Ad Nauseam

Not that I'm going to complain about NBC's coverage of bicycling issues, in addition to three stories about Critical Mass they're also the only station to have covered Sharrows; but couldn't we have given the car advertisements a rest for one story?

Lexus has suspended sales of its GX 460 after Consumer Reports issued a "don't buy" warning earlier this week. Apparently the luxury SUV's electronic "stability control" system can fail to correct drivers taking turns too quickly, resulting in a rollover risk. Times car blog Wheels reports:

Picture a future where a smiling multi-racial police force, who apparently answers to nobody, moves unchecked through society arresting and detaining people for offenses to the environment.  Use plastic bags at the grocers?  You're arrested, frisked, and handcuffed before being frog marched from the store.  Set your hot tub at too high a temperature?  You're chased, mostly naked, through your back yard by a hoard of police officers.  Sound like a nightmare scenario dreamed up by a conservative talk radio host?  Nope, it's just another greenwashing attempt from the same car company that mocks cyclists, bus riders, pedestrians and people who drive cars run on vegetable oil.

The first time I saw this ad I thought my eyes and ears were deceiving me. But no, there it is: a young woman holding a cellphone toward the camera as "nüvifone" maker Garmin beckons viewers to "communicate while navigating."

Toyota wants you to know that it's here for you. And not just as a car maker, as the company explains in this spot, ironically entitled "Community."

Just in case I thoroughly depressed our cyclist readers with the overview of the timeline for the Draft Bike Plan, I wanted to provide some inspiration in the form of some funny and inspiring bike commercials from the Netherlands.  H/t to Dave Feucht of the Streetsblog.net discussion group.

Today was International Walk to School Day, and according to this Audi commercial, if you participated you're a big loser.

So, a lot of you didn't like the Emmy Award Winning P.S.A. put out by LADOT in 2008 which showed a young girl getting hit by a speeding car because it put too much of the blame on the girl and not enough on the driver.  I thought it was a powerful piece, maybe because as an expectant father any image of a child being mauled by a vehicle is going to get my attention, and many commenters thought it was a missed opportunity to make a point about dangerous driving.

Given how we've mocked LADOT's previous Emmy Award Winning P.S.A., you might think this headline was sarcastic, but it's not.