Lucky Or Unlucky Motorists Feel Like They Were Hit By A Ton Of Bricks Because They Were

Watch the video below to see what happened when this
truckload of bricks tipped over on top of a car.

On March 14, in Chengdu Province, China, a truck loaded with a gigantic pile of bricks couldn't stop in time at a traffic light.

The truck swerved over the curb and initially avoided the cars stopped at the light. However, the truck tipped over.

Three of the motorists dodged the resulting avalanche of bricks but one did not. As you can see in the very scary video below, a car was totally buried beneath the bricks.

The good and miraculous news is that the two people in the car buried by the bricks were quickly pulled out and did not appear to suffer serious injuries.

But nevertheless, I'm sure they felt like they were hit by a ton of bricks.

Watch:

Video Offers Scary New Reason To Hate Rush Hour Traffic

Image from a video of a truck overturning on the Tappan Zee
Bridge in New York Friday. That black car
that looks like it is going to get squashed by the
truck wasn't hit.  

A dash cammer gave us yet another reason to hate the morning rush hour.

The motorist was commuting on New York's Tappan Zee Bridge when a tractor trailer truck carrying a lot of scrap metal tipped over next to and in front of him.

Wicked scary moment, as you'll see in the video below. Luckily, nobody got hurt. A few cars got hit by flying debris, but damage wasn't too bad. 

All lanes of the bridge were closed due to the overturned truck, metal debris all over the road and concrete barriers that were pushed out of place.

Traffic was backed up for hours.

The truck's suspension system apparently failed, causing the crash.

Here's the video:

Traffic in Ethiopian Intersection Might Be World's Scariest

You thought your morning commute was bad? Here's how cars and trucks move through an intersection in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.

No crashes in this video which is speeded up to help demonstrate the chaos. I would love to see the accident data for this traffic circle. Yikes!

It Practically Takes An Act Of Congress To Dismiss False "Camera Cop" Ticket

Laurie Roscow-Collins of Illinois has never been to San Francisco, doesn't own a semi truck and has never driven one.

Despite what San Francisco traffic enforcement
says, this Illinois woman does not own a semi-truck
and has never driven one. 

But, San Francisco traffic enforcement gave her a ticket for evading a toll on a Bay Area bridge in her non-existent semi-truck at a moment when she was nowhere near San Francisco.

The folks at the Bay Area's FasTrak traffic enforcement in San Francisco still thinks Roscow-Collins' excuse is pretty lame, and wants her to pay up. Or did until a television station intervened.

A semi-truck probably did run a toll on a San Francisco bridge. And it probably had the same license plate number as Roscow-Collins' car. But trucks have an "apportioned" label on their license plate. The Illinois woman's more modest vehicle has no such label.

You'd think a quick phone call would have cleared up the confusion, but Uh-UH!!!!

She had to turn to a local television station Fox 2 for help. The television station ended up having to contact the Illinois Attorney General, who in turn contacted California officials to convince them to watch the video of the alleged misdeed and therefore determine that Roscow-Collins had nothing to do with evading a toll.

She said it probably would have been easier just to pay the fine to make it go away and that's clearly what FasTrak had in mind. Instead of fixing the mistake they made, even a fix that takes two seconds of revised data entry, FasTrak apparently figured it would be easier just to make somebody pay, who cares who?

You just make a random person's life miserable and  complicated enough until they find it is easier to pay. Which is how Roscow-Collins got in that mess.

Also, the Fox 2 reporter said that FasTrack didn't bother to return his repeatedly calls and emails. Again, just keep victimizing some poor woman in Illinois to get your revenue. Whether she did anything wrong is besides the point.

She said she decided to fight because what if the person running the toll booths did it again. And sure enough, Roscow-Collins has received a few more tickets from that same semi-driver that is not her.

So she has to go through this mess again. Luckuly, with the glare of the media spotlight, FasTrak says it will void these new tickets and keep an eye on the situation.

It's unclear from the Fox 2 report what people should do if they are falsely accused of toll booth violations, like Roscow-Collins was.

Do they expect you to keep paying somebody else's traffic ticket?  Or just drive a semi truck through FasTrack's office?

Now, I'm awaiting my ticket for driving my rickshaw through a Seattle red light or something.

Could happen, right?

Traffic Hazard: Wet roads, Iffy Drivers, Lightning from Above

Here's quite a dashcam vid taken on a Russian highway on a rainy day not long ago.

The SUV driver ahead of the cam is going along, minding his own business, seeming to drive just fine, unlike many Russian motorists.

Then Wham!. No, it wasn't one of those crazy collisions that are staple of Russian YouTube videos. This one was meteorological, of all things. Turns out nobody got hurt, but still. Watch the cool vid:

Yes, Traffic Jams Happen Out of Thin Air

If you're anything like me, you are sometimes exasperated on a highway when there's a big traffic jam for no apparent reason.

No accidents, no ice, no construction, just a bunch of cars backing up for miles.

Today, on BoingBoing, I saw a great explanation of these jams.  If somebody hits the brakes, the effect of that acts like a shock wave from an explosion through the cars behind, making everybody brake until the cars clump up.

So listen up: Don't hit the brakes for no friggin reason why you're out on the Interstate. You'll annoy TONS of people. Including me. And you really don't want to annoy me.

Below is a video that shows how it works: Pretty fascinating, especially if you're a geek

Traffic Not Like Vermont

This isn't why I live in Vermont.

I'm spoiled in that I rarely have to sit in traffic jams, given how I live in the Green Mountain State.

Last Wednesday. Interstate 89, south
of Georgia, Vermont. Grr!

Which makes it pretty annoying that the traffic jams are cropping up here more and more often.
Last week, it was twice in two days.

On the way home from work Wednesday, things came to a complete standstill on Interstate 89 between Colchester and Georgia, Vermont

Seems there had been a car crash earlier, and although it had been cleaned up by the time I got on the Interstate, the road still jammed up. People rubbernecking at skid marks? People trying to cause new accidents just for fun? People just stopping because it's fun to stop on a major highway and make the whole world stop with you?

It was a complete mystery, but I sat still, not moving for a half hour. It was almost long enough to see a discernable change in the color of the leaves, it being fall and all.

All in all, it was a wonderful way to spend an early autumn evening. Breathing in the fumes of the cars and trucks around me, and watch the fuming of all the people around my late to wherever they were going.

Next morning, Joy! I had to take a road other than Interstate 89. This would be a breeze! I had to bring Jackson the puppy to doggie day care, which would take me along Route 7 into Milton, Vermont.

Of course, I forgot about the construction at the intersection with Lake Road, which is the route to doggie day care. They've been digging and scraping and drilling and moving earth since May, and I don't see a difference. I don't know what they're building.

The construction crews there appeared to believe that stopping all traffic to lay pipes between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. is the perfect time to do this. So there I sat in another long line of traffic.

Thursday morning. Route 7 in Milton.
Double GRRRR!!!

Traffic jams are city things. It's jarring to sit there in a line of cars amid the pleasant autumn rural scenery. Will this get worse? Will these traffic jams happen every day? Maybe I should move to somewhere quieter, with fewer cars.

Baffin Island, perhaps?