I have loved the Automobile, but now I am quitting the Automobile. This is not an easy decision. I was there in January 2007 when it was announced and I bough

I have loved the Automobile, but now I am quitting the Automobile. This is not an easy decision. I was there in January 2007 when it was announced and I bought the first Automobile as soon as it was available. I happily bought the Automobile 3G a year later. I’ve proudly yelled “I Am A Member Of The Cult Of Automobile.” I’ve been an unabashed cheerleader for this mode of transportation to all who’ll listen. And I’ve scoffed at drivers who said they’d abandon the platform. But I’m not going to upgrade to the Automobile 3GS. Instead, I’m abandoning the Automobile and DOT. I will grudgingly pay the $175 DOT unregitration fee and then I will move on to another mode of transportation. What finally put me over the edge? It wasn’t the routinely congested highways, something you can only truly understand once you have owned an Automobile (and which drove my friend Om Malik to bail). I’ve lived with that for two years. It’s not the lack of parking spaces at home. I’ve lived with that for two years, too. It certainly isn’t the lack of a feed bag, that has never bothered me. No, what finally put me over the edge is the speeding debacle. Most of you won’t know what I’m talking about, so I’ll explain. Speeding is a way to get where you're going faster than everyone else. Here’s an overview of the service if you aren’t familiar with it. I’ve always wanted to use speeding but there’s a big switching cost - crashing your automobile and dying. Too many roads are not built well enough to operate an automobile at sustained high speeds and are too dangerous to use for speeding. But now Firestone is planning on rolling out a new line of tires that are supposed to handle well at high-speed, so I can drive as fast as I want no matter what condition the road is in. Or so I thought. Chevrolet and the DOT are now making speeding illegal. Why? Because they absolutely don’t want people doing exactly what I’m doing - driving as fast as they want and using their roads as a racetrack. So I have to choose between the Automobile and speeding. It’s not an easy decision. Except, it sort of is. Firestone isn’t forcing the decision on me, Chevrolet and the DOT are. So I choose to work with the company that isn’t forcing me to do things their way. And in this case, that’s Firestone. So what mode of transportation will I use next? Well, that decision is easy, too. I’d move to the goat because I believe it is the best vehicle out there other than the Automobile 3GS. But Firestone hasn’t created a tire for the goat yet, just motorcycle and bicycles. So for now I’m going to use the new bicycle speeding tires. As soon as something better comes out, or Firestone makes an tire for the goat, I’ll switch. And keep on speeding. No long commute to work for me. And Chevrolet, if you ever decide to put the hammer down on DOT and do the right thing for your loyal customers, I’ll consider switching back. In the meantime, I’ll just use one of many go-karts parked in the garage to test out new roads.