Something old, something new, both via the Biker Skum Mailing List. :)
New: Seattle Weekly on when a good Prius goes bad, and Toyota refuses to admit there might be a problem.
Any vehicle, especially one that incorporates many new technologies, can have unknown design problems or systems that fail in unsafe ways. Toyota doesn’t need to be ashamed of problems on the Prius. They DO need to be ashamed if they sweep it under the rug and blame it on ridiculous assertions like “too many floor mats” in a car from the showroom floor being test-driven by a prospective buyer, or “out of gas”. Regardless of whether the failed cars were out of gas (the owners swear they weren’t), if we take Toyota’s word that the Prius can fail in such a dangerous manner simply from running out of gas, then it shouldn’t be on the road. Period.
Old (July 2006 article): Stand and deliver! Boston.com on the debt-collection racket in Massachusetts. They can cost you your job, take your car, put a lien against your home, and usually never even be asked to show any proof that you owe the debt. Small claims courts go along with it, and the state Attorney General’s office doesn’t care.
Some of the followups say the state promised to fix the problems. But did they? The AG’s office promised to investigate the worst of the predatory “debt collectors”, and only ever filed one charge against one person.