Now I'm Afraid To Drive Under Large Interstate Highway Signs

A still from a dashcam video showing a large freeway sign
suddenly falling on a car in Melbourne, Australia. 

Those big green signs on Interstate Highways are a dime a dozen, pointing us to which exit gets us to which town, or whatever.

These signs are all over highways all over the world, including Australia. This week, on a pleasant summer day in Melbourne, Australia (it's summer down there, for those who don't know), a giant highway sign crashed down on a car taking a freeway exit.

The dashcam footage below shows the sign crushing the car. The worst damage to the car was on the right side. In Australia, like England, the driver's side is to the right.  Still, miraculously, the driver, a 53-year-old woman, was hospitalized with minor neck injuries overnight and is expected to make a full recovery.

No word yet on why the sign came down on a calm, windless day with no storms around, but now the prospect of one of these coming down is going to be just one more reason to be worried while driving down the Interstate.

Here's the video:

Dumb Professor Edition: Teacher Flunks Student Because He Says Australia Not A Country

It's true that Australia is a continent, but contradicting a
now fired New Hampshire online college professor,
Australia is a country, which any bozo knows. 

A woman named Ashley Arnold was pursuing an online sociology degree at Southern New Hampshire University.  

She definite did her homework, but her professor sure didn't.

One of her assignments was to compare a social norm in the United States with that of another country. She picked Australia and got to work, and handed in her paper on time. Excellent!

Um, no. Her professor gave her an F for the assignment. Here's why, in the words of our glorious professor. "Australia is a continent, not a country."

As BuzzFeed, which broke the story, and everybody else knows, it's both. Yes, it's a continent. And any bozo will tell you it's also a country. Arnold sent the professor an email, supplying a few references from reliable sources that tell us that indeed, Australia is a country.

This definitely nutty professor was not having it, though. This is the snippy reply from the professor:

"I will gladly re-examine your week 2 milestone project report. But before I do I want you to understand that any error in a project can invalidate the entire research project. Research is like dominoes. If you accidentally knock over one piece the entire set will also fall.

Australia is a continent; it is not a country. That error made it nearly impossible for you to accurately complete your week 2 research outline correctly. As I mentioned above, I will look over your week two paper once again and see if you earned more credits that I gave you."

In other words, the nutty professor says no dice, you messed up.

Arnold,  perplexed, told Buzzfeed: "With her education levels, her expertise, who wouldn't know Australia is a country?......If she's hesitating or questioning that, why wouldn't she just Google that herself?

Good question. But, always the trouper, Arnold conducted a very, very easy follow up research project, one that a first grader could do, but apparently the professor could not.

Online college student Ashley Arnold
insisted that Australia is a country. She's
right, but a professor gave her an F because
the professor somehow doesn't believe
Australia is a country. 

She found the official Australian government web site, and found on that site a link to "About Australia." She sent it to the professor.

One clue that Australia might be a country is the top headline on that "About Australia" web page. That headline is "Our Country."

Arnold included that link with a snippy email of her own. It read:

"Australia is both a country and a continent. It's the only country that is both. I provided a resource in in the first email that clarifies that for you. If you need further clarification Google or the SNHU Shapiro Library has that information for you. 

Again, I mean no disrespect but my grade is affected by your assumption that Australia is not a country when in fact it is. Thank you and let me know if I need to provide further resources proving Australia is a country."

The professor then relented, sort of: She replied to Arnold via email: "Thank you for this web address. After I do some independent research on the continent/country issue I will review your paper."

Arnold also filed a report with the university, because she said she doesn't want to fail because she picked a country that IS a country, and doesn't want her online classmates to be similarly screwed.

BuzzFeed contacted SNHU, which was not happy when it learned about the professor's stupidity.  "At SNHU, we hold our professors to a high standard of excellence and strive to provide high-quality degree programs for all students.......On this question, the student is right. We take this concern seriously and our academic team is working to resolve the matter."

It turns out that resolving the matter involved SNHU firing the professor, says the Manchester (New Hampshire) Union Leader. 

The professor, who has not been identified at Arnold's request, was let go, according to Lauren Keane, a spokesperson for SNHU.

"We deeply regret the interaction between our professor and our student have apologized to the student and refunded her for the class," Keane said. The class costs about $1,000

Going forward, the class will now be taught by another professor, who presumably knows basic geography and considers Australia a country.

In an added gesture, SNHU wished Australia well in the current 2018 Winter Olympics. Being an obvious country, Australia is competing there.

As for why the original professor was confused, Arnold theorized that the professor was fairly old. "When did Australia become a country? Maybe she thinks it's still part of England," Arnold wondered to Buzzfeed.

Australia became an independent country 117 years ago. The fired professor is not that old.

Oh, well.

NSFW: I Wouldn't Trust This Saint With Kids

Something is a bit wrong with
this statue's design, don't you think?

The Blackfriars Priory School in Adelaide, Australia thought it would be neato to have a statue honoring Saint Martin de Porres.

This particular saint spent a lifetime helping the poor and downtrodden in Peru during the 16th century. The statue would depict Saint Martin de Porres handing a loaf of bread to a needy child.

Sounds lovely. But judging from the rather NSFW photo, maybe the school should have reviewed the statue's design before installing it.

Because of the obvious mockery, the school has covered up the statue and have not decided what to do with it.

My suggestion is to give it to embattled Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, who is accused of having sexual relations in the past with people as young as 14 years old.

Moore was famously kicked off the Alabama Supreme Court twice when he was a judge.  Once for refusing to get rid of a statute of the 10 Commandments.

However, I wonder if maybe this statute is more towards Moore's taste.

Just A Typical Australian Fist Fight

A very Australian fist fight.

Things are always a little different in Australia, including fist fights and brawls.

When an unpleasant opponent tried to hurt his dog, a big, burly Australian dude was quick to defend his beloved Fido.

Watch the fist fight ensue. It's definitely Australian:

Shark Feeding Frenzy View From A Drone: Glad I Wasn't in Water!

In a view from a drone, sharks devour the carcass
of a humpback whale as tourist watch from small boats.  

When sharks are hungry, watch out!

Nothing can demonstrate that more than drone footage taken last week of 70 tiger sharks involved in a feeding frenzy on a dead whale in Shark Bay, Australia.

According to CNET, the sharks were tearing apart the carcass of a humpback whale as tourists in small boats watched the action.

It was filmed by Eco Abrolhos cruises, which had the tourists out in the water.

Eco Abrolos notes that the sharks were so close that people on the boats could reach out and touch the sharks, but that probably wasn't a good idea. Tiger sharks eat people, too.

Cruise operator Joe Cox said the sharks "were very docile and very well fed, we counted around 70 tiger sharks of all shapes and sizes."

Yeah, I bet those sharks were really well fed. '

Watch the video below, unless you are squeamish about blood flowing into otherwise pretty tropical turquoise water:

Australian River Bursts Into Flames

A river ablaze in Australia due to methane seeps. Some blame
nearby fracking operations, while others say this
is naturally occuring.  

I thought rivers that caught fire were a legacy of intense 1960s and 1970s pollution. Remember the Cuyahoga River in Ohio burning way back in the late 1960s.

It turns out, a river was just set on fire in Australia.

Last month, an Australian MP named Jeremy Buckingham went up the Condamine River in Queensland, came up to a area where methane was bubbling up, and set the river ablaze.

The video is at the bottom of this post.

Buckingham, a member of the Green Party, blamed the seeping methane and the fact he was able to set the river on fire on fracking nearby.

CBC News reports Buckingham said a nearby coal gas seam, or CGS, operation is to blame. In the video, he says, "This area has been drilled with thousands of CSG wells and fracked. This river for kilimeters is bubblilng with gas and now it's on fire."

Buckingham and the Green Party are trying to ban fracking in Australia.

CBC says there have been reports of methane seeps in the Condamine River since 2012

A scientific analysis firm said there could be a number of reasons for the methane bubbling. It could be the fracking or other similar activities, or it could be caused by drought and the recharging of acqufers after floods.

Coals is near the earth's surface in the area, so it's easy for gases to rise to the surface from the coal seams.

For its part the local coal and fracking companies say that they are not to blame, that naturally occuring gas seeps occur and can be lit on fire, but they pose no threat to the public.

In any event, burning rivers are probably not a good thing.

Here's the video:

Cop Who Adopted Baby Kangaroo Is My New Favorite Person

Scott Mason's t-shirt serves as a makeshift pouch
for Cuejo, the baby kangaroo 

When a baby kangaroo was orphaned recently in western Australia, Constable Scott Mason stepped right up to the plate.

The baby kangaroo, now named Cuejo after the town of Cue, was found in its dead mother's pouch after accidentally being killed by a truck,

Cuejo now hangs out with Mason, following him around and crawling into his t-shirt, which serves as a makeshift pouch.  

The video of this has gone viral, and I thought I'd share it with you.

By the way, Mason is particularly busy with child rearing these days. In addition to his responsibilities with Cuejo, his wife recently gave birth to the couple's first child, says The Telegraph. UK

I wish the Masons and Cuejo all the best.

Here's the awesome video:

Possible Record Loudest Burp In Australia

Neville Sharp of Humpty Doo, Australia belching his
way to a possible world record loudest belch. A 

Whether you admit it or not, we all want to make our mark on the world. We all want to do something that everybody will remember for eons into the future.

Neville Sharp of Humpty Doo, Australia did just that. At least we think.

No, its not because he lives in a town called Humpty Doo, which really is a great accomplishment.

Sharp's claim to fame is that he just might have released the loudest belch on record by a human.

According to the blog Nothing To Do With Arbroath, Sharp belched into a decibel reader at Charles Darwin University's sound room and it registered at 110.6 decibels.

If verified by the Guinness Book of World Records, Sharp's belch would beat the record of 109.9 decibels.

Purdue University says 110 decibels is as loud as hearing a car horn from about 3.2 feet away and is the about at the average human pain threshhold.

Sharp accomplished the belch by drinking a combination of water and Coca-Cola first.

Sharp (what an appropriate last name!) said setting the record for the loudest belch has always been a personal goal of his. He first learned to belch as a child when his sister taught him to gulp air, Nothing To Do With Arbroath reported. 

Sharp will need to formally apply to the Guinness Book Of World Records to claim the title. In what is a total scandal, Sharp is unlikely to make money from his feat because apparently and incredibly, there's not an intense world wide audience for loud belches.

If you want proof of Sharp's feat, here's a video of the moment:

Bus Crashes Into Bridge, So First Priority Is PR Damage Control

Somebody covers up the logo on a bus that crashed
in Australia in a futile attempt to avoid bad
publicity The coverup just made the PR disaster worse. 

Driver error is the cause of a recent Australian bus crash that injured several passengers, at least three of them pretty seriously.

However, the bus company's reputation might be grieviously injured due to a variation of the "Streisand Effect" that took place in the immediate aftermath in the crash.

The Streisand Effect refers to efforts to suppress some information that backfires. Sometimes, if you try to suppress information you want to keep hidden, that information then becomes more widely distributed

The name comes from singer Barbra Streisand's 2003 effort to suppress an online photographic record of homes along the California coastline, which included hers. 

She sued to erase that online record, and the publicity resulting from that lawsuit made lots of people look up her house online. If she hadn't filed the suit, probably nobody would have given a damn about her stupid coastal California house.

In the case of the Australian bus crash, as rescuers arrived on the scene to rescue 15 injured passengers trapped under bus seats in the aftermath of the crash and local media arrived to record the event, somebody from the bus company, which is called Gold Bus Ballaret, arrived.

(Note, you can see security camera footage of the bus crash at the bottom of this post.)

That bus company representative from Gold Bus Ballaret was there not to help with the injured passengers or otherwise offer assistance, but to cover up the name of the bus company logo on the wrecked bus, so as not to provide fodder for bad publicity.

According to the Herald Sun of Melbourne: 

"'That's standard protocol whenever there is a vehicle involved in a accident,' said Gold Bus Ballarat director Matthew Baird. 'Notwithstanding the severity of the situation we're out to protect our brand and tom make sure that we don't tarnish our brand with a vehicle that is obviously in quite bad disrepair. It doesn't mean any disrespect.'

Yeah, well the spectacle of some guy trying to cover up the logo on a bus wrecked by what appears to be an incompetent or inattentive driver tarnishes your brand doesn't it?

Investigators did say driver error was to blame, and other motorists apparently tried to stop the bus, knowing it would never fit beneath the overpass, but it continued anyway.

Nobody beyond the local area in Australia probably would have ever known this bus wreck ever happened, but now the world does.

Streisand Effect, Mr. Baird. Look it up

Woman Crashes Her Own Funeral; Husband Ordered Her Death Not Pleased

Balenga Kalala and Noela Rukundo on their wedding day.
Kalala later plotted to kill his wife. Read on to
see how it went. 

One day last year, Noela Rukundo of Melbourne, Australia departed for Burundi, Africa to attend the funeral of her stepmother, who she loved dearly.

After the funeral, she was in her hotel room when her husband, Balenga Kalala called. Kalala told his wife she must have had a trying day with the funeral, and the African heat that was surely stifling her hotel room.

He suggested she go outside for a breath of fresh air. Rukundo, assuming her husband was being kind and loving, took him up on her suggestion.

Thus begins an incredible yard as told by the BBC about a woman who gets a terrible surprise, and a husband that gets an even bigger surprise. A very karmic one.

When Rukundo got outside the hotel, she was confronted by a man pointing a gun at her. He kidnapped Rokundo  by stuffing her into a car and driving away.

After more than a half hour of driving the car stopped. She was led into a room and tied to a chair.

"One of the kidnappers told his friend, 'Go call the boss.' I can hear doors open but I didn't know if their boss was in a room or if he came from outside," Rokundo told the BBC. 

The kidnappers asked Rokundo "What did you do to this man,' referring to a man that ordered Rokundo's kidnapping and impending murder.   Then the gang's leader called the person who had ordered the gang to kill Rokundo.

The man who answered was Rokundo's husband. He had ordered the murder. Her husband's voice on the other end of the phone said, "Kill her."

Rokundo had met her husband in Australia. He was a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, from which he fled after rebels killed his wife and young son.

Rokundo and Kalala fell in love. She had five children from a previous relationship. The pair had three more. "I give him, beautiful and handsome, two boys and one girl. So I don't know why he choose to kill me."

It turns out the killers had some scruples, though. They made it a rule not to kill women and children. The gang extorted more money from Kalala, saying the price of the murder was up by 3,400 Australian dollars.

The gang told Rokundo to leave Burundi right away, because if her husband found out she was alive, he'd hire another gang to kill her.

The gang gave Rokundo a memory card containing recorded phone conversations between them and Kalala discussing the murder and receipts for Western Union money transfers

Says the BBC:

"''We just want you to go back to tell other stupid women like you what happened,' the gang told Noela as they parted. 'You must learn something: you people get a chance to go overseas for a better life. But the money you are earning, the money the government give to you, you use it for killing each other!'"

By the time Rukundo returned to Australia, Kalala had told everyone his wife had died in a tragic accident while in Burundi.

As the last of a group of mourners left their house, Rukundo showed up.

"I just stood looking at him. He was scared, he didn't believe it. Then he starts walking towards me, slowly, like he was walking on broken glass. 

"When I get out of the car, he saw me straight away. He put his hands on his head and said, 'Is it my eyes? Is it a ghost?'"

 Kalala then screamed "I'm sorry for everything!!"

Too late.

A few days later, Australian police told Rukundo to call Kalala, who offered a full confession to her over the phone. Police were recording it.

Kalala was sentenced to nine years in prison.

He offered a couple of vague motives. Maybe Rukundo was seeing another man. (she wasn't)

Alternatively, "sometimes the devil can come into someone to do something but after they do it, they start thinking, 'Why I did that thing.'"

Why indeed.

The worst part of this story is the Melbourne African community is largely ostracizing Rukundo. In some socieites, especially religious or conservative ones, it's always the woman's fault, apparently.

Still she's alive, and her now ex husband is in  jail.

Use this story as a cautionary tale in the unlikely event you ever want to "get rid" of a spouse

It's you that might be gotten rid of.

Australian National Anthem Runs Into A Few Hiccups

Hiccups aren't going to stop this pre-game performance. 

Check out this video of a seven year old boy singing the Australian National Anthem just before a recent Australian Baseball League game recently.

There were some ill-timed hiccups, but Ethan Hall soldiered on, and the rendition of "Advance Australian Fair" is priceless.

Enjoy!

This Woman's Revenge On Cheating Boyfriend Makes ME Hurt

A woman in Australia burned her cheating
boyfriend's penis with a hair straightener.  

A sad reality in life is that sometimes, when one partner cheats on another, things get ugly. And I mean uglier than the fight and breakup you'd expect in such a situation.

So it was in Australia, where a woman caused third degree burns on each side of a man's penis with a hair straightener because she was mad she cheated on him.

Oh, OUCH.

I'm not laughing, really, because this is a serious assault. Doctors said he needs two years of treatment to heal, and even then he will be scarred and his penis won't function properly.

The woman, Bronwyn Joy Parker, only received a suspended jail sentence.

Be forewarned. Do not go to Australia and date this woman. Especially if you're the cheating kind.

Helping Hands: People Made Burn Treatment Mittens For Koalas Injured In Australian Fires

A koala bear with burned paws receiving
treatment with one of the special mittens
voluteers made for them. Image from
the International Fund for Animal Welfare.  

One of the saddest consequences of wildfires that recently burned through parts of Australia is that the flames consumed some of the habitat occupied by koala bears.

Many of the bears died in the fires. Others suffered burns, especially as they clung to hot trees or tried to escape the fires by running across flaming grassland.

Officials retrieved many of the injured koalas and brought them to wildlife rescue centers where workers are treating the koala bears burned paws.

A special call went out, and people responded: Wildlife rescuers released an easy to follow pattern where people could use cotton sheets or tea towels to make special mittens for the koalas.

Veterinarians have to change the koala bear's dressings daily to treat the burns, and between the treatments, they put on those specialized mittens to protect the koalas' injured paws.

The step-by-step instructions were simple enough so that even the biggest klutz at the sewing machine could make them.

So many people responded to the call to make the mittens that a new alert had to go out: Stop, for now. We have enough mittens.

In a Facebook post labeled "Mitten Accomplished," the International Fund for Animal Welfare thanked everyone for their outpouring of support. Because of that, there's a more than adequate supply of koala mittens.

"Our amazing supporters were more than koalified for the job," the animal welfare group said.

Let's hope the surviving koalas have a smooth and full recovery. And no more bush fires, please.




 And our amazing supporters were more than koalified for the job.

Taking The Morning Train To A Dance Party

The guy in the bow tie knows how to start a party. 

Commuter trains can be fairly grim places and people expressionlessly wait to arrive at their destinations, or bury their noses in their smart phones, just waiting for the trip to end.

A guy named Peter Sharp in Perth, Australia would have none of it. So he dressed up in a tux, and with a powerfully friendly demeanor, managed to start a dance party.

Looks pretty fun. I hope this guy is on my flight to Washington DC later this week.

Watch (but you might have to click on the underlined "Watch on YouTube" to actually see it:)

Advertising To Offend As Many People As Possible? Misogyny Amok In Australia

There's an Australian camping company called Wicked Campervan that has a, uh, unique way of promoting itself.

One of the, er, "artistic" Wicked Campervan
messages that are offending people in
Australia and worldwide.  

Just offend as many people as possible.

So, scrawled on some of their camper vans are charming little messages like "A wife: An attachment you screw on the bed to get the housework done."

Charming, no?

How about this one, quoted exactly how they have it on their vans: "It's better 2 be black than gay cos U don't have 2 tell your parents."

According to a July 14 report on Australia's ABC News, people are understandably not happy with Wicked Campervan:

"By Sunday afternoon, more than 12,000 people had signed a Change.org petition called on Brisbane-based Wicked Campers to remove slogans labeled as degrading to women.

"People are also bombarding the company's Facebook page complaining about the slogans."

Advertising 101 dictates that you find unique, provocative ways to call attention to your business. since Wicked Campers' market is mostly young backpackers, you want to be a bit edgy.

But really. Who in their right mind would want to even be seen in a camper with any of these messages. I'd die of embarrassment if I was in one of those things.

It makes you wonder how much the people who run this wacko company hate women, blacks, gays, whoever is not Just. Like. Them.

Also, is offending much of your market base that great a strategy for your company's success?

I guess there is somewhat of a market for this weirdness, though. Wicked Campers has been the subject of complaints over its slogans for at least the past six years, ABC says.

So far, nobody from Wicked Campers has responsed to media requests for comment.

The shit storm over this is still building, though. They'll probably  have to comment at some point. It will be interesting to hear what they have to say.

The company president will probably say the controversy is all the fault of those stupid women who should feel honored to be insulted.

Or something like that.

World's Worst Young Woman Super Mad At Cyclist She Hit Because She Was Texting While Driving

I nominate Kimberley Davis, 21, of Australia as the worst young woman on the planet.

This church sign is a fitting illustration
for this post, but I don't think Kimberley Davis
is good enough to meet Jesus.  

I say this because she was texting with seven different phone numbers as she drove through a small town in western Australia.

She hit and seriously injured a cyclist, local police said, according to the Australian newspaper The Standard.

The lovely Kimberley's reaction was as follows:  "I just don't care because I've already been through a lot of bullshit and my car is like pretty expensive and now I have to fix it."

She continued: "I'm kind of pissed off that the cyclist has hit the side of my car. I don't agree that people and texting could hit a cyclist."

Police said Kimberley was "nice" enough to call emergency responders to the accident scene, but refused to help the injured cyclist and left him lying on the side of the road.

A judge fined our um, fine young woman $4,500 and took her driver's license away for nine months.

The cyclist suffered a broken spine and other injuries. There were fears he'd be left a paraplegic, but he is recovering and is walking.

As for Kimberley, the most fitting punishment would have been to ban her from ever again touching a smart phone. She's too dumb for one.

No Shark Bites: Emergency Surgery Frees Shark From Certain Death

There's an endangered aquatic animal, the grey nurse shark that mostly lives around the coast of Australia.

This poor shark along the coast of Australia had a cord
wrapped around it like a noose, which was going to
kill it. Watch what some humans did about this. 

As sharks go, this type isn't really the most likely to chomp a surfer's leg off, but you still want to be careful. Which makes the video in this post all the more interesting to watch.

The danger brought up a dilemna recently when one of the endangered grey nurse shark's was found with an elastic cord that somehow got wrapped around it like a noose. If that cord didn't come off, the shark would die a slow, painful death.

Not wanting THAT to happen, a team of divers and a veterinarian from Sea Life Museum went to work.

The divers went underwater and coaxed the shark into what was essentially a giant, clear sock, which they used to bring her to the surface. They put her on a stretcher, and brought the shark to the surface where the veterinarian was waiting with a pair of scissors.

The vet cut the elastic off and made sure the shark had no additional injuries. The vet grabbed a syringe, injected the shark with an antiobiotic, and the patient was then free to go.

So congratulations to the divers and the veterinarian for a job well done!

Here's the video from 7News in Australia of how the whole thing went. It's fascinating:

Such Creative Ways To Rob Stores! Chainsaws and Flower Pots

I can NEVER get over the creativity of those people who like to rob stores for fun and profits. (Or maybe cigarettes, beer and lottery tickets)

Our flower pot wearing buddy trying
to rob an Australian convenience store
with a chainsaw. n

A perfect example of this takes to Australia recently, when a young guy wearing a flower pot on his head maybe inspired by the band Devo, tried to rob a store while holding onto a running chainsaw.

Alas, as is often the case in these robberies, our suspect, Steven Frank Steele, didn't get away with much, and was arrested to boot, according to Australian authorities, according to the Queensland Times.

He did manage to get away with a bottle of soda, was able to moon the terrified store clerks, and damage a window and some display shelves, so there is that.

Police said the chainsaw was stolen, too. Oh well.

And that flower pot looked pretty cheap, don't you think? Dude, you want to go for quality. Don't the garden centers in Australia have anything nice in ceramic or terra cota?

Last we checked, Steele was being held until his next court appearance. And he apparently no longer has a chain saw with him.

All It Takes For This Kid To Show His Talent Is Some Five Gallon Plastic Buckets

Another random video, this one showing a kid named "Gordo" in Sydney, Australia, who surrounded himself with some empty five gallon pails and started drumming away.

A LOT better than you'd expect. Watch and find out:

Truck Driver Has REALLY Bad Day: Wrecks Truck, Wrecks Tunnel, Snarls Traffic, Gets Hated On

Having a bad day at work?

Sydney Australia truck in the midst
of the stupid, nasty tunnel crash its
driver caused.  

Not as bad as a truck driver in Sydney, Australia, who, while driving inside a major freeway tunnel, dropped his glasses and accidentally set up the tipper mechanism for the bed of the vehicle.

Up it went, hitting the ceiling of the tunnel as he drove along, causing extensive damage to the tunnel, wrecking the truck and causing miles long rush hour traffic jams the likes of which Sydney has not seen in a long, long time.

See the video at the bottom of this post. Cringe!

It probably didn't help that the truck driver's boss, Eric Flammia, had his cell phone number prominently displayed on the side of the truck.

Since the Sydney media were all over this crash, the phone number was seen far and wide, and Flammia spent the day taking irate and abusive calls from people who got stuck in the huge traffic jam the truc accident caused, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

The truck driver, and nobody else for that matter, was hurt, but there's no word yet on whether the truck driver still has a job.