Oops. Looks Like This Ferry Operator Didn't See That Wall There

The smushed up bow of a large ferry that crashed into a
wall in the Canary Islands in the past week.

Here's one way to come ashore. Or one way to have a bad day. To make it worse, it was all caught on video.

According to local media in the Canary Islands, the ferry with 140 people on board slammed into a wall recently in those Canary Island.

Luckily only minor injuries have been reported.

The captain of the ferry lost control of the ship very soon after leaving port, on his way to Tenerife because the ferry's electrical system broke down big time. You can see the video at the bottom of this post.

It looks like the pier suffered quite a bit of damage. The ferry isn't too bad off, but the bow is battered.

Here's the video. It looks like he's intentionall ramming the wall, but he's not. The ferry was just out of control.

Which Travel Woe Would You Rather Encounter

Would you rather encounter this fog on an afternoon's drive
 

Driving home from work this afternoon, I encountered dense fog and slightly slippery highways in northwestern Vermont.

It was a bit of a pain, trying to peer through the fog and making sure I wasn't going to slam into anything hidden within the murk.

I suppose that was better, though, than what travelers along I-78 in Union Township, New Jersey, encountered.

I don't have a lot of details about Union Township, but it does look pretty icky to me.

Or would this scene in Union
Township, N.J. be more to
your liking. 

So, between the two photos in this post, the dense fog near St. Albans, Vermont and the dense smoke and fire near Union Township, New Jersey, which would you pick?

I feel kind of lucky that I only had to deal with the fog in Vermont.

Lucky Or Unlucky: Woman Who Led Police On Chase Hit By Two Trains

Hard to say if this woman was extremely lucky or extremely unlucky.

Stroud's car after being hit by
two trains.  

It started when Bonnie Jean Stroud, 29, was at a party. Nobody wanted her there, so the party hosts called the police.

She left, finally, but the police chased her through parts of Woods Cross, Utah. In her rush to get away from the police, she smashed her car into the side of a train that was crossing the street she'd been speeding down.

Here's the complicating factor: There were two sets of train tracks at the crossing on this particular street.

As police tried to order her out of her car, another speeding train came along and smashed into her car, too, according to Fox 13 television news in Salt Lake City

So now she's been hit by two trains. Her Mercedes was crushed under the second train, and it took some time to get her out.

The best part? Her injuries consisted of what she thought was a broken arm. That's it.  And it turns out her arm wasn't even broken. She just had some cuts and bruises.

Stroud looking none the worse
for wear in her mug shot after
being hit by two trains.

However, Stroud's trouble's aren't over. According to the Deseret News, Stroud is charged with aggravated assault, evading police, reckless driving, driving under the influence and driving without a license.

Here's the really wild dashcam video taken by the local police department.

 

Your Morning Commute Wasn't As Bad As This Woman's

Getting to work, parking your car and doing it all safely and on time is always a drag.

You can cure this problem by thinking of people who have it worse than you.

And I have just the person for you!

It's an old video, a surveillance shots from 2012. But it shows a woman, somewhere in Eastern Europe, struggling with a parking garage. Watch the whole thing. It doesn't go well.

Hat tip to the Nothing To Do With Abroath blog for this one. Watch the vid and laugh, but please, not while driving:

Police Advice: Never Drive A Smashed Up Car With Deployed Airbags at 95 MPH While Drunk and Foaming At the Mouth

Talk about having a bad day.

Police decided to stop a guy named Alan Alt on Interstate 95 in Florida just because he was driving a smashed up car with deployed airbags while speeding at 90 mph while drunk AND while foaming at the mouth, according to the Sun Sentinal of Florida.

Alan Alt actually looking none
the worse for wear in this mug
shot after his rough night in Florida  

Some of the quotes and sentences from the Sun Sentinel article are precious. Take this one:

"I did not, wait a minute, I did drink today," a shirtless and shoeless Alan Alt told the deputy, according to the arrest report."

And this:

"He was also foaming at the mouth and throwing up, and had to be helped out of the vehicle. Alt pleaded with the deputy not to arrest him.

Um, how could the deputy not arrest you, Alan?

There are a few mysteries in this story. Exactly what did he hit with his car, and why was he foaming at the mouth? There's no evidence our buddy had rabies or anything.

Apparently, this isn't the only example of somebody driving down a road with a smashed up car.

Check out this video. I have no idea how this guy could keep this car going, but what the heck:




In any event, this is a cautionary tale for you partiers out there. It's a bad idea to smash up your car and then speed down the highway at a zillion miles per hour. Just sayin'.

Woman Stealing Gas Gets What She Deserves: Slight Injury, Much Humiliation

You don't like to see people take nasty spills, unless they deserve it. Then we love it.

So here you go:

A woman in Australia was pumping gas, and she and the guy in the car were intent on leaving without paying. A gas station attendant became suspicious and started hovering.

A still from a surveillance video of a gas theft
that went awry  

The would-be thief started getting nervous with the very attentive attendant standing nearby.

The gas pumping lady, wearing a very minimalist outfit, I must say, got what was coming, as you see in the video below.

By the way, you'll be relieved to know there was no explosion or fire after this video ends. And apparently, the thief wasn't seriously hurt.

Police in Austrialia say the license plates on the car were stolen, so they're hoping people recognize the idiotic woman and tell them who it is.

Fun With Fire, Explosions, Guns, Electricity, Water and Motorcycles!

Without further comment, I give you people you do much more poorly at weekend fun than you do.

Don't try this at home, and don't even try to feel their pain. Just enjoy the awfulness of these primo fails

Winter Is Ending, Which Is A Relief After Watching These Videos

I've come across two videos very recently that demonstrate that winter is out to kill us.

True, the people in both videos were out in the middle of nowhere, in rugged mountains, by people doing some pretty extreme, adventurous sports.

But the videos do want me to take a leisurely nap on a summer beach. (But not in the water! Stay away from the sharks!)

Happy spoiler alert: Everybody lived in the two videos you are about to see.

The first video shows some mountain climbers at someplace called Canale Holzer in Italy. It shows a big avalanche bearing down on them. I'm sure they got quite a scare:






The next video shows an ice climber who seems to have been attacked by an itty bitty chunk of ice falling off the mountain. That glorified ice cube set off a cascading set of problems.

The guy in question was wearing a GoPro camera, so we have the unfortunate ice climber's point of view as his ice climbing excursion goes seriously wrong:

Stung by 1,800 Bees, Then Jolted 13,000 Volts. So What Does This Arborist Do Next?

I remember as a kid ads for a toy and the tag line was "Weebles wobble but they don't fall down."

The best example of a human Weeble, were told by television station KVIA, via Gawker, is one Craig Benavidez, 52, a New Mexico arborist. First 1,800 bee stings, then 13,000 volts.

Talk about a guy who recovers quickly! I hope I have his recovery powers if I ever get injured.

His travails started in the summer, when he got mixed up with a next of Africanized bees. These are the "killer bees" that swarm and sting and sting and sting until you die.

Benavidez got stung 1,800 times. And managed to live.

The scene at the hospital sounds like a horror movie. Said Benavidez:

"They told me in the hospital that they were wiping them off with a credit card because they didn't want to count them anymore,” Benavidez said. “Bees were coming out of my mouth, my ears, my nose and flying around the hospital. People had to leave the hospital who were allergic to bees.”

Benavidez recovered and went back to work. Until Monday. That's when he got jolted by electricity from power lines he accidentally made contact with while he was trimming limbs from a tree.

And once again, the power of recovery: On Monday, he was listed in critical condition in the hospital. On Tuesday, he was calmly discussing the incident with a television reporter. He said he planned to go back to work Thursday, despite cuts to his hands and head and burns on his feet.

This guy has more lives than a cat.

August: Another Month of Fails.

Every month (almost, anyway) I post a video compilation of people failing, just for fun.

A pattern immediately emerges each month. Most people caught on camera doing stupid things are doing so while skateboarding, riding a bike or performing an attempted physical derring do.

 Hey guys (and it's almost always guys), don't you know that the most common last words uttered by mankind are "Hey, watch this"

 Maybe you can write me off as a coward for not ever doing strange and wild tricks on a skateboard or bike. But I'm also sitting here blissfully free of broken bones and road rash. Sometimes it pays to be a wimp, I guess.

In any event, now is the time to feel superior by watching this clip of various people almost surely much dumber than you are.