RUSH: You may remember — it seems like a long time now, maybe a year or more, maybe even longer than that. Every day, ladies and gentlemen — there were headlines in the newspapers all over the country about runaway SUVs doing this, driving themselves off of the sixth floor of parking garages, running off of interstate bridges, all kinds of things. They were running into each other, running over people. Of course, the point of the headline: ‘Runaway SUV!’ SUV this, SUV that, was part of the environmentalist wacko movement. They were furthering the agenda of the Sierra Club and other environmentalist wackos, the Drive-Bys were, by trying to portray the SUV as a deadly invention, a deadly creation on its own. But we have been in a bit of a lull. There haven’t been such stories for quite a while. I mean it does seem like a year, until now. So here’s our official theme: In a Yugo, by Paul Shanklin.
(playing of In a Yugo)
RUSH: But they drive with pride. (laughter)
(continued playing of song)
RUSH: But they drove with pride.
(continued playing of song)
RUSH: Runaway SUV in New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand: ”Runaway SUV Knocks Man Off His Toilet’ — A New Zealand man got the fright of his life when a runaway SUV crashed into his house and knocked him off the toilet… The vehicle had been parked with its emergency brake only half on, and rolled backward down a 32 foot bank into the house Thursday in the southern city of Christchurch, The Press newspaper reported. Police said a building contractor working next door had parked the vehicle at the top of the bank minutes earlier. ‘He came back to his vehicle and found it next door, basically,’ Christchurch police Sgt. Kim Reid was quoted as saying. The paper said that when the homeowner was asked how the builder might be feeling, he said: ‘What about me? I got knocked off the toilet. I got a hell of a fright.’ The man asked not to be named because he is selling the house and did not want the incident to interfere with the sale.’ Ha ha! How are you gonna hide it, pal? An SUV crashes into your house and knocks you off the toilet, and somebody’s not going to see the evidence of this?
Now, see, we don’t buy for a minute that this SUV just had its parking brake half on. That’s not the way these stories are portrayed. These stories are portrayed as though SUVs have minds of their own. Very seldom, even when there are stories involving drivers of SUVs in such incidents, do we ever hear about the driver. We only hear about the ‘runaway SUV,’ and so the driver is just a prisoner, a driver is nothing more, actually, than a passenger. In this case, this SUV had a grudge. He either had a grudge against its owner or he had a grudge against the guy in the house that was on the toilet. Probably this SUV, well aware of the assaults being made on it and its brothers and sisters by environmentalist wackos, was able to understand that the guy on the toilet was using too much toilet paper — and the SUVs, they don’t want to go extinct. They don’t want to be drummed out of business. They don’t want to end up in the junk lot. And so any attention they can cause to keep environmental standards high by keeping this poor guy from using too much toilet paper. This is the way we goaded and make fun of these people. ‘Police said no charges would be filed because the incident occurred on private property.’
And, of course, how do you charge an SUV? But be patient. They will come up with a way.