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!

Skittles And Marbles Mystify Road Warriors

Some of the tens of thousands of Skittles spilled along
a rural Wisconsin road recently.

The road hazards people are encountering on the highway now seem to include Skittles and marbles

According to CNN affiliate WISN, a whole bunch of red Skittles were found along a Wisconsin .

Nobody is 100 percent sure who dumped them, or how it happened, but thousands of red Skittles. (missing the little "S" on each candy) appeared on a rural road in Dodge County, Wisconsin. 

The local sheriff said the Skittle spill was actually a bit helpful, because roads were icy and the Skittles afforded motorists with a bit of traction.

It turns out rejected candy, like the Skittles lacking the trademark "S" are often fed to cattle

This has been going on for decades, as candy makers and bakeries often sell rejects for cattle feed because it's a source of inexpensive carbs for the animals.

Animals like cows can digest Skittles and other candies easily, and can absorb what little nutrients the offer.

The local sheriff in Wisconsin later figured out that the Skittles fell off a flatbed pickup truck. It was raining as the pickup truck driver made his way down the road. The water disintegrated the cardboard box the Skittles were in, and so they fell off onto the road.

The mystery is that Mars, the maker of Skittles, says they don't sell rejected products directly to farmers, so they don't know how this ended up in Wisconsin.

Ah, the mysteries of life. 

Meanwhile, near Indianapolis, a truck carrying marbles overturned, spreading 38,000 pounds of the marbles on the road and roadside.

Yeah, insert slapstick comedy of cops, etc. trying to walk on marbles and failing miserably here.

As it was, one lane of an Interstate highway had to be shut down while people cleaned up the mess, undoubtedly while walking carefully. 

I Hope You Got Hurt, Jerk Who Caused Winter Highway Crash.

I wasn't in this mess, but if you caused a winter vehicle crash like this or made it
worse, just know that I and everybody else hates you. 

To the person who caused a highway crash today on an icy winter highway:

I hate you. Intensely. Hundreds of other people really really hate you, too. Those hundreds of people who hate you were the ones caught in the traffic jam on the way to work this morning.

Because you are a stupid, selfish jerk who crashed into other cars, because you're stupid and selfish.

It's winter, so the roads tend to get icy. Especially after it snows and the temperature plunges to around zero.

To most people, I"m being Captain Obvious when I say that, but not you. Because you're oblivious. You are too trying to break land speed records, texting gossip to your boyfriend or girlfriend, swerving all over the place until you cause a crash.

My ire, of course, is not directed toward the unfortunate people who were driving cars that you smashed into. It's directed toward you.

I hope nobody got hurt. Except you. I hope you got hurt. Not hurt in a permanently debilitating way. Just hurt so you feel physical pain for the next few days. You deserve it.

Did you cause this crash because you subconsciously enjoy the attention? I know, I know. You didn't hop into your trash of a car or a pickup truck this morning and say, "I'm going to cause a big crash."

However, you have a sad, pathetic life and nobody pays attention to you, so maybe this is the way to get noticed? People will notice you now, when you drive like a maniac and crash into about five cars on the Interstate, right?

You caused the crash because you don't give a damn. You figure it's not your problem that you wrecked somebody else's car. Maybe injured them. Caused a five mile long backup that made lots of people late for work and school. Maybe made them lose some pay. Get chewed out by the boss. Miss an important final exam at the university.

You figure it's not your fault that police, fire and rescue personnel had to go out in this awful weather, perhaps risking their lives, to deal with morons like you who caused this crash.

Because it's never your fault, is it? Yeah, we shouldn't be on the road when you want to drive and text, drive and drink, drive and speed on ice, drive and do donuts on the middle of the Interstate. We should just let you have your fun and get out of the way, right?

Why were the rest of us driving so slowly, you ask.  So slowly you were forced to drive with your car's front bumper an inch from the rear bumper of the car in front of you, instead of backing off a bit.  You just had to crash into that car when he braked to avoid the snow plow, right.

Doesn't everybody understand they MUST drive dangerously fast, just to accommodate you? Doesn't everybody realize you're the most important person in the world?

You probably figure we are all in the way, that we shouldn't have been there when you spun your car out of control on the ice.

Now that you caused this winter highway crash, deep down you're loving it, aren't you? You're the center of attention. People are paying attention to you. It's negative attention, but hey, it's attention.

For once in your life, nobody is ignoring you. Feels good, doesn't it?

Again, I hope you got injured in the crash, just to take the shine off your moment of glory.

Now you can play the victim. Isn't that wonderful? You can blame the crash on someone else, when you tell all your friends about your adventure. How the other motorists didn't get out of your way. How the state DOT didn't clear the ice off the road.

Because, after all, to your mind, even if its 10 degrees with snow and freezing rain falling heavily, the DOT trucks are supposed to magically make the roads dry with not a speck of ice, right?

The DOT failed, in your mind. So you drove for the conditions you wish the roads were in, instead of the condition they actually were in.

Frustratingly for us, there are really no consequences to you for your driving this way in the winter. Sure, if the cops are in a particularly bad mood, they might write you a ticket. If you're especially unlucky, your insurance rates might go up a bit. You have to get your car repaired or replaced. Oh, boo-hoo.

But you're get off scot-free in terms of fixing the other cars you wrecked.   Making up for lost wages for people who weren't working, but stuck in the traffic jam you created on this snowy highway. Are you going to pay us for the time we need to deal with insurance, bring our cars into repairs, get caught up at work?

No. Because you don't give a damn. Life is all but you, isn't it?

Look, all of us make mistakes, and any one of us might absentmindedly cause a crash. But more likely, it's you, habitually texting, drinking, speeding and driving like you need to get to your destination within a millisecond that's causing this problem.

You caused the crash this morning, and you will cause other ones in the future as well, I'm sure.

I wish the cops would jail people who cause these crashes. I wish the courts would somehow make you pay off all the people you hurt or inconvenienced. Revoke your drivers liscence permanently.  Maybe put your name and picture on the Internet so you could be publicly shamed.

None of us know you, but as I said, we all hate you. I hope you somehow feel the hate rays.

Need an aspirin for your sore neck, asshole? Sorry, I took the last one for the headache you gave me.

Would it help if I tried to strangle you.? I won't. But many people want to.

To get an idea of how many stupid winter drivers there are out there, get a load of this Wisconsin DOT traffic cam on a snowy highway. Most people are driving carefully enough, but all it takes is maybe 10 percent of the motorists driving like maniacs to create ever worsening chaos:

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?

Lots Of Vehicle Traffic Inside This Indiana Home

Given the speed demons that race up and down the road in front of my house in St. Albans, Vermont, I'm glad the house is set far back from the road, with a ravine between the yard and the road.

The inside of an Indiana house after it was hit by
a car on Sunday, the 11th time in 30 years it's happened.  

At least nobody is going to drive through my house. Probably.

The same can't be said for a house in Indiana, which has been struck by cars 11 times in the past 30 years.

The most recent crash came when the occupants were minding their own business, trying to watch a football game on TV.

It seems there's a set of railroad tracks nearby. A train starts to come, and rather than sit and wait for the train, motorists zoom over the crossing.

Problem is, once they get past the tracks they become pretty much airborne, can't stop and hit the house.

The people living there say they don't want to move. They have been lobbying the city hard for a stop sign that migh encourage people to slow down. But I'm not optimistic. People who want to beat a train are not going to be stymied by a stop sign.

So, the poor unfortunate house will probably continue to be almost as busy as the Long Island Expressway at rush hour.

Moron Of The Week Hits At Least Four Cars With Stolen SUV, Thinks He Can Get Away

Today we get from Chicago the less-than-heartwarming video of a guy driving a stolen black SUV who has just hit a taxi.

The black SUV hits a cab, on its way to
hitting several other cars as guy driving
stolen vehicle acts like a moron.  

The cabbie tries to stop the driver, even trying to bust out the passenger side window. The SUV driver decides to make a daring getaway!

Instead, he crashes into at least four cars. He does get away momentarily, but the reports are the cops naturally caught up with the loser. He faces multiple charges.  

So far they have not identified the jerk in the SUV.

The cab driver faces some discipline from his boss, but won't be fired. You're not supposed to confront morons like the SUV driver, says the boss. The cab driver is out of work for a week, too, while is cab is being fixed.

Here's the sad, sad video.  

Russian Truck Driver's Wild Windshield Escape

Here in Vermont, we had two tragic car crashes over the past day or so in which the young drivers, neither wearing seat belts, and both apparently speeding, died as a result of the collisions.

No doubt seat belts save lives. I would have been killed in a crash with a tractor trailer a dozen years ago had I not been wearing a seat belt. So buckle up!

I'm reluctant to post the video, below, that's been rattling around the blogs today, because I don't want to be seen as making light of the two Vermont deaths.

But the dash cam video of a nasty truck collision in Russia does show a very lucky guy who was not wearing a seat belt. He's definitely an exception to the rule, but I guess it wasn't this guy's time. Watch:

Driving In Russia is Fun! Really!

It seems everybody has a dashcam in their car in Russia.

They're a necessarily appliance because people need added proof of their crashes, apparently. The cops and the insurance companies are less than, shall we say, completely on the up and up. So they resort to dashcams so they have the evidence they need.

The side effect of all these dash cams are a plethora of YouTube videos showing wild car crashes. Apparently, Russian drivers aren't the most skilled in the world. And there does seem to be a bit of a road rage problem, given the fist fights on the highways that seem to outnumber the cars.

Somebody made a compilation of these wonderful scenes for you and me to enjoy. So enjoy!