News
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Virginia Now Lets Judges Bolt a Speed Limiter to Your Car Instead of Suspending Your License
Starting July 1, Virginia stopped treating a triple-digit speeding conviction as strictly a license-and-fine problem. It became the first state in the country to let a judge bolt a device to your car that physically won’t let you speed — and hand you that instead of taking your license away. Here’s what actually changed, and…
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How to Buy a Used Car Without Getting Taken for a Ride
Dealerships do this hundreds of times a year; you do it once every five. Here’s how to buy a used car without handing over your leverage — or your money.
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How ‘American-Made’ Went From Ford and Chevy to Tesla, Honda, and Jeep
Every Fourth of July, Americans fire up the grill, raise a flag, and take pride in the machines in the driveway. But here at The Auto Wire, we wanted to ask a harder question this Independence Day: what actually makes a car “American” anymore? The answer has changed so dramatically over the last three decades…
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A Tarp Blinded This Driver at Highway Speed — Here’s the Masterclass in Not Panicking
A tarp tearing loose from a truck and slapping across your windshield sounds like a bad dream. For one driver on a highway in Xinjiang, China, it happened for real, and the moment was caught on dash-cam video that’s since made the rounds online. One second the lane ahead was clear. The next, the entire…
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Inside the 63-Person Ring That Shipped Stolen Luxury Cars From New Jersey to West Africa
New Jersey prosecutors just rolled up one of the more organized car-theft operations the state has seen in years, and the structure of it is what makes it worth your attention. On June 29, 2026, the Attorney General’s office, the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor, and the New Jersey State Police announced charges against…
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Illinois Now Puts a Governor on Repeat Speeders’ Cars. Here’s How the New Law Actually Works
Illinois just decided that the fix for drivers who treat posted limits as suggestions isn’t taking their license away — it’s taking away the top half of their throttle. Gov. JB Pritzker signed House Bill 4948 into law in late June, creating the state’s Intelligent Speed Assistance Program, and if you’re a two-time offender it…
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Baltimore Paid $400K After a Patrol SUV Hit a Teen. The Real Story Is What the Black Box Would Show
Baltimore’s spending board just cut a $400,000 check over a car crash that wasn’t really a crash — it was a fleeing 16-year-old ending up under the passenger-side wheels of a Ford Explorer wearing police livery. The Board of Estimates, the five-member panel that signs off on the city’s money, approved the payout unanimously on…
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This El Paso Man Tried to Steal Back His Own Repossessed Car. It Didn’t Go Well
There’s a particular flavor of automotive stupidity that only surfaces when someone stops making car payments, and a 21-year-old named Donovan Acklin just supplied a textbook example of it. According to the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, deputies were called out to the 14400 block of Cassidy Drive in far east El Paso on June…
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A Stolen Carvana Car Hauler Turned Highway 231 Into a Demolition Derby in Bay County
Car haulers are built to move other people’s vehicles slowly and carefully. They are not built for a police pursuit. That contradiction sits at the center of an incident on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 30, 2026, when a stolen Carvana flatbed car carrier led law enforcement on a chase down Highway 231 in Bay…
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Rivian Is Turning a Dead Fry’s Electronics Into Its Newest Sacramento Showroom
The building where Northern California nerds once wandered fluorescent-lit aisles hunting for hard drives and discount motherboards is about to get a second life with a very different kind of hardware. According to a press release from Sacramento Councilmember Lisa Kaplan’s office, Rivian has signed a long-term lease for roughly 60,000 square feet at 4100…
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Trump Skipped the USMCA’s First Checkup — And Your Next Car Might Pay for It
Six years to the day after it replaced NAFTA, the USMCA hit its first mandatory checkup, and Washington failed it on purpose. On July 1, 2026, trade officials from the United States, Mexico, and Canada held the treaty’s first Joint Review, and the U.S. Trade Representative’s office confirmed the outcome. The agreement wasn’t terminated, but…
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Recall Fatigue Is Real: What to Actually Do When Your Car Gets Recalled
The recall notices keep coming, and after a while they all blur into the same beige envelope. A software glitch here. A cracked bushing there. Ninety-six thousand Hyundai Tucsons whose gauge clusters can blank out mid-drive. A generation of Ford Explorers that can shrug themselves out of Park. If you’ve reached the point where you…
