Don't know if it's related (though I don't see how it could be), but I had problems when installing emphatic (due to my lack of knowledge with Linux) and I ended up with 3 copies of the emphatic file (2 in the root and one in /bin if I'm remembering correctly). The 2 in the root were created (I think) because I didn't have a /usr/bin directory (whatever the default for emphatic is, I may have mis-remembered) when I ran the emphatic install. I later modified the install to put the file in the /bin directory. I'd assumed that the choice of directory wouldn't make a difference. And I didn't (and don't) know how to remove the extra copies.

As I said, I don't think this could cause this problem (espcially since it's only a problem when in the car), but since I can't say for sure, I figured I'd fess up.