Public transportation sucks. That just how it is. It’s a rigid, poorly run system that very commonly goes into debt. But everyone in the city can’t own a car, it’d be a congestion nightmare. There needs to be a solution, a free market solution that doesn’t rely on the government to mess it up. Luckily one is starting get popular.

I’m always interested in free market solutions to social problems…like pay-as-you-drive car insurance and privately owned bridges and streets. So I love hearing about how popular this new idea is getting. Instead of the bloated system of buses and trains, many people are turning to an efficient, well run alternative that allows you to go anywhere for a very small fee, Car Sharing. Car sharing is growing exponentially in some major US cities.

In Mississippi Mills, police officers stopped a man under the suspicion of driving under the influence after a can of beer was tossed from the window. According to the OttoawaCitizen.com, the Lanark County officers had been monitoring traffic with a radar gun when Terry Samek drove past, throwing an open container of beer from his window.

On Friday, I posted The Chevron Experience, Part 1 [Group Sex Video Footage Edited For Content And To Run In Time Allowed] , which briefly outlined my tour of Chevron’s Richmond Technology Center in California. My account was cut short, however, due in equal parts to the fact that there was a wealth of information that I needed to organize, and that there was a substantial amount of my travel budget [provided courtesy of Chevron], that needed to be spent at various San Franciscan drinking establishments, immediately. I promised a full, uncensored post on Monday, but technical difficulties with RideLust and the mother of all hangovers prevented me from making good on my word, delaying the big reveal until today.

People love social networking, you can gossip and chat and share pictures of yourself drunk and naked with all your friends, it’s great stuff. And now you can even compare your gas mileage. Fuelly.com is a social network devoted to tracking, sharing and comparing gas mileage, and it’s actually really fun.

You can add friends based on their car type, gas mileage and odometer checks. It tracks everything, including what kind of car you’re driving, how much you’re spending, and even creates little charts to let you know whether your mileage is improving or declining over time.

At the request of Chevron Energy Corporation, I spent the bulk of today in Richmond, California receiving the grand tour of Chevron’s Richmond Technology Center. Despite the fact that my feet were dragging from jet lag, the tour was definitely worth the effort, even if for no other reason than the plentiful supply of engineer eye candy [they definitely gave the Chevy Volt-mates a run for their geeky stud-muffin money].

As drool-inducing as I found many of the Chevron execs to be, however, RideLust’s content censor tends to maintain the same business theory that most professional pornographers do, namely: the majority of your audience is not interested in dicks. So, in the interest of maintaining reader interest, I’ll move on to explain the less sexual parts of the tour.

The UK has recently added a new level of complexity to student driver testing. In addition to proper signaling, highway driving and parallel parking, the UK Driving Standards Agency will be testing how efficient of an eco-driver the student is.

According to the Agency, efficient driving means not speeding too much and avoiding sudden brakes, driving techniques that they say could save motorists a whole month’s worth of fuel each year.

Leaked Volt image or Perry Ellis Casual Collection from J.C. Penny; you decide

In advance of the official “unveiling” of the Chevrolet Volt next week, official pictures of the production Plug-in Hybrid car have surfaced on the internet.  Apparently Robert Novak is also in charge of GM’s press materials.  Although obscured by various GM officials posing as if in the next print ads for the Mens Wearhouse, the concept has a more muted design than was on display when first presented at the Detroit Motor Show in January 2007.

The National Insurance Crime Bureau has released reports suggesting the recent surge in fraudulent vehicle theft claims is directly related to the rising cost of fuel. Although no one has specifically linked the two trends, researchers are implying that a large number of truck and SUV owners are staging the theft and/or vandalism of their vehicles, ultimately using the insurance payout to buy smaller, more economical vehicles. Sound a little far-fetched? Keep reading.

ZPM Air Car

Compressed air engines aren’t new, they’ve been around since the 1920s, but they’re just now getting the mainstream notice that will allow them to flourish.

Back in Feburary, Zero Pollution Motors (ZPM) announced that they’d be offering their compressed-air engine Air Car in the United States starting in 2010. They’ve been pushing back the date for when they’d start accepting orders for the car, and it’s finally settled at “Mid-2009″.

All this talk about the Air Car, but how the hell does it work?

Hyundai i10: Not Ready for the U.S.

I’m not sure if news of the Hyundai i10 not coming to the U.S. will be met with any outrage by potential buyers.  Without significant re-engineering the i10 does not meet certain standards, mostly regarding safety, to be sold in the U.S.  But as lackluster as it may appear to look at, the i10 has gained quite a lot of positive comments since its release.