August 13, 2026

KITT Got a Speeding Ticket and a Man Hiked 10 Miles With a Pole Through His Chest

Two stories. One theme: humans are unstoppable, unbreakable, and absolutely ridiculous.

The Knight Rider Car That Got Framed by a Traffic Cam

Somewhere in Illinois, a museum curator opened the mail and found a $50 speeding ticket from New York City. Not unusual — people drive between states all the time. Except the car in question was KITT, the Knight Industries Two Thousand from Knight Rider, and it hadn't moved an inch. It was sitting on display at the Volo Museum near Chicago with a California vanity plate reading "KNIGHT."

According to the citation, a traffic camera clocked the car doing 36 mph in a 25 mph school zone on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn at 1:02 PM on some random Tuesday. But museum security footage proves the car was parked in Illinois at that exact moment. Someone in New York is driving around with a fake "KNIGHT" plate on a black Trans Am, and they're apparently using a literal TV car's identity as cover.

The Volo Museum says it's fighting the ticket. The NYPD says it's investigating. And somewhere out there, a person who looks like David Hasselhoff is cruising Brooklyn in a stolen identity car, probably listening to the Knight Rider theme on loop, completely unaware they've become the most ridiculous traffic violator of the year.

KITT would have talked his way out of this in 30 seconds. "Michael, I believe some bureaucratic confusion has occurred." The museum doesn't have that luxury.

The Man Who Became a Human Kabob and Kept Walking

And now for a story that will make every complaint you've ever had feel embarrassingly small.

David Cifaldi, 32, went hiking on Granite Peak in Montana — the state's highest mountain, because when you're going to nearly die, you might as well do it at the top. About 10 miles from the trailhead, he slipped on a rock and fell directly onto his own trekking pole. The pole speared through his torso. It went in one side and came out the other.

Most people would lay down, call 911, and wait for a helicopter. David Cifaldi looked at the metal shaft protruding from his body and made a decision that can only be described as either clinically insane or the most Montana thing ever: he stood up, kept the pole where it was, and started hiking back.

For ten miles. With a trekking pole through his chest.

His two hiking buddies flanked him the whole way, because that's what real friends do when you've been impaled — they don't call for help, they walk you out. When they finally reached the trailhead and got him to a hospital, doctors said the pole had narrowly missed vital organs. He was in stable condition. He had hiked ten miles with a metal pole through his torso and was basically fine.

Let me repeat that: he hiked ten miles with a pole through his chest and was basically fine.

The human body is a miracle of dumb luck and stubborn refusal to quit.

Two stories in one day. A car that never left its parking spot got a speeding ticket in a city 800 miles away, and a man with a hole through his chest walked 10 miles to the hospital. We live in a world where the TV car from a 1980s show has a better alibi than most actual crime suspects, and where "pole through the torso" is apparently a manageable hiking injury if you've got good friends and worse judgment.

Never change, you magnificent disasters.