There are world courts dedicated to prosecuting crimes against humanity, but there's nothing to protect our poor automobiles so, with your help, we've assembled a list of ten horrible crimes against carmanity.
This is Answers of the Day - a feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy!
Want to see this gallery in one slow-to-load page? Click here.
Photo Credit: a href="http://gettyimages.com/">Kiyoshi Ota/Getty Images
10.) Giving A Hot Stuff Car To A 16 Year Old On Their Birthday
Suggested By: Rabbit80
Why It's Abuse: You can almost see the Mustang/Corvette/BMW/Porsche shaking with fear as it waits in the driveway for its new owner. It knows, it's heard the horror stories back on the dealer lot. Freshly-licensed drivers and performance cars should not mix. That car's life expectancy just dropped like a lead balloon, and it knows it. Toasted clutch? Check. Crunched body panels? Absolutely. Curb rash on the wheels? Who says the kid's gotta learn to parallel park during Driver's Ed anyway?
9.) Destroy It For A Movie
Suggested By: deegeedubb1
Why It's Abuse: With all of the advances in computer graphics in movies, you would think that Hollywood wouldn't have to demolish cool cars for movies anymore. And, for the most part, you're right. SynthOno points out: "More often than not if the car in a scene is valuable, they use kit cars and shells to get the desired shot. Like the BMW Z8 that was cut in half in The World is Not Enough - you were never going to drive that car, it was a prototype body shell with no running gear." But when it does have to happen for real, we still cringe.
Photo credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images
8.) Not Warming It Up
Suggested By: m2m
Why It's Abuse: Sure, you've just got to run across town to the supermarket for some milk and eggs. It's only a two minute trip, so why should you have to let the car warm up for any longer? Because it's the middle of winter, and right now your oil has the consistency of frozen peanut butter. And peanut butter, whatever its viscosity, does not lubricate and protect very well. Give it another couple of minutes. Your car will thank you.
Photo credit: Andrew J Rhyther, flickr
7.) Smoking In It
Suggested By: John Carter
Why It's Abuse: Probably both the easiest and mort destructive way of abusing your car is lighting up inside it. Not only does it stink, it can ruin interior upholstery and dashboard materials. The tar can stain the windows, turning them ugly shades of brown or yellow. No one will want to drive with you, except for your smoking buddies. And your car will have a hard time getting sold later on down the line.
Photo credit: lorkatj, flickr
6.) Paint It Pink & Hello Kitty-ify It
Suggested By: crxtra
Why It's Abuse: What self respecting car would ever want to be sprayed pink and slapped with all sorts of horrible, horrible cute cat stickers? Did you know some twisted soul makes Hello Kitty valve stem caps? No one will ever know that every time you check the air pressure on your rolling tribute to Sanrio you're greeted by that little red bow but you. And yet, there they are. Hello Kitty cars, thankfully, haven't made much of a big leap across the Pacific yet, and here's hoping it stays that way.
Photo credit: sluj78, flickr
5.) Too Much Boost
Suggested By: luisthebeast
Why It's Abuse: You know what happens when you shake a soda bottle up too much and then throw it in the air? It explodes when it hits the ground. Why, you may ask? Pressure. The bottle can't contain the pressure of the gases inside it. Similarly, when you crank the boost up to a million PSI in your Honda, its plumbing was never meant to take that kind of abuse. It's going to do something very similar to what that bottle did, and probably when you least want it to.
Photo credit: YouTube
4.) Poorly-Executed Burnout
Suggested By: dangertree
Why It's Abuse: Hear that? That's the sound of any number of parts of the car's engine saying "Please don't do this. You really don't want to do this. I really don't want you to do this. Are you sure you want to do this? I think we're both going to regret you doing this. Oh no." Burnouts are cool. Engines blowing up are not.
Photo credit: YouTube
3.) Fast & Furious-ify It
Suggested By: AustintheBruiser
Why It's Abuse: Don't embarrass yourself or your car by doing this. It always comes out looking horrible, and you look like a fool behind the wheel. You're probably not Vin Diesel or Paul Walker. Hell, they looked like fools too. Tacky, ugly, overdone body kits do not a cool car make, young one. From the Jedi Sleeper Hot Rod Masters you must learn. Just make it fast. Not furious.
Photo credit: dotguy_az, flickr
2.) Don't Perform Scheduled Maintenance
Suggested By: The Second Spitter
Why It's Abuse: No matter how much you may despise whatever car you're stuck with, not changing its fluids and performing other scheduled maintenance tasks is just mean. You can hear it screaming out every time you turn it on or accelerate away from a stop sign. When you're on the highway and trying to pass someone and it just won't go because you haven't changed the oil in longer than you can remember, then there's a real problem! No car deserves that.
Photo credit: Schleeter
1.) Not Driving It
Suggested By: snap_understeer_ftw
Why It's Abuse: Cars were built to be driven! When you don't drive them, they get sad. And sick. Seals dry up, tires get hard & flat spot, hoses crack... It's a really unpleasant set of circumstances. And if the car is left outside, hooo boy. Faded paint, rust, dents, rotted upholstery, torn convertible tops. Basically, when you don't drive a car, you're just letting it die.
Photo credit: Brandon Christopher Warren, flickr