Woz qualifies for Prius Racing Team
Just yesterday we pointed to an old video of Steve Wozniak pitching a Datsun 280Z, and now we learn that time has done nothing to slow down Apple’s co-founder, no matter what he’s driving. Woz confirmed that back in March, he’d been pulled over by the CHP on Interstate 5 for speeding … at 104 mph … in a Prius. Yes, right on the bumper of the Al Gore III endorsement of the hybrid’s surprising oomph comes the Woz seal of approval (bolstered by the fact that he’s owned eight of them). And he confessed, this wasn’t the first time he’d pushed the hybrid above the century mark, recalling a Thanksgiving trip to Burbank. “Highway 5 was empty that night and I made good time and was surprised to discover that the Prius was very stable, even with major gusting winds,” Wozniak told the Merc’s Gary Richards. “Being used to a Hummer I expected the opposite.” Yes, apparently Woz has his own carbon offset plan going.
Clever fellow that he is, Woz offered the judge a suitably geeky excuse. “I pleaded guilty, with an explanation,” he said. “I said that I was really scientific, and in the last year had been in Athens, Moscow, Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich (twice), Zurich, Canada (three times), Columbia, Singapore, Japan, London, etc., and had gotten used to kilometer speeds.” Good try, but no joy; the fine was about $700. Woz says he’s reformed, and happy about it. “I’m not a fast person or a fast driver,” he said. “When it comes to personality types A and B, I’m a C. That’s the type that doesn’t know what the letters stand for and doesn’t care. I’m very laid-back and patient and don’t mind going slowly at all. So this ticket was a good thing for me, actually.”
Stock hybrids can go fast.:-)
two years ago I got pulled over on Highway Five in a Honda Civic hybrid - and got cited for going 103mph. I was on my way to Pasadena from Silicon valley, to seemy wife Brenda Laurel - I had not seen her for over two weeks and wasabit “eager”.
My license ended up being suspended for two weeks. My daughter drove me to work during that time and dropped me off on her way to high school - and she certainly enjoyed THAT.
I did not enjoy the fine!
I don’t have a problem with the speed — but if you hit anything in a prius going that fast you are toast.
At least in a BMW or MB or Lexus, you stand a chance (albeit slim) of surviving . . .
Maybe he was in a hurry to see his new girlfriend, Kathy Griffin?
Eight of them? What has he been doing to them that he’s cycled through eight of them? My guess is that they’re meeting with untimely demises if he’s driving like this all the time.
I’d like to call Shenanigans on his excuse. If he was reading the speed limit posted in mph and applying it to the kmph hashmarks on his spedometer, that suggests that he would be going way too SLOW on the freeway, not too fast.
Prius Racing Team? How about Prius Hybrid American Racing Team? Makes for a better acronym.
akeeyu –
Not that I believe his excuse is credible, but it’s not totally far-fetched if you listen to what he’s saying. I agree with you that if he was thinking the sign said 65 KPH instead of 65 MPH, that he would have been going slower. But I believe his excuse is that in KPH countries, 100 is the normal speed limit (which would be about 60 MPH). In those countries, the big numbers on the speedometer are KPH numbers, not MPH numbers. So when he shifted back to the United States, he was thinking that he should be going 100 on the big numbers on the speedometer — except now he’s going MPH instead of KPH — hence faster. He’s now going 100 MPH instead of 60.
The excuse does have an element of validity, no matter how fictional its origins.