If You're Having A Bad Day, People In These Videos Had It Worse.

The remains of a Turkish mansion after an out of control ship hit
it in the Bosphorus Straight.

Sometimes, things just don't go right during a day on the job.

Lately, quite a few people have had that happen in a huge way.

A lot of what you are about to see look like at least potentially fireable offenses. So keep checking out this post every time you make a mistake at work.

It could always be worse.

First, we go to Denmark, where it was time to demolish an old silo. It was all set up. The giant silo would come down, and tilt to the right and crash into an open lot.

Bummer. The damn thing tilted to the left. Where, of course, there was a building in the way.  Part of the silo landed on a library and cultural center. While that building was badly damaged, most of the books inside were saved, even though they were covered in dust.

Watch:



Next, we go to the Bophorus Straight near Instabul, Turkey, where, unfortunatly, a ship's rudder recently failed.

Which is bad, but it got worse. The out of control vessel smacked into the Hakeimbasi Salih Efendi mansion on a recent afternoon. The opulent place was built in the 18th century and has recently been used to host weddings and concerts. The mansion appears to have been destroyed.

Not after the ship hit it. It was quite an impact, as you can see from the video below. Luckily no injuries were reported



Now we go to our nice close neighbors in Montreal, where, on an icy day in early April, the cargo hold of a truck lifted up as it sped along Highway 40. Nobody is sure why yet, but it sure led to a dramatic crash into a pedestrian bridge

The load of corn went everywhere, and a motorist nearby filmed the whole thing.

Strang truck mishaps seem to be an epidemic. A truck loaded with empty beer kegs plunged off a Pennsylvania overpass recently, spilling the kegs all over Interstate 95 and forcing a temporary closure of one of the world's busiest highways.

Then there's the famous 11 foot, eight inch bridge in North Carolina, which continues to claim the lives of many trucks which are too tall for the low overpass. Despite numerous safety measures and warnings that have been installed there over the years, trucks continue to hit the railroad bridge.

Yeah, people are stupid.

Here's the Montreal crash


Finally, this is what happens when a car stalls out on a California freeway. This video was taken a couple months back.Yikes!

I Would Have Taken The Long Way Around, But.....

Does this bridge look safe to you? 

OK. You have a great big pickup truck, you've got a couple kayaks strapped to the roof and you're towing a boat

And you have to get across a wide river in Brazil.  

Do you take the bridge this guy's going to take? It's made of some saggimg planks, supported by some iffy, thin, rusty metal work.

It IS the shortest way across the river, but, frankly, I would have taken the long way around. As the verbiage on this YouTube video indicates, I would have been afraid to walk across it.

This guy in tbe truck with boats apparently wasn't afraid.

Watch how it ends. I won't spoil it for you.

Bridge Enforces Laws Of Physics Despite Best Efforts Of Truck Drivers

One of many trucks that tried and failed
to violate teh laws of physics by going into an
underpass that's not as tall as the truck. 

There's a bridge in Durham, North Carolina that is a graveyard for stupid truck drivers, and a source of shadenfreude entertainment for the rest of us.

Cars can fit just fine getting through the underpass beneath the bridge, which is really a train trestle.

But the bottom of the bridge is 11 feet, eight inches above the roadway, meaning it's trouble for trucks. (Technically the space is 11 feet, 10 inches, but they try to give people two inches of wiggle room, just to be generous. )

There's a number of warning signs and lights alerting drivers to the low clearance ahead, but somehow,  people driving trucks, especially inexperienced people driving rental trucks, just don't get it.

There's a whole website, called 11 foot 8, dedicated to all the stupid truck drivers who tried to get under the bridge,  Proprietors of the web site have recorded no fewer than 97 trucks smashing into the bridge.

As the web site notes:

"The train trestle prominently featured in all the videos here has earned a reputation for its unrelenting enforcement of the lawes of physics. If your vehicle is taller than 11 feet, eight inches, and you challenge this bridge, you might find ootage of your experience on this website."

Somehow, this bridge or train trestle insists on adhering to the laws of physics. Go figure.

The website says trucks crash into the bridge on average once a month. At least once a day, a truck trips overhead warning lights which makes them stop in time and turn around.

They can't simply block the road from trucks, because as you can see in the video below, there's a cross street right before the bridge. There are several businesses and restaurants on that cross street that need access by delivery trucks.

As long as those delivery trucks don't go straight into the underpass, no problem.

Here's a video of a bunch of crashes at the trestle through May, 2013. There's a LOT of them. People never learn, do they?

Scary: Suspension Bridge Collapse As People Are Walking Across It; And Glass Bridge Cracks

The New Zealand suspesion foot bridge after it partly
collapsed, sending people in the gorge below  

Recently in New Zealand a group of hikers were crossing a suspension bridge over a gorge along a hiking trail.  The bridge then abruptly snapped, flinging at least three people off of it.

Amazingly, the people who plunged 28 feet down landed in the water, not the rocks, so they weren't badly hurt, says stuff.co.nz 

The hikers, one of whom was filming, said the bridge suddenly let out a loud crack, and three people were pitched over the side into the water. A fourth person clung on to a piece of the bridge and was able to hoist himself back up.

The video, which you'll see at the bottom of this post, shows the hikers calmly walking across the bridge, then the view goes off in all kinds of wild directions as they fall, then the view plunges under water. Then you see people emerge.

The glass walkway in China that
later cracked whe somebody dropped
a stainlesss steel mug on it.  

Officials in New Zealand said there was a manufacturing fault in a cable on the suspension bridge, which led to the collapse.

Before we get to that video, there was another scary bridge accident, this one in China. There's a glass bottomed walkway more than 3,500 feet above s gorge.

It would be scary enough to venture out onto the walkway to begin with. Then, somebody dropped a stainless steel mug as they walked across the bridge and part of the glass bottom shattered.

Understandably, this set off a rush of people trying to get the HELL off the walkway now if not sooner.

The People's Daily Online, via Mashable, said only one of three layers of glass broke, so nobody was in any danger. Plus the glass is designed to kind of hold together even if it does crack.

The walkway is closed, however, until repairs are made.

Here's the video of the New Zealand collapse. The slow-mo version near the end is especially terrifying:

Springsteen, Fallon Do Brilliant "Born To Run" Parody of Christie Bridge Scandal

Yes, this video has been all over the news this morning, but it's so funny I can't resist putting it in here.

Springsteen and Fallon take on Christie  

Jimmy Fallon and Bruce Springsteen got together to do a parody of the Springsteen "Born To Run" using the Chris Christie bridge scandal as a muse.

For those of you who have been living under a rock, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's administration is accused of blocking lanes to the busy George Washington Bridge as political retaliation against the mayor of Fort Lee, N.J. for not endorsing him.

It caused enormous traffic jams in Fort Lee

It's a huge deal.  And ridiculous, obviously.

So of course, we have lots of parody. Take it away, Fallon and Springsteen:

New Yorker Cover: Christie Plays In Traffic

Once again, the New Yorker magazine has nailed it again.

All those allegations are floating around that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may or may not have caused that traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge to retaliate against the mayor of For Lee, N.J.

Maybe Christie is a bully, or childish, or not.

But the New Yorker cover says it all. Enjoy!