Ask Bark: Living In Mom's Basement With a Viper ACR

Jeremy writes:

I’m making about $60,000/year after taxes as a recent college grad and I’m still living with my parents. My expenses excluding student loans are minimal, and those loans are small enough that I should have them paid off this year.

I want to buy a car with limits far beyond mine and try not to kill myself with it. I’ve settled on the Dodge Viper ACR.

This is where you come in: I need you to talk me out of it.

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Affluenza On The Run

When Ethan Couch killed four people in an alcohol-related crash, his attorney argued that he suffered from “affluenza” — an inability to understand consequences brought on by a life of pampering and kid-glove treatment from his wealthy parents. To nearly everyone’s surprise, it worked, and Couch received nothing more than probation for his actions.

Earlier this month, a video of Couch attending a beer-pong party and sitting at a chair with a can of beer went viral, leading members of the community to demand that the court take action. But now Couch, and his mother, have gone missing, and local authorities think it might be an attempt to flee the country.

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Affluenza Redux: Rich Guy Gets Slap On The Wrist For Drunken High Speed Chase

Seattle’s TV stations are reporting that a wealthy businessman who led police on a high speed chase through the city of Olympia in his Ferrari F360 has been sentenced to just one year of work release. According to the reports, Shaun Goodman pleaded guilty to felony police evasion and DUI for the December 29 incident that saw his terrified passenger leap from the moving car when he slowed at an intersection and ended only after he crashed into a parked car and then careened into the side of a house.

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"I'm Ethan Couch, I'll Get You Out Of This"

When sixteen-year-old Ethan Couch killed four people and paralyzed another, the Best&Brightest here at TTAC expressed an almost universally negative view of his actions and the “Affluenza” defense that enabled him to avoid prison in favor of a $450,000 rehabilitation vacation.

Any defenders Mr. Couch did have, however, will likely reconsider their position on the matter given the latest news from the incident.

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"Affluenza" Sufficient Defense To Avoid Prison After DUI Crash Kills Four

On June 15th of this year, three people who had stopped to help the driver of a stranded vehicle in the Dallas-Fort Worth area were struck by a vehicle driven by sixteen-year-old Ethan Couch. All three people were killed, as was the driver. The two passengers in Ethan’s car were ejected; one suffered from multiple broken bones, while the other was paralyzed to the point that he must now use his eyes to communicate with others.

Testing revealed that Ethan was drunk, with a BAC of .24, and had traces of Valium in his system. The prosecution asked for a twenty-year prison sentence. What they got was something else entirely.

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  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?