My journalistic colleagues and I are hurtling down a long, steep highway. There's no longer any resistance on the brake pedal and we realize, to our dismay, that we are unable to figure out what replaced the hand brake on this late-model vehicle. There has to be an emergency off-ramp; some media analogue to the gravel or sand-filled inclines designed to rescue runaway 18-wheelers; but for the moment there is none in sight, merely a horrifying sense of acceleration.
There's only so much mileage to be derived from any metaphor, but one more allusion. There are, among us, the adrenaline junkies, the speed freaks, for whom the thrill of the ride overwhelms all considerations of how the ride will end.