Like that L driver in Chicago that fell asleep and ran the train right into the airport and up the down escalator. I hear she is trying a new occupation.
@WheresRick
Many years ago, I used to carpool to work
Mainly, it was due to the fact that the other guy’s car was at the dealership, in the process of getting bought back
Anyways, he was a heavy boozer, and he smelled like he fell into the bottle of Vodka. The stench was so overpowering, it was difficult to concentrate on driving.
I told him “I can’t be doing this forever. You need to get your car situation worked out.”
Literally saw a dump truck come apart and the cab come off the chassis. Dropped a tie rod, lost steering and brakes, went out of control on the interstate bouncing into and off cars like a bowling ball taking out pins, and crashed over and through the concrete divider. That sheered the cab cleanly off the chassis. Whole mess came to rest in two seperate segments. The driver actually climbed out unhurt.
Chunks of the concrete from the divider went flying. One huge chunk flew barely over my car and dropped down through the hood and engine of the car behind me. I barely managed to avoid having the whole mess hit me head on as it came across and through the divider. Amazingly, no one was seriously hurt, including the truck driver although almost a dozen cars were damaged.
Here’s one for you.
Well nothing fell off this truck but I was at a corner in STL MO on Kingshighway, STL’s second automotive row. I heard the most awful noise, looked up and a transport truck was running down the road with his ramps still out. About 10 seconds later a city cop was making noise chasing him.
Yes, always take the escalator when in your car. The trick is learning just when to accelerate as the car reaches the top. This is a case where the rwd car is at a disadvantage. Good ground clearances also vital. If uncertain, there is usually an elevator. Stairs are conquered most easily by Minis, old or new. Oh, the Italian Job isn’t a documentary? Neither one? Pity
In the 80’s we had a dual post truck lift at the tire shop I worked at. One post at the front of the bay, one at the rear & 2 sets of controls so you could raise/lower each post independent of the other. You had to kneel on the floor to get to the controls which were under the floor level under a steel hatch. There was a pretty bad hydraulic leak & we had to frequently add oil. Apparently, the leakage accelerated over a period of a few weeks, so that one fine day there wasn’t enough oil in the system but we thought there was. (The whole shop was gonna be renovated soon & this lift was going to be scrapped so management wasn’t going to spend a penny on it.)
So on this fine day I was putting a RWD car up for an oil change. At about halfway up the rear post shot up about 3 feet (the quantity of oil in the rear hydraulic circuit had been completely utilized & compressible air was now driving the lift.) Now, of course, I’m kneeling almost under the front of the car operating the controls. Don’t know why I didn’t just run & let the chips fall. I started lowering the rear post but it wouldn’t go down right away. All of a sudden the front post started doing what rear post had done! Can’t remember how but I got the car safely back on the floor. I told everyone not to use this lift anymore, then went & told the manager, shop foreman & the tire salesmen–anyone that could hand out work, that we could bring a car into this bay but that we now couldn’t use the lift anymore.
Two days later one of the tire salesmen gave me an oil change, customer waiting. I told him we didn’t have any lifts available & he said, “We sure do; there’s nothing in the dual post bay.” I got into a screaming match with him!
Years later I worked at a muffler shop with an identical lift. This one leaked too. The manager had us put olive oil in the system. Since it wasn’t hazardous waste, the EPA couldn’t hang us. True story!
Not something dropped off a lift, but one of the strangest I saw was when I was in my early 20s and going to school. I was a bit hung over from festivities the night before, it was 7-something in the morning, and I was driving to school, not completely awake yet.
I saw a wrecker dragging about 3/4 of what looked like a 70s Grand Prix. The rear axle and bumper were gone and it was shedding parts as it was briskly dragged across the intersection in front of me, at which I was stopped at a red light, perhaps at 40 MPH, with sparks a’ flyin’. Oh, and it was on fire about to the level of the back seats. I was messing with my stereo or lost in thought or something and it didn’t really register until it had mostly gone by, dropping flaming bits all the way.
These were the days before cell phones and I did not follow. If there were any cars behind it, they were giving it a wide berth.
Some 30+ years ago I was at the Atlantic Gas station I normally visit at the side pump…I had just finished up when I heard this loud bang…I looked behind me just in time to see the car crash into the other gas pump…LUCKILY…nothing caught fire. They had the car on the lift (the kind where you drive onto ramps to do an oil change…and left it in neutral and just put the parking brake on (which wasn’t working very well). The car rolled off the lift…fell ab out 6’ and then continued to roll into the gas tanks. No fire…and no one was seriously hurt. Although one employee was fired.
When I was in my 20s, I was riding an 850cc cruiser motorcycle on the expressway. I was coming down the connector between two expressways and as I rounded the curve at 55mph, I saw a truck half off to the side with two guys frantically picking up 10’ sections of 2" diameter pipe that were strewn about like pick up sticks. I made the snap decision to ride it out as stopping seemed impossible. I stood up on the pegs and tried to take them each as straight on as possible to avoid going down. I must’ve rode over a half-dozen or so and made it past without falling. A true miracle. As I made it past the last one, I looked to the right at one of the guys who was frozen in mid-bend holding a pipe with his jaw hanging open. I had to pull over just to calm down and stop shaking…
Pickup truck with the rear gate down and a bed full of overly long unsecured lumber and boxes made a very fast turn at an intersection this afternoon and had the entire load go flying out the bed and all over the road. That backed up traffic and had lots of folks decidedly unhappy. At least no one got hit by the lumber and boxes when it all went flying.