Showing posts with label Accidents. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Accidents. Show all posts

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Jump Fail: Can You Guess What Happens Next?


Here’s one jump that won’t buff out. For reasons beyond logic, the driver of a fairly new Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck decided to impress his buddies (and his….insurer) at a meet on the sand dunes of Silver Lake in Michigan, USA, by performing a high-speed jump stunt. The laws of physics pretty much explain what happens next.

If you're still wondering, follow the jump to watch the video and leave your comments below.

Read more »

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Hail Fail: BMW 5-Series Owner Tries to Save His Car by Dressing it Up…


Unless you are able drive into to an enclosed garage nearby, there’s not really much you can do to protect your car -or anything else in danger for that matter- if you are caught out in a severe hail storm. However, this doesn’t mean that some people won’t try to prevent the inevitable like this owner of a previous generation BMW 5-Series sedan.

Said to be a Croatian tourist on a visit to Slovenia, the owner of the Bimmer attempted to save the body of his beloved car by covering it up with whatever he could find. In this case, the only available items were some clothes he had in a plastic bag. Somehow, it doesn't seem like such a great idea... Watch the clip right after the break.

Read more »

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

VIDEO: Giant Pothole on Bridge Swallows Lorry in China


We have all encountered them, but as with anything else in this life, there are potholes and there are potholes. The one that opened in the city of Changchun, which is the capital of China's Jilin province, is what you would call a supersized pothole, and to make matters worse, it occurred on a road bridge as a large lorry was passing over it.

The giant hole, which reportedly measured close to 50 feet long (about 15 meters) and 16-feet wide (around 15 meters), literally swallowed the commercial truck which then plunged down to the river. Chinese media reported that there were two men inside the lorry and that both were injured. Hit the jump for a video report of the incident.

Read more »

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Big Brother is Watching, Well, All of us: U.S. DoT Seeks to Make Event Data Recorders Mandatory


Australian inventor and all-round genius Dr David Warren is widely considered to be the father of the “black box” Flight Data Recorder (FDR). His invention helped make flying safer by giving investigators valuable insights into the mechanical goings-on of a crashed aircraft. What may surprise you is that for the last twenty years similar devices have been installed in our cars.

Event Data Recorders (EDRs) are the automotive equivalent of an aircraft’s FDR. These devices record acceleration and deceleration forces, engine RPM, temperature, oil pressure and a host of other things. After a crash, the information can be recovered and studied, aiding investigators.

Read more »

Monday, May 30, 2011

FAIL: Ferrari 599 GTO in Reverse hits a Pole


Bumping into or even just scraping against an object while pulling you car out of a parking space has probably happened to everyone at least once or twice. However, you would expect an owner of a spanking new Ferrari 599 GTO worth north of €260,000 or close to $400,000 to be far more careful that usual when attempting to reverse out of a parking space. Apparently, being careful was not in the nature of the owner of this blacked out 599 GTO in Cologne, Germany. Video follows after the break. Read more »

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Pakistan’s Hell Road is Not for the Faint Hearted [Video]


Pakistan’s 240 kilometre (149 mile) Lowari Pass is the only supply route between the town of Dir and the small villages in the mountainous Chitral Valley. It is here on the Afghan border in the country’s northwest that truckers risk their lives for a paltry US$60 (Pakistan’s average wage) and a bonus of US$180...if they make it back alive and with their precious cargo unharmed.

The trucks are old, some nearing the one million-kilometer mark (620,000 mile) on the odometer, with avalanches, landslides and falling rocks marking the four-day journey. The roads are worn and there are no crash barriers; there is not even enough room for two trucks to pass side by side. The highest point is 3,100 metres (10,170 feet) above sea level where the air is so thin it is difficult to stay awake or even move. Brakes overheat on the descent and without them death is a long drop to oblivion.

Read more »

New On-The-Spot Fines to Target Britain’s Persistently Reckless Drivers


The UK Department of Transport (DoT) intends to crack down on reckless drivers by granting its police force the power to issue on-the-spot fines for acts such as tailgating, undertaking (bad pun alert) and, “cutting up” other road users. These penalties will range from £80 to £100 (US$130 to US$162) and also apply to those caught using mobile phones.

It’s all part of a crackdown on what UK Transport Secretary Philip Hammond deems, “persistently dangerous drivers,” and will also encompass drunk and drug-affected road users as well.

Read more »

Airbag Fail, But Not the Way You Might Think….


It is full of air, it reacts in a fraction of a second and has saved thousands of lives over the years. We’re talking about the automotive airbag, the invention of which is credited to an American industrial engineer and member of the U.S. Navy, John W. Hetrick, who patented the original system in the beginning of the 1950s. As is often the case with innovative designs and ideas, the importance of the airbag in safety was neglected at first and it took several more decades for automakers to accept and incorporate it into mainstream vehicles.

But along with automakers, came some not so bright individuals who found a new use for the car airbag which doesn’t involve safety but the exact opposite. Joining a long line of bored but dim-witted folks who pass their time playing around with airbags is this man. You can enjoy his encounter with the safety cushion and see what happens next in the video after the break.

Read more »

Monday, May 23, 2011

President Obama’s Cadillac gets Trapped on a Ramp in Ireland


The heavily armored Cadillac that U.S. President Obama relies on for short-distance travel caused an embarrassing moment during his trip in Dublin, Ireland, today when it got jammed on a ramp after exiting the U.S. Embassy's complex. The first cars from the presidential motorcade passed without problems through the gates of the Embassy, but a BMW 7-Series preceding the Cadillac slightly touched the asphalt.

The Presidential Cadillac, nicknamed ‘The Beast’, came next and hit the ground much harder and was immobilized. "There was a loud kind of bang, metal-on-metal, grinding, crunching noise and the car was stuck," an RTE reporter told the AFP.

Read more »

Real Life Grand Theft Auto with Man Stealing Police Car and Crashing it into a Truck


Today's video find contains three things: a police vehicle, a dangerous individual and a high-speed run that could answer the question what would Grand Theft Auto look in real life. It all started on Friday, March 13 when 38-year-old Arthur Lee Thompson allegedly attempted to steal a computer from a Walmart store in Summerville, South Carolina. According to the report, when faced by the store manager, he purportedly punched him in the mouth and took off in a green Jeep Grand Cherokee.

The police were called in to investigate and it didn’t take long for an officer to locate Thompson and pull him over. From there on, the entire incident was caught on film by the police cruiser’s inboard camera.

Read more »

Feds Won’t Pay the Bill for a Ferrari F50 Wrecked by an FBI Agent


Back in 2009, an FBI agent made headlines after crashing a rare $750,000 Ferrari F50 that had been stored in a government impound lot. The story has it that the Italian supercar was stolen from a Pennsylvania dealer in late 2003, and while the insurance company paid off on the loss, the F50 was eventually found in August of 2008 in Kentucky. The V12-powered model from Maranello was then impounded and kept in Lexington, Kentucky, as part of an active criminal investigation. And here’s where the story gets interesting.

In May of 2009, FBI agent Fred Kingston invited Assistant U.S. Attorney J. Hamilton Thompson for a “short ride” in the 1995 Ferrari F50, of which 349 were ever made with only 50 coming to the States. Unfortunately, the joy ride was cut short after the driver lost control of the Italian supercar.

Read more »

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Double Fail: Service Crew Flips Double-Decker Truck Full of Cars


The hows and whens of this accident involving a double-decker lorry full of cars that fell on its side dropping the top row of vehicles on the road remains unknown as the video footage your about to see was filmed during the recovery process.

A service truck along with its crew hooked up the 18-wheeler and tried to get it back on its feet. Well, let’s just say the procedure didn’t go as planned as they managed to flip the truck for a second time thus completing the damages on the rest of the vehicles on the bottom row… Video follow after the break.

Read more »

Friday, May 13, 2011

Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell’s World Tour Cut Short after Accident in Kazakhstan


On January 30th, 2011, three Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell models set out from Germany to travel around the globe covering 30,000 kilometers (about 18,700 miles) in 125 days to demonstrate the technical maturity and reliability of the world’s first series production fuel cell vehicle.
Read more »

The Great Escape: Motorcyclist Rides Through a Three-Car Accident


It is a known and sad fact that most drivers will experience an accident two at some point in their careers on the road. Fortunately for the motorcyclist seen in this footage from a closed circuit camera in a tunnel, it just wasn’t meant to happen this time. The driver of the motorcycle miraculously passed through a three car accident that seems to have been caused by two cars chasing each other,

We don’t know the wheres and whens of the incident and there’s a good chance that this video may not be new, but the commentator on the background appears to be speaking Portuguese (any help with translation would be appreciated). Watch the clip after the break.

Read more »

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Vladimir Putin’s Lada Stunt Turns into a Joke as Car Fails to Start


“What do you call a Lada that starts the first time? A novelty!” This is only one of numerous joke about Lada’s cars and their reliability but to the misfortune of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the joke turned out to be true during an official presentation of the troubled automaker’s new Granta small sedan.

The 58-year-old prime minister attended the unveiling of Lada’s budget model at the headquarters of its car manufacturer Avtovaz in the Volga River city of Tolyatti. In his usual confident style, Putin approached the car for a first look. The troubles started right from the beginning as one of the men accompanying the prime minister had a hard time opening the vehicle’s boot.

Then, in a marketing fail comparable only to Volvo’s unbelievable crash incident last year, Putin entered the car to take it for a test drive. He tried to start it once. He failed. He tried a second time, nothing. The same thing happened three more times until finally, the Lada came into life. Luckily for us, the entire incident was captured on film. Watch the video right after the jump.

Read more »

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Britain’s Wonderland Syndrome: Motorists Deliberately Causing Accidents and Claiming Big Payouts


Godfather of Soul James Brown once sang, “Stock market going up, jobs going down,” and he’s never been more right. Only it’s not the stock market going up, its car insurance in the UK. And it’s going up a lot. Twelve months ago, drivers were paying (on average) £633.55 to insure their cars. Now they’re £892.08 or forty percent more, and there was a similar 40% increase the year before and the year before that. Yet with accidents declining and the competition increasing more than ever before, premiums – you’d think – would be lower than ever.

So what gives? Well, insurance companies are making bigger payouts thanks to litigation. Litigation! Roughly 200 claims a year to be exact, executed by those nefarious, “no win, no fee” lawyer-types. And this is in the UK; a country that I’d have thought would have more sense than that. Fortunately, it seems some people in the UK do have more sense than that as British Parliament has finally woken up to this litigation bully.

Read more »

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Fail: BMW Driver Mistakes Loading Truck for Launching Ramp…


Here is yet another failed attempt to load a vehicle on a truck. In fact, this one is much worse –albeit far less costly- than the Porsche Carrera GT incident we showed you back in April. This time, the protagonist is a BMW - from what we can tell in this grainy video, an E36 3-Series Coupe.

As you can see for yourself in the surveillance footage in the video after the break, the driver of the bimmer, slammed the pedal to the metal as he was going up the ramp, and the result, well, let’s just say is painful yet humorous at the same time.

Read more »

Friday, May 6, 2011

VIDEO: Texas Motorcyclist Miraculously Escapes from Ugly Accident


The North Texas Tollway Authority released footage of a shocking accident that happened on a Dallas highway on March 17, 2011. The rider of the bike, 25-year-old Zacharie Perez, was hit violently by a careless driver from behind while slowing down. As a result of the impact, the motorcyclist was thrown onto another car.

The U.S. Army veteran managed to escape alive from the accident, but sustained several injuries including a broken rib. In a state where helmets are not mandatory for motorcycle drivers, Perez said that wearing it saved his life.

Read more »

Friday, April 29, 2011

VIDEO: How Not to Take a Corner with a 14-Wheeler Truck


Vehicle accidents happen on the road everywhere and every day. However, some mishaps could be easily avoided if the person behind the wheel has his or her head screwed on the right way. For example, take a look at this video showing a 14-wheeler truck overturning on a busy road in Wenling City in eastern China's Zhejiang Province; this is not the way you are supposed to turn into a corner with such a heavy and long vehicle.

As you can see in the closed circuit TV footage that captured the incident as it happened, the driver of the lorry was apparently in a hurry to pass the traffic light and speeded through the crossroad only to overturn and drop the container on its side. According to media reports, officials said by-passers narrowly avoided being hit. Watch the clip right after the break.

Read more »

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Aftermath: Chevrolet Suburban SUV Rams Ferrari California


A crash is never a good thing but fortunately for those involved in this three-vehicle accident in Texas City on April 19, no one was seriously injured. According to a report from The Daily News, the driver of a big ol’ 1987 Chevrolet Suburban SUV was traveling west on FM 517 with his wife and two children when he disregarded the red traffic light and crashed into an oncoming Ferrari California in the intersection. The Italian supercar was squashed between the Chevy and a southbound Ford pickup truck. Read more »
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...