Driving While Intoxicated or DWI, refers to a criminal charge assigned to anyone caught by a law enforcement agent in the act of using a vehicle while intoxicated by any drug that impairs mental ability or reduces motor skills.  The drug most commonly responsible for these offenses is alcohol, but some other common drugs include marijuana, sedatives, opiates, amphetamines and cocaine.  The charge DWI is also commonly referred to by a number of other acronyms, such as DUI for ‘Driving Under the Influence’.  Though DWI and DUI are often used interchangeably, some states in the US have a lesser charge called ‘Driving While Impaired’ that also takes on a DWI acronym, and in these states the more serious offense is only referred to as a DUI to avoid confusion.

It is often hard and somewhat subjective determining the exact level of impairment in a driver intoxicated by psychoactive chemicals.  For alcohol, the ‘blood alcohol concentration’, or BAC, is usually used to form DWI laws.  For example, the United States has a federal law prohibiting driving with a BAC of 0.08 percent or higher, while this limit is a 0.05 BAC in many European countries.  Some nations don’t allow any amount of alcohol in the blood of anyone driving, some other nations don’t have any legal limits to BACs at all, and several Middle Eastern countries outlaw alcohol consumption altogether.

Because impairment associated with illicit drugs is harder to determine, most countries have a different set of laws regulating these chemicals in drivers.  In the United States, driving under the influence of any detectable amount of a controlled substance that isn’t prescribed to the driver is an offense called a DUID and carries criminal charges similar to a DWI.  There is some controversy over this zero tolerance approach to drug use and driving, as many illicit substances are detectable in the body days and even weeks after they produced their impairing effect.  The result is that drivers who aren’t actually impaired can be charged with a serious crime.  Lawmakers in the US rationalize that since the substances are illegal anyway, these unimpaired drivers had violated the law by using them in the first place.

The penalties of a DWI, DUI or DUID vary from state to state across the US, but usually involve a steep fine, a suspension of your driver’s license, and or jail time.  Repeated offenses usually carry steeper penalties and deaths caused by someone driving while intoxicated usually carry the additional charge of vehicular manslaughter.

The high cost of airline travel these days has many people opting to drive to their vacation destinations instead.  When you take a family of four and compare the cost of airfare to the cost of gas for the car or mini-van you might be looking at substantial savings.  Driving can be a relaxing and interesting way to travel.  With the country to see as you make your way down the nation’s highways it could actually turn out to be a wonderful bonding experience for the entire family.

Planning your driving route is essential before you leave home.  With many websites now offering door to door directions it’s easier than ever to get from your house to your hotel.  Using a website that offers driving directions is fairly straightforward.  You simply enter your home address and your destination address and the door to door directions appear on the screen.  After you’ve printed out the directions you can then choose to view a door to door map.  This map will show the exact route that you’ll want to travel including the names of all the major roadways.

Your destination can be either a hotel or another person’s home.  If you are traveling to visit a relative who has recently moved and you’re unfamiliar with their new location you can utilize the door to door directions to get you to their home.  These websites are also great for people who live in larger cities and need to find the location of a particular address across town.  After entering your location and the address of where you need to go, you’ll get very detailed door to door directions.  This can take a great deal of stress out of the experience.  You’ll no longer be driving up and down streets looking for a particular address.

If you do still decide to fly, but are renting a car once you arrive at your destination, you can still utilize the door to door directions available for free on websites.  Type in the address of your hotel along with the landmarks you are planning on visiting.  With the directions and maps in hand you’ll ensure that you aren’t wandering around an unfamiliar city searching for a particular off ramp exit or a street name.  It’s much more enjoyable to have a clear idea of where you are heading and with door to door directions this is always possible.

The websites that offer door to door directions are a very valuable resource.  Even if you aren’t planning on going anywhere, try one for fun.  You’ll be amazed at how accurate they are.

Many people purchase a new car each year.  For some of these people selling the old car is just more of a burden than they want to carry.  When you sell a car privately you need to purchase an advertisement, answer endless questions via the telephone and wait for potential buyers to show up to look at the car.  Another route to freeing yourself of your old vehicle is to consider one of the programs where you can donate a car to charity.  When you donate a car to charity it’s really a win-win situation for both yourself and the charitable organization.

Many charities now recognize that there are several different fundraising options available to them.  When they utilize a program where people can donate a car they can greatly increase their contributions and at the same time still have the ability to issue tax receipts.

The first thing you’ll want to do when you decide to donate a car to charity is to contact your favorite charity to see if they elicit donations in this manner.  If they do, they will explain the steps in the process.  Usually this involves you either delivering the car to a specific location or they arrange pick-up.  They’ll also explain how they issue a tax receipt when you donate a car to their specific organization.

If your favorite charity doesn’t take car donations you’ll need to consider an alternative approach.  You might decide to donate a car to a charity that does accept vehicle donations.  You can usually call a few charities and ask if you can donate a car and receive a tax receipt in return.  Another idea is to contact one of the companies that handle car donations for charities.

How these organizations work is that you donate a car to them with the understanding that the proceeds when the car is sold at auction will be donated to a specific charity.  These companies generally work with several different charities.  When you donate a car to them, they will sell it to the highest bidder at an auction.  The amount that it was sold for will then be directly donated to your preferred charity minus a small administration fee.  The charity will then issue you a tax receipt for your contribution.

If you do happen to have a used car that’s just sitting consider donating it to charity.  When you do donate a car to a good cause you’ll feel good knowing that the money raised from the sale of the car is helping those who truly need it.

I grew up on a dairy farm in central Minnesota. When you own a dairy farm you are tied down to the farm because the cows need to be milked twice a day. Any time we went some place we needed to get back home within a few hours so that the cows could be milked. I think it was this feeling of being tied down that has added to my need to feel independent and free. My favorite thing is to be able to wake up on a weekend morning and decide to take road trips. The ability to do this was not possible in my growing up years.

Through the years I have gone on dozens of road trips. Some of them have been for a few hours and others have been for a few days. The main criteria I have for road trips are that there is no planning involved. This means that there is no hotel rooms reserved and no itinerary set. Sometimes I go on road trips with a friend or my husband and other times I go on my own. There is something very liberating about getting into your vehicle and just driving. I will stop along the way to check out a store or restaurant that I may have passed by many times. I will also pull over to read historical markers and to take pictures at scenic over looks. It has been during these road trips that I realize how many times I have driven a familiar road and have not taken the time to really notice what is along the way.

Two weeks ago I had a Friday afternoon off. The weather was cool and raining so I used the time to do our laundry, dust and vacuum and go grocery shopping. When we woke up Saturday morning the sun was shining and the sky was clear blue. I told my husband to get dressed for one of my road trips. I went into the kitchen and made coffee. I dug out our travel mugs and thermos so we could have our morning coffee along the way.

There was a gentle breeze blowing from the west so that is the direction I drove. We went down a road that we had both traveled many times, yet we each discovered things that we had never noticed before such as a flower garden in a yard, or a name on a mailbox or a location of a building. We stopped and had breakfast at a café that we had driven past many times. The food was home cooked and delicious and the owners were very welcoming. I am sure that we will stop in again in the future. We went into a ceramic shop that is based in the artist’s home. We stopped at a park next to a lake and went on a walk along the lake on a paved path that we had never noticed before. We drove for a couple more hours then had lunch in a small town that we had never stopped in before. After lunch we decided that we needed to head back home. We had great memories of another one of our successful road trips.

My brother-in-law is going “four-wheeling” this weekend. This usually means that my sister and I will spend the day shopping and it also means that new Jeep mud flaps will be on the list of new items to buy. These items are must haves for anyone who owns a Jeep or truck.

I never gave Jeep mud flaps much thought until I was in college. Back then the “mud flap girl” was the hot new design on these items. I mentioned these sexist flaps to my sister within earshot of her soon to be fiancé. They were everywhere on the highway it seemed at the time. His ears perked up when he heard me talking about the Jeep mud flaps.  His interest wasn’t so much in the image of the girl, it was more focused on the image of the vehicle. He talked about wanting to buy an off road vehicle one day and he also mentioned wanting to have someone to take along on the trips. My sister bought him Jeep mud flaps the following Christmas and he asked her to marry him on the spot.

She used to go on the four wheeling adventure weekends regularly up until she became pregnant with their first child. After that, she was content to see him off and look at some pictures and videos of his weekend. I really think that she spent time on the trips just to be with him. She still likes to buy him Jeep mud flaps every so often.  I wondered why they would invest in something that needed to be replaced so often, but when I realized how inexpensive Jeep mud flaps really are I figured that it wasn’t much of an investment. I know that the off road trips do a lot of damage to the vehicle, not to mention the accessories that go along for the ride.

When we were shopping around for the auto parts and accessories I noticed Jeep mud flaps with the icon of the girl that used to be everywhere in the early 1990’s. I joked that my sister should pick up a set for her husband for old time’s sake. She just laughed and said that he already has those Jeep mud flaps.  Actually, I was pretty surprised that he owned a set after all of these years. Then my sister explained that he never used the Jeep mud flaps that she bought him for Christmas on the year they got engaged.

There is no greater buzzword than fuel economy. Although people have been worried about fuel mileage for years, up until recently we assumed that our concerns were temporary. We would worry about gas mileage whenever there was a spike, but as soon as the prices went down again, we would get back into our gas guzzling trucks and go for a spin. Intellectually, most of us have known for some time that the fossil fuels are running out. We have known that, sometime sooner or later, we would have to switch to some kind of alternative fuel. Nonetheless, this concern has always seemed remote and abstract most people. Recently, it has become a much more immediate concern.

My cousin is a perfect example. As a contractor, fuel mileage plays an important role in his everyday life. He has always loved driving big trucks, both because of his appreciation of their looks and also because they are great for building contractors like him. But lately, he has become completely neurotic about fuel mileage. He actually bought a device that automatically logs business gas mileage. At first I thought this was neurotic, until he explained how much profit gas eats up. It is quite a bit more than you would expect, especially if you are frequently required to drive an hour or more to your job site.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to make a good informed decision about alternative fuels. They have simply not been available for that long. Bio-diesel sounds good in theory, but in the end, won’t it pollute just as badly as gasoline? As for electric and hybrid cars, although there are a few working examples, they are still far from taking over the market. In the past, many of us imagined that electric vehicles would be ubiquitous by this day and age. Needless to say, that hasn’t happened.

Short of switching to bio-diesel or some other alternative fuel, there is a lot that you can do to try to keep track of your fuel mileage and improve it. One of the best things to do is to switch to a more conservative driving style. Although this may look like a stop gap measure, in fact you can do a world of good. Just slowing down a few miles an hour during the morning rush can save you hundreds of dollars of gas a year. Defensive driving isn’t only safer, it is also better for the environment and for your pockets!

The sun gives life and makes us feel good. There are times when you just have to limit the amount that comes through your windows for a variety of reasons. Some like to have window tinting done in their home and others like this on their cars. While both help, having this in your car can be a rather complicated issue. Some cars and trucks come with tinted windows when they are new and some people choose to add it on their own. You should know about your state laws before you decide to go about this for your vehicle.

My husband recently bought a used truck to use for work purposes. This truck came with window tinting already added. What he didn’t know was that this was something he had to be careful about. He was not sure he liked it, as it made it hard to see at night, but it was helpful in the day. This window tinting also gave the truck a rather nice look. The need to see at night outweighed the look of the truck though and he had every intention of taking the tint off of the windows on his own.

He waited too long and he was pulled over for having too much window tinting on his truck. He was not aware that it was too dark and it was violating the law. When you get window tinting, you have to find out what percentage of darkening you can get in your state to stay within the legal limits. Most dealers and auto stores will know your limits and will not sell you something that is too dark. If you go to a different state for this, you are in danger of getting your windows too dark. That is why knowing is always a good thing.

When it comes to window tinting for your home, you don’t have to worry about how dark they may be for the sake of the law, but you do have to consider the look you are going to get. When you get window tint, you are going to have a dimmer view of the outside. It might be a good idea to get it on some windows where you need it the most, but then leave some open for a clear view of the outdoors. Most do this for safety reasons, but some want to control sunlight because it can fade carpet, furniture and even hardwood floors. Use it where you must, but think it through first.

The bookstore I used to work in had a bunch of buying guides for used motorcycles lying around. I had never really been interested in buying motorcycles before, or even in motorcycles themselves. I wasn’t much of a car kid, and I got around very well on my bicycle. One day I started looking through these motorcycle guides on a whim. I was pretty bored and had just finished reading a novel and didn’t want to start anything new.

I was completely stricken by the beauty of the bikes in that guide. I immediately started thinking about buying motorcycles. I am impulsive sometimes, and I thought that the desire to buy a motorcycle was something that would come and go pretty quickly. When I was still thinking about buying a motorcycle a couple weeks later, I knew that this was more than just a passing fancy. I knew that I would have to save up some money and buy myself a nice road bike.

Buying used motorcycles is usually the best approach when you are just starting. I did not know anything about buying motorcycles, so it was good that I met someone who did. One of my co-workers, it turned out, was a big motorcycle aficionado. When I told him that I was thinking about buying motorcycles, he immediately set me down and chatted me up about it. He asked me a bunch of questions about what I wanted and I quickly realized how ignorant I was. He gave me the lowdown and showed me how to pick out the right bike, even offering to accompany me to the motorcycle dealer.

At one point, he asked me if I was really serious about buying motorcycles. I was so vague about what I wanted that it seemed to him like I hadn’t really made up my mind. I sat down and thought about it one Sunday. Did I really want to ride a motorcycle if it meant having to pay for insurance and upkeep? Then I heard the sound of someone’s souped up racing bike driving past, and I felt like it was a sign.  I knew that I had to follow through with buying motorcycles, at least to try it out for myself. The very next week, I found the perfect bike to begin riding on. Soon, I had it tuned up, polished and all ready to go. I have been riding a motorcycle ever since.

I have found that if you can count on one thing going wrong before you go on a trip, you can count on your brake pads squealing in protest.  No matter how well I plan for a trip, I should always remember to save money for unexpected and last minute things I will have to do to my car. Though I can change the brake pads a month before I go, something magical happens that makes them wear down faster. I don’t understand how it happens I just know it will.

One trip I took to Connecticut I remember for many reasons, but one of the biggest reasons was that one of my new brake pads snapped off halfway there. I didn’t know it because I was on the highway, but the problem became apparent when I got to my destination and had to start using my brakes. I had just put on brake pads a few weeks before and I was sure I was ok to drive the six hours there and the six hours back without having any problems.

When I pulled onto the off ramp and came to a stop at a light, I heard an unearthly crunching sound. I thought it couldn’t be my brake pads because they were just new, and I had never heard brake pads make that noise anyway. As I found my way to my hotel I realized there was something very wrong because the noise happened each time I applied the brakes. It was like metal was rubbing on metal. I didn’t know what to do, and I really didn’t have any idea where to get help.

As it turned out, the brake pads I had installed on my car were not as new as I thought they were. They didn’t have a chance to wear down, they just snapped off. They must have been old brake pads that had been sitting around for too long, though I’m not really sure why it happened. I haven’t had the same problem since. I do know that riding home from Connecticut I was ok. Had it not been highway for most of the trip I would have had to get them fixed there. They still worked, but it was a sound that signaled if I didn’t get them fixed soon I would be facing a huge repair bill. I made sure I found a new garage so hopefully I wouldn’t be sold old brake pads ever again.

Everyone wants to have the best car sound system and everyone selling one wants people to think that theirs is the best. Yet finding out what are the best car speakers can be a very difficult task. Usually, it comes down to who you are and what you want. For example, the best car speaker system for a young person listening to a lot of rock ‘n roll or rap music might be different than the ones that an older person prefers to use when listening to classical music.

For me, the best car speakers are the ones that provide the best combination of fidelity and power. Audio car speakers targeted towards older customers tend to emphasize the treble range. They will have crystal clear sounds, no small feat inside of a car, and very little distortion. Unfortunately, they will also have very little body. The best car speakers for older audiophiles tend to have mediocre midrange and terrible bass sound quality. As people get older, you see, there ears tend to attenuate higher frequencies. This is why the best car speakers for older people emphasize high frequency above everything else.

Then again, sound system speakers targeted towards younger audiences tend to have just the opposite philosophy. A lot of young people, especially if they are fans of hip-hop music, think the best car speakers are the ones with the biggest subsonic boom. These speakers will literally shake the car and the cars nearby with the sound and feel of the bass thumping. In reality, these are not the best car speakers unless you are trying to lose your hearing. They don’t preserve very much of the original sound and they distort it quite a bit in the name of increasing the bass power. These may be the best speakers car for having a party.  They are terrible for listening to any, but the most simplistic music.

This is why I like to have a compromise in my car audio system. The best car speakers are neither too heavy on the bass, nor too heavy on the treble. I like to have some bass to my music, as well as some good midrange.  I also like to hear the music and not ruin my hearing. This is why I like to combine great tweeters, woofer and even a sub-woofer in back. This gives you the full experience of the sound, perfectly balanced for your listening enjoyment.