Ferrari at 170 MPH

Ferrari Crash PCH



Ferrari Ruins

More news about that amazing Ferrari crash last month on Pacific Coast Highway in Los Angeles.

Video May Hold Clues to PCH Wreck

L.A. County sheriff's officials say two men who crashed a rare Ferrari in Malibu last month may have been filming the incident.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's investigation into a mysterious crash that destroyed a rare $1-million Ferrari in Malibu last month is now focusing on a videotape that was purportedly shot from inside the vehicle at the time of the accident, according to sources close to the case.

The sources said that Ferrari owner Stefan Eriksson and the other man in the car, identified by authorities as Trevor Karney, had a video camera rolling as they raced on Pacific Coast Highway on the morning of Feb. 21 at speeds in excess of 162 mph.

Deputies who arrived at the scene did not recover any video equipment. But sources said detectives were later told that the high-speed driving was taped. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case is under investigation.

The revelation is the latest twist in a crash that has prompted both an accident investigation and a probe by the Sheriff's Department's Homeland Security Division.

Although no one was injured in the crash, the investigation has generated significant attention because of the strange circumstances and the fact that it destroyed one of only 400 Enzo Ferraris ever made.

Eriksson, a former European video game executive, told deputies who arrived at the scene that he was not the driver and that another man, named Dietrich, was behind the wheel. Eriksson said Dietrich fled the scene.

But detectives have always been skeptical of his version of events. Investigators have taken a swab of Eriksson's saliva to match his DNA against blood found on the driver's side air bag of the Ferrari.

Eriksson also told deputies that he was a deputy commissioner of the police department of a tiny transit agency in the San Gabriel Valley.

A few minutes after the crash, two men arrived at the crash scene, identified themselves as homeland security officers and spoke to Eriksson at length before leaving.

Sheriff's Sgt. Phil Brooks said Wednesday that a few weeks before the accident, Eriksson was pulled over in West Hollywood without a driver's license.

At that time he told officers that he was a deputy police commissioner of the anti-terrorism unit of the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority and showed a badge, Brooks said.

Before coming to the U.S., Eriksson lived in England. According to Noel Hogan, a British private investigator, formerly with Scotland Yard, Eriksson once told him that he was a police officer. Hogan had been trying to recover a Mercedes SLR worth more than $450,000 that had been reported stolen in England and which Eriksson had in his possession.

Officials at the transit agency, which provides transportation for the disabled and elderly from Monrovia, said Eriksson was given the title of deputy police commissioner after undergoing a background check and offering the agency free video security cameras for its five buses.

Eriksson left video game machine manufacturer Gizmondo last fall after a Swedish newspaper printed allegations of his criminal past.

L.A. Times Link

Round-the-World with the Guardian

North Korea Leader

I always wondered why Kim Jong-Il wore those elevator shoes, but now I know.

In other news, the Guardian (London newspaper) is once again looking for contestants who can take three months of their lives and travel around the world, snapping digital photos and running a blog of their adventures. But check the pitiful pay:

a digital camera
a camera phone
laptop
about $3000

Come on, Guardian, you can bump it up. That's only good enough for a weekend in Cabo, but they expect me to blog, travel, sleep and eat for that paltry sum.

They're looking for a "green" traveler (whatever that means) and a "grey" traveler over the age of 50.

Get paid to go on holiday

This week, Guardian Unlimited is launching a new series of Netjetters, the competition that allows readers to win cash, kit and a three-month trip around the world, in return for writing a regular travel diary of their experiences.

'Green' and 'grey'

This year, two Netjetters will be chosen to travel and write on the themes of "green" and "grey" travel. One recruit must come up with a trip that allows them to travel as "greenly" as possible, in line with the rising tide of interest in eco- and responsible tourism. You may choose to base this on where you go or stay, your mode of transport, what you leave behind and how lightly you tread along the way. Or it might be what you choose to do, for example volunteering or working with protected wildlife.

The other chosen Netjetter will be aged 50 years or over, to reflect the growing number of people embarking on travels later in life. To be selected in this category, you must not have outgrown your spirit of adventure.

Each of the Netjetters will win up to £2,000 towards their trip, Fuji S9500 camera, a Nokia 6630 3G camera phone and a state-of-the-art laptop, all of which will be theirs to use on their Netjetter journeys and to keep thereafter.

Guardian Link

Guidebook Reviews at The Times

Luggage Meltdown in Philadelphia

The Times of London recently reviewed a handful of travel guidebook publishers in an attempt to sort out the strengths and weaknesses of each line. Not bad, but there are several obvious problems with their methodology. First, since it's a British newspaper and primarily geared toward a British readership, British guidebook publishers dominate the article. And yet most American and Australian guidebook publishers have distribution in Great Britain, so you'd expect them to at least include a few American publishers.

The reviews themselves are posted by a variety of people, who exact backgrounds aren't really revealed. Perhaps readers in London know who these people are, but I didn't have a clue. A larger problem is that everyone has a different set of criteria to judge a book, so a dozen people review a dozen books with no common thread. It's not unlike the problem of some large guidebook being written by 12 people, with 12 different personalities, and 12 different opinions about most everything. There's no uniform opinion, and you really can't compare different chapters of the book.

The Times is British and I would imagine enjoys being polite, but there isn't much criticism in any of these reviews. A bit more honesty would have made this piece far more useful to the average reader contemplating purchasing a guidebook.

It would have been much more fun if each publisher submitted the same book, or if not, a book similar to the standard. OK! Everyone send in your guide to Paris (or New York or Bali, etc.). Then have a single reviewer dig into the books and make a side-by-side comparison, and the strengths and weaknesses of each publisher would have been much more apparent.

Still, it's worth a read.

A guidebook can make or break your holiday — so it’s crucial you take the right one. The Sunday Times experts sort the bona fide from the blather.

About 4,000 travel books are published every year, and the majority are guides of one sort or another. The choice is bewildering, but what most of us want from a guidebook is simple. We’d like it to be relevant to our needs and tastes; and we’d like it to be reliable. So how do you know which guide is for you? And how do you sort the expert travelling companion from the blathering impostor?

We’ve done it for you. We asked six leading publishers to nominate the guide they’re most proud of: a book that typifies their approach. Then we asked our own experts - each with a wealth of knowledge about the relevant destination - to check them out.

The Times Link