel efficiency rules to an average 35 miles per gallon across the nation’s fleet of automobiles that will be produced between 2012 and 2016. Now the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), a division of […]

Our Mobile Money Pits: The True Cost of Cars

By Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez | Sep 7, 2010 | No Comments

Rowena learned about the true cost of cars the hard way. Raised by her mom, a Filipina immigrant, in a happy if carless home in northern California, Rowena marveled upon graduating from college and getting a steady job that she could afford to lease her very own car. For a small down payment and $199 […]

Eyes on the Street: Tango Electric Car in Glen Park

By Matthew Roth | Aug 13, 2010 | 27 Comments

Larry Page’s Tango in Glen Park. Photos: Matthew Roth. The Tango personal electric vehicle made a bunch of headlines when George Clooney bought one in 2005, but there haven’t been too many on the road given the cost of $150,000. The manufacturers pitch the vehicle as a high-performance electric car that can zip through traffic […]

BP, Toyota, and the Illusion of the Car System Tech

By Anne Lutz Fernandez and Catherine Lutz | Aug 5, 2010 | No Comments

Last Christmas, an Oregon couple driving with their baby in the backseat followed erroneous GPS instructions and got stranded on wilderness roads in a Cascades snowstorm. Twelve hours later, they had given up hope and taped a farewell video. While a rescue party fortunately was able to save them, they no doubt wished they hadn’t […]

Eyes on the Street: Hey Driver, Look, I Got the Light!

By Bryan Goebel | Jul 14, 2010 | 28 Comments

Photos: Bryan Goebel The one-way traffic sewers around my neighborhood on Sutter Street in the Tendernob (aka Lower Nob Hill) encourage speeding, so as you can imagine, there are constant near-misses by drivers intent on ignoring the pedestrian right-of-way. What you see in the photo above happened Monday evening on Sutter Street at Jones, as […]

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