Take Me Out To The Ball Game!!
The Higher the Price of Gas, the More People Lie About Mileage on Expense Reports
High gas prices don’t just make us poor . . . they also make us LIE. A workforce management company called Natural Insight looked at six months’ worth of expense report data, and found that employees overstate their mileage more when gas prices are higher. Most companies reimburse travel expenses on a fixed cost per mile, and only adjust it once a year. That means that when gas prices go up, business travelers have to cover the increased cost of filling up. One way for business travelers to make up for that is to LIE . . . and claim that they drove more miles than they actually did. And according to Natural Insight’s numbers, that’s exactly what they’re doing. But the thing is, business travelers ALWAYS overstate their mileage. They just do it MORE when gas prices are high. Travelers over-reported their mileage by about 24% on average. That dropped to 18% when gas prices were at their lowest, and went up to 33% when gas hit its peak price.
Two Guys Test Drive a Porsche, Give the Dealer Back a Phony Key, Then Use the Real Key to Steal It Later
It’s hard to believe that this trick would work . . . and that no one has thought of it before now. Last Monday, two men in their 20s went into Princeton Porsche in Lawrenceville, New Jersey and asked to take a test drive. (–Lawrenceville is about halfway between Princeton and Trenton.) One of the guys said he’d just won a large legal settlement and was thinking of buying the Porsche Panamera, which costs $148,000. One of the features of the Panamera is a keyless ignition. As long as the driver has the electronic key remote in his pocket, he can start the car. The guys took their test drive around town, came back to the dealer, and returned the key remote . . . at least, that’s what the folks at Princeton Porsche THOUGHT. It turns out the guys pulled the old switcheroo. They returned a fake key to the dealer and left with the REAL one. They came back after-hours and used the keys to drive off in the Panamera, which was missing when the dealership reopened the next day. Police are still searching for the two guys and the car.
Where the Wild Things Are: A Peek at States’ Deer Collisions
State Farm Insurance just released its annual report on car accidents involving deer. Which gives us a perfect opportunity to tell the people of West Virginia they need to STOP KILLING BAMBI’S MOM over and over. The study found that almost 2% of drivers in West Virginia hit a deer in the past year . . . one in every 53 drivers had a car-on-deer accident. That’s almost FOUR TIMES the national average, and 50% higher than the next closest state. Iowa came in second, with a one-in-77 car-on-deer rate. South Dakota is third, at one in 81 . . . Pennsylvania is fourth, at one in 86 . . . and Michigan is fifth, at one in 91. Overall, the nationwide average is one deer collision for every 193 drivers. Hawaii . . . where there are fewer deer AND fewer drivers . . . had the lowest rate, at one in 6,267. That means you’re 11,825%less likely to crash into a deer in Hawaii than you are in West Virginia. Car-on-deer collisions have dropped the last three years. State Farm says that gas prices have led to fewer drivers, which has led to fewer drivers smacking deer.
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