Wannabe trucker in Chiba NAILED!
Man who failed driving test arrested for scattering nails over training course
CHIBA, Japan:…Shinichi Kato, 33, a part-time worker for a delivery company, failed his test to get a license to drive large vehicles three times in 2005 at the Chiba driving license center. Police believe that he scattered nails on the course to vent his anger...more…
Japan’s “BS” Tire Company –see “Note” below.
Oddly, this crime doesn’t make much sense. Steel-belted radial tires are fairly impervious to nails nowadays. Unless the wannabe trucker found roofing nails (rare because only roofing staples and nails-on-a-roll are now used), regular nails simply could not puncture a tire. A regular narrow-head nail does not stand upright enough and cannot find purchase on a tire to puncture it as shown in the picture below.
Speaking of “puncture” ….
A punctured tire is called a “punku” (パンク) in Japanese. It also offers a real rude way to say that a women has given birth: “punku shichatta” (パンクã—ã¡ã‚ƒã£ãŸ)—she popped.
Note: Ain’t it odd that Bridgestone Tires (established 1931) copied the brand esteem of the Firestone name (established 1900) but later ending up buying Firestone and owning both brands? Now I wonder why Bridgestone doesn’t use that “BS” logo any longer?
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January 23rd, 2006 at 3:01 pm
In the interest of fairness of “someone elses’ ([very-]short-)lifes’ work” I replaced previous graphic with this retrolicious 1960s’ ad and official logo from “BS” aka Bridegstone nee’ Firestone.
January 23rd, 2006 at 7:40 pm
Er…. You’re wrong about the Bridgestone name. The founder of the company is called ‘Ishibashi’ and the English name was taken from there. I’ve no idea if Firestone might have copied them, but it wasn’t the other way around. This is easy to check btw.
January 23rd, 2006 at 9:30 pm
I know about the “Ishibashi” name—Ishi means stone and bashi mean bridge. Mr Ishibashi/Stonebridge had a damn smart scam to use the English spelling and reverse his name to Bridgestone—the company should have been Stonebridge Tire.
Harvey S. Firestone established Fireston Tire in 1900. Shojiro Ishibashi established Bridgestone Tire Co., Ltd., in 1931.
Ishibashi-san used a very clever branding ruse by only employing the English transliteration of his family name which just happened to be the name of second largest tire company in the world at the time.
Bottom Line: At its start, Bridgestone Tire legally stole the Firestone brand image—-a damn smart move.