pavement ripper
n.— «“I remember driving 1977 and 1978 police cars, and we had a couple of old 1978 Plymouths,” said Michigan State Police F/Lt. Patrick McGreevy, who became a policeman in 1980. ” We used to refer to them as pavement rippers. They were built for flat out speed, but once you braked hard, those older cars were hard to keep under control.”» —“Police cars and technology: Then and now” by Susan Younger County Press (Lapeer, Michigan) June 4, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
David from Kalamazoo, Michigan, is a former truck driver who remembers that his fellow users of CB radio tended to sound similar, no matter what part of the country they were from. Is there such a thing as an occupational accent? Many of those truck...
Katie in Kalamazoo, Michigan, wonders about the expression throw the book at, meaning to “try every means possible.” Did it originally involve literally throwing books? It’s just a metaphor in which the book refers to “the...