How lazy are automotive journalists? Well, it appears that some of them just can’t resist putting their feet up. More details and a close-up after the jump.
Imagine my surprise when, during the recent Chrysler press event, I looked into the rearview mirror of my 300 “Limited” (to as many as they can sell, presumably) and saw a journo with his bare foot on the dash! Surely automotive journalists, if anyone, should be aware of what a dash airbag can do to a leg — the phrase “snap, crackle, and pop” comes to mind — but no, for this guy, airing out his foot was the primary concern.
Let’s take a closer look:
That’s at the limit of my Droid’s resolution, unfortunately. What makes it worse: there’s another dude in there with him! What is the matter with these people? Only once in my life have I permitted another journalist to remove a shoe in my presence, and that was only because she would have been knocking it against the headboard of the bed otherwise.
It’s a lousy business, I tell you, but it’s the only one we’ve got.
Edited to note: A few commenters pointed out that it would be dangerous to take rear-view-mirror photographs while driving. Here’s the uncropped source photo:
If you examine all three shots you can see that:
- We are in a long line of stopped traffic, with multiple cars ahead of us and behind us;
- I have left assured clear distance between me and the stopped van ahead in the event of a traffic mishap that could shove it and the five or six cars ahead backward, or a brake failure which could cause the van to roll backwards;
- The phone is actually held out of my range of vision so, although all traffic is stopped and no motion is occurring anywhere me, I can still spring into action should something require said action.
Do we all feel better now? Obviously I would never do something as risky as use a cameraphone unless traffic was completely stopped and there was a multiple-car buffer both front and rear. I’m glad we had that discussion! – JB
That must be Jalopnik?
Snap, crackle, pop is right. A teenager in our neck of the woods actually lost her foot that way a couple of years ago.
Could be worse, could be out the window.
Jack,
All this gratuitous badmouthing of your fellow automotive journalists has to bite back at you at some point. We appreciate what you do when your criticisms are substantive (i.e. connected to the quality of the analysis they offer), but in this particular case…
In this particular case, someone has accepted a package of travel, accomodations, meals, and free usage of multiple brand-new automobiles that probably cost the manufacturer a few thousand dollars to provide, they are presumably going to go home and write a review of that particular vehicle, and they’ve chosen to spend their time with their feet on the airbag cover. :)
I assume by the fact that you are here commenting that you are something of an enthusiast. As such, you have to recognize that being an auto “journalist” is possibly the luckiest job in the world. If I didn’t hate writing so much it would be my dream job (hear that GM? I would be happy to sing the praises of your latest sh1tb0x. I have no ethical qualms, I just hate writing). Unless this a-hole is going to write a review about how comfortable the dash was for his feetsies this is one of the most unprofessional things I have ever seen photographed. I don’t care about whether it is dangerous, I hope he loses his foot in a crash, that is just insulting. I wish I could recognize his stupid face so I would know never to read his fake reviews again.
Feet on dash board, dangerous…particularly when the moron driving the car in front is goofing around with a camera/mobile phone instead of paying full attention to the road ahead.
Uh, yeah, if you pay full attention to the road behind the car in the photos you will see that everybody is at a dead stop.
What matters is the road ahead, not behind. All I see is an automatic Infinity SUV with no brake lights on, which means it is probably moving. The premise of the article ‘was what is wrong with the picture’, not ‘what is wrong with an alleged set of actions and circumstances leading up to the picture’. To me, and I daresay most law enforcement officials, Driver using a camera to record actions behind him > a passenger with feet on dashboard in terms of inadvisable activity.
In any case, from what I know of press launches, putting feet on the dash ranks pretty low on the relative scale of disrespectful and dangerous activities undertaken by motoring scribes in the test cars. In fact if I remember rightly, some of your own articles bear witness to less than righteous activity on your behalf.
The alternative is that the QX4 was in Park. Given the length of time we sat at that intersection, which was an entrance to a busy full-speed freeway with no stoplight, that’s the most likely scenario.
Don’t let me stop you from playing Junior Detective, though. Here’s another scenario; there is a 747 about to land on top of us and my craven failure to look out for overhead jumbo jets is about to get my innocent passenger killed. If you mull that one over long enough I think you might feel it move, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
JB, I agree with everything you said. Personally, I find feet to be the nastiest part of the body, and someone putting their fetid examples on the dashboard of a brand new car is disgusting and unsafe. But some exeptions must be made….
Come on, we’re talking about an automotive journalist here…
So he’s probably naked from the waist down.
Maybe they were undertaking the painstaking process by which to rate the vehicle’s suitability for my wife as a passenger.
Only since just before her most recent knee surgery has she mostly refrained from actually putting her foot on top of the dashboard despite my reminder and her knowledge of what would become of her leg during an airbag deployment. Her favorite foot rest now is actually the lip of the lower door pocket where manufacturers are wont to add a 20 oz beverage holder in many recent designs. She broke the lip clean off the pocket, and put a vertical split in the plastic to boot, on my truck. On her van we just traded in a slight upward kink in the front lip of the pocket prevented her foot from resting there. We haven’t taken a long enough trip (and she hasn’t spent enough time in the passenger seat) in her new-to-her van yet to figure out what nightmare seating position she’ll assume yet.
No, this is a very big pet peeve of mine.
Disrespect is way too prevalent in our society. I hope the sponsors got a picture of that and dis-invited him from any future events.
If I had been the manager of that event, my New Jersey upbringing would have lead to a shoeless journalist who would have been scared within an inch of his life. I am a pretty easy going guy (you know that Jack) but disrespect is the one thing that gets my German blood boiling.
Totally agree Steve, it is disrespectful and is the mark of a true slob attitude. This guy’s pic should be on “peopleofwalmart.com”. We have just stopped caring.
Steve, the whole point of the ride and drive events for journalists is to get free publicity and positive auto reviews, plus allow the marketing staff to piggyback their way to a resort trip. Nobody from marketing gives a shit what the journalists do to, in, or around these cars as long as they produce a middling article or review that gives a couple of positive quotes the manufacturers can use to sell cars. If you barked at one of these (boorish) journalists you would probably be fired.
The manufacturers marketing people (and other management staff) abuse their company cars at least as much as any journalist, not to mention the abuse their from spouses and children. After a few months and a couple of thousand very hard miles they are sold off to dealers as “executive” or demo cars. Growing up in Michigan I learned never to buy a demo or executive car after seeing and hearing what my friends did to their parents factory cars. It takes “used” car to a whole new level.
As a counterpoint, Jack – how can you rip into the guy for being bored and lazy, and risking the airbag going off… and then justify your camera use by saying that traffic was stopped, there was plenty of space, and there was nothing else to do?
Just sayin’.
I still think it’s a Really Bad Idea to stick your feet on an airbag at any time – particularly because as a journalist, if there’s one thing you don’t want to do, it’s to stick your foot in your mouth.
This one’s simple: I’d watched him doing it for a solid five miles but didn’t take the picture until I came to a halt because I knew that if I snapped it on the roll the ever-contrary B&B would declare the act of photographing it to be a far greater sin than placing one’s bare foot on the dashboard of a moving vehicle. At one point he had both feet on the dash, in the classic legs-apart, f***-me-driving position, but I didn’t have a chance to take the shot.
For the record, this was far from the most arrogant journosaur activity I witnessed that particular day. I would assign that particular distinction to the member of the “National Writer’s Union” who dropped the contents of his breakfast plate on the ground then simply walked away while a member of the service staff scuttled over to scrub the floor and clean up his mess.
@Jack
Fair enough; that makes sense. The last story is pretty foul… When I go to shows to do installs of our simulators, I try to make sure that the electricians and car polishing guys and carpet taping guys can have a go if they want; they’re working as hard (or, obviously in some cases, much harder) as anybody else, and it bugs the hell out of me that other guys act like they don’t exist.
You do have to consider, though – maybe he was just bored because the marketing people had already given him his copy… :)
The “van” is an Infiniti QX4… Just sayin’…
Anyway, I’m normally not a huge fan of Mr. Baruth’s writing on TTAC (though I’m not vocal about it at all). In this case, however, I literally do not understand why there are people coming out of the woodwork to lambaste him over this op-ed. This is literally one of my largest pet peeves. I work in rental cars, and have done so for nearly five years. I’m CONSTANTLY wiping toe prints off of windshields and foot prints off of dashboards. It’s absolutely nasty! I agree with gslippy – feet are absolutely disgusting. And the amount of personal responsibility lacking in today’s society leads me to assume the average foot is rife with fetidity. Then, to go and put that on a place that it simply shouldn’t be. Addressing the safety factor, I see evidence of absurd disregard for active and passive safety mechanisms all the time. Seats leaned all the way back (for that “cool gangsta” look, presumably?), seatbelts buckled and then sat upon, headrests taken out and thrown into a trunk (complaints are usually centered around the “they kept rubbing the back of my head and messing up my hair” argument), and the like. What can we say? People, at large, are a disgusting, fly-by-night, arrogant, selfish breed.
/rant
I am guilty of removing several headrests from rental cars. The dang things give me a headache. They’re usually hard. Coupled with the firm suspension on most new cars, that equates to a hard little Nerf ball being stiffly bounced against the back of my head for an hour.
But the feet thing – my GOD is that disgusting. I’ve kicked a girl out of my car for doing that.
Reminds me of Planes Trains And Automobiles…
What now?
I can’t reach my feet to get my shoes off.
That’s fine. Leave your shoes on.
I can’t relax that way.
I don’t care to breathe your foot odor.
It must be swell being so perfect and odor-free.
Seriously? From the guy who brags about surfing the internet while driving at night? Who wrote an (in)famous series of articles about extreme high speed driving on public roads that advised every 17 year- old methhead in a ’93 Mustang GT with bald tires, worn shocks, and warped brake rotors to take off when the cops light ’em up because “cop cars can only do 120 mph or so.” This guy has concerns about somebody being maimed by an airbag?
Oh, it’s not the “safety” issue? It’s the “lack of respect” for the host manufacturers’ products or something and/ or “arrogance” shown by this jounalist. Seriously? From the guy who didn’t get to drive the V-6 2011 Challenger during his time at the test track because he announced within earshot of his hosts that he wanted to “shove that V-6 up the bleeding ass of every lame-sauce, color-rag rolling chicane out there in the HEMI cars!”
Oh, it’s the “hygene” issue? Seriously? Because I seem to recall a comment posted recently (couldn’t find it, but I think it was in the last week or so) about nailing a fellow journo’s wife in a test car. Jizz stains left on the upholstery are cool, but feet on the dash no es bueno?
Bwhaahaahaa. GTFOutta here, you’re killing me.
“Hello? Pot? My name is Jack “Kettle” Baruth and you, Mr. Pot, are black! You hear me, Pot? You are black! BLACK!!”
Jizz stains left on the upholstery are cool, but feet on the dash no es bueno?
Perhaps she swallowed.
Because I seem to recall a comment posted recently (couldn’t find it, but I think it was in the last week or so) about nailing a fellow journo’s wife in a test car.
Here’s that comment :
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/11/was-gm-design-head-bill-mitchell-a-sexist-bigot/#comment-1688608
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I agree that with this piece Baruth does seem to show some inconsistencies when it comes to press car/media etiquette and automotive safety.
My personal thought is that he doesn’t truly care all that much about this journo’s safety or ChryslerCo’s press fleet, he just really, really hates most auto writers.
Or, this whole thing was written just to get a rise out of us.
I guess that “journalist” wrote a review stating the usual: interior materials are crap, fit and finish are poor, the car drives like shit, it’s a Chrysler and you should not pay more than 2$ for it etc… y la guinda de la torta, the Toyota or Honda X is a better option.
Jack, you irritate me at times.
However, in this instance I would’ve figured out a way to get you that $3500.00 Custom-Shop Les Paul,
if you could’ve just deftly slammed the brakes such that said big toe became lodged up one, -or both of that journosaur’s nostrils.
.
.
btw, I for one like JB’s journo-exposes. I still have nightmares about car shows full of guys built like Jabba; -I mean Pete DeLorenzo and The Booth Babe dressed up as Pete’s Slave Leia, endlessly ranting about how other people aren’t models and she is.
.
No, that’s not a legally-binding agreement, Jack. I don’t have the cash yet. :D
Pete’s svelte compared to some (and not a bad guy from the few times we’ve spoken). When Ferrari introduced the 612 Scaglietti (an ugly car, btw), one of their reps was trying to demonstrate to a reporter that was about 5 ft tall and somewhere north of 250 that she could indeed fit in the car. Okay, so it was a prototype, but when she sat in the car I could see the body panels sag.
Actually, though, rather than note how many fat journalists there are (including myself), I’m usually too busy checking out the nice scenery. One of these years I’m going to get up the nerve to ask that pretty French photographer if she’d like to go see the submarine races off of Belle Isle.
A convention center filled with models, marketing babes and on-air tv talent and you think I’m going to notice some chubby guy who writes about cars?
@Ronnie: Fun anecdote!!! Loved the body-panel distortion bit. It’s as-if she had her own specific force of gravity. -Was she starting to attract her own Weather-Patterns and Cloud-Formations? :D
Nononono, Nope. Definitely NOT recommending you (or anyone) look at chubby autojournos! (hence, why I said, ‘Nightmare’)
**But even for an in-shape AFC, much less PD or still-fatter-than, to look at a “Hired Gun” like a stripper, shot-girl, bartender (near any kind of city), model, actress, or booth-babe is like a present-day Gary Coleman looking up at a basketball hoop and thinking, “SLAM DUNK, MUTHAF***AH!!!”.
They’d do much better to just keep to the cars & colleagues, or take your route and hit on the French photog.
-nice choice, btw.
Feet are some of the most utilitarian parts of the human body. I love their function, but I hate their form. Every time I see a passenger with his feet on the dash, I feel as though he might as well be giving everybody the finger. It displays an absolute lack of class. Nobody gets to put their feet up on my dash.
Though I don’t put my feet on the dash, I have been known to remove my shoes when driving long distances.
My embroidery shop is in the garage. Most of the comforts of home: furnace, stereo, tv, computer, but because of the cold cement floor I can’t kick off my shoes and I hate that. At least in the summer I can wear sandals (one advantage to working for myself).
I drive with no shoes all the time. I leave my socks on, though.
… Kings among men.