( CNN ) -- I drive a Saturn . It 's a 4-cylinder , the seats are cloth , and the window sills are permanently caked with dog drool . Which always works out rather well for the guys at the car wash who regularly enjoy the financial benefits of my shame . `` Sir , did something explode ? '' `` Here , just take all my money . '' But this less-than-spectacular , mid-sized SUV certainly gets the job done . So long as the job does n't call for impressing exotic , beautiful women . For that I rely on my bald head and lush , ginger beard . All this is to say that I 'm a simple man , and at the end of the day my car just needs to do one thing : Get me from Point A to Point B . And preferably without the accelerator getting dangerously stuck at 125 mph on the highway . Because that 's exactly what happened to some poor guy in France who recently had the craziest ride of his life . It was a popular trending story online that quickly made its way across the Atlantic , detailing how Frank Lecerf casually drove off from his home in Pont-de-Metz for a weekly routine trip to the supermarket . Then , suddenly , the speed control on his Renault Laguna -- which was specially modified for a disabled driver -- jammed at 60 mph . This , of course , being in Europe , was actually displayed on his dash in kilometers . However , my brain ca n't handle such a thing , as it requires both math and a basic understanding of the number 10 . Nevertheless , in a panic , the terrified 36-year-old attempted to use the brakes . But the more he tried to stop the vehicle , the faster it went , eventually topping out at 125 mph . That is a truly sensational speed that I could never expect out of my own stupid car unless it somehow managed to free-fall from the International Space Station . But Lecerf was evidently going that fast , completely out of control , with no way to stop . And before you rattle off your brilliant solutions , let 's at least give him the benefit of the doubt that he unsuccessfully attempted to turn off the ignition and/or drop it into neutral . Yet , somehow , despite miraculously keeping control of his car , Lecerf also managed to multitask and make an emergency call from his mobile phone . `` So , uh , what are you wearing ? '' Soon , several police cruisers caught up to the runaway car to escort it through traffic , and later assist with three toll plazas where they called ahead to have the gates raised . All things considered , it must have at least been nice to be king for a day . Emergency services even patched him through to an expert engineer at Renault who tried to help . `` Right . Have you tried using the brakes ? '' `` Go to hell . '' Incredibly , their only hope was for Lecerf to eventually run out of gas . And that 's where this story gets truly amazing . Because it took a while . A long while . About 125 miles and one country later , just over the French border into Belgium , his car finally sputtered dry and crashed into a ditch . Which actually seems like a rather unnecessary ending after you 've already managed to safely avoid tragedy while traversing the entire northern coast of France . `` Welp , might as well dump this thing into a hole . '' Lecerf later recounted the seemingly endless horror to the Le Courrier Picard newspaper , describing his emotions during the harrowing journey . `` My life flashed before me , '' he said . `` I just wanted it to stop . '' And so it did . Amazingly without any casualties . Though the UK 's Guardian newspaper reports that while Lecerf was n't injured , he did suffer two epileptic seizures . Not that we 're keeping score , but surely that ought to count . Regardless , everything more or less worked out in the end , and at least he never went flying off a cliff . For Lecerf adhered to the most basic rule of driving : The tires are the things on your car that make contact with the road . And sometimes , just for fun ... with a ditch in Belgium .
`` Apparently This Matters '' is CNN Tech 's weekly , offbeat look at trending topics online . It appears every Friday on CNN.com and its sister sites ( Technorati ) -- CNET News, CNN.com, CNN.com UK, CNN.com Asia Pacific, CNN.com The French driver maintained control , despite two seizures and two toll booths . He clearly should have had a 4-cylinder Saturn -- no 125 mph here .