If people can mess something up, they will!

General Discussion
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I have seen many discussions here about people messing up their cars. This seems to pretty much be the standard in any industry including IT. People screw up their computers and then wonder why it takes so long and costs so much to fix the mess.

Anyway, this car video remind me of a lot of stuff I see. They would have avoided all this mess if they had just turned it off and quit while they were ahead. Instead they decided to floor it and flood the cat with raw gasoline! We can all see how that ended up. Basically it doesn’t matter if it is a car, computer, air conditioner, or plumbing. People need to leave it alone and call someone else if they don’t know what they are doing.

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Nothing is foolproof because fools are so ingenious!

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I sometimes wonder if we should remove warning labels and let nature take its course!

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Nobody reads warning labels anyway, course the one on my lighter… do not use near fire or flame!

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I bought a brand new John Deere riding mower a couple years ago. It has so many warning label stickers on it there’s not enough room for words so they use symbols. You have to look on the first 2 pages of the manual to find their interpretation. One of them says “do not put hands beneath mower deck while mower is running”. My boss had always said that you can’t fix stupid, but I wonder if eliminating warning labels could be a start.

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There were two examples of letting nature take its course in the Buffalo News many years ago.

One involved a man drinking and mowing his lawn. When he finished, he decided to trim his hedge but his hedge trimmer wouldnd’t work. He had another beer and looked at his lawnmower. He had an idea! He started his mower ,intending to use it to trim his hedge, bent over and tried to pick it up by the bottom rim of the deck and amputated his fingers.

The other man was found dead in his garage under the V8 engine of his truck. His engine had been suspended from a beam in his garage by a chain fall that was wired to the beam with a COAT HANGER! When I got to work later that day, drivers and dockmen were discussing the accident, I said I hoped he didn’t have kids and someone else said it would have been horrible for his kids to find him. I said I wasn’t thinking of that, I just didn’t want someone that dumb to breed.

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OUCH!

I am writing in response to your request for additional information in Block #3 of the accident reporting form. I put “Poor Planning” as the cause of my accident. You asked for a fuller explanation and I trust the following details will be sufficient.

I am a bricklayer by trade. On the day of the accident, I was working alone on the roof of a new six-story building. When I completed my work, I found I had some bricks left over which when weighed later were found to weigh 240 lbs. Rather than carry the bricks down by hand, I decided to lower them in a barrel by using a pulley which was attached to the side of the building at the sixth floor.

Securing the rope at ground level, I went up to the roof, swung the barrel out and loaded the bricks into it. Then I went down and untied the rope, holding it tightly to insure a slow descent of the 240 lbs of bricks. You will note on the accident reporting form that my weight is 135 lbs. Due to my surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of the building.

In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel which was now proceeding downward at an equally impressive speed. This explains the fractured skull, minor abrasions and the broken collarbone, as listed in Section 3, accident reporting form. Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley which I mentioned in Paragraph 2 of this correspondence. Fortunately by this time I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold tightly to the rope, in spite of the excruciating pain I was now beginning to experience.

At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of bricks hit the ground and the bottom fell out of the barrel. Now devoid of the weight of the bricks, the barrel weighed approximately 50 lbs. I refer you again to my weight. As you might imagine, I began a rapid descent down the side of the building. In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel coming up. This accounts for the two fractured ankles, broken tooth and severe lacerations of my legs and lower body.

Here my luck began to change slightly. The encounter with the barrel seemed to slow me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell into the pile of bricks and fortunately only three vertebrae were cracked.

I am sorry to report, however, as I lay there on the pile of bricks, in pain, unable to move and watching the empty barrel six stories above me, I again lost my composure and presence of mind and let go of the rope. And I lay there watching the empty barrel begin its journey back onto me.

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If anyone’s ever as close to a car fire as the screaming idiot with the phone, don’t be. As a very green young TV guy, I was sent out to cover a fire at a junk yard. Bunch of cars burning. I was happily getting great shots of flames, thinking about how I’d write it, when I heard a bang and something whistled past my ear close enough that I could feel the breeze. That’s when the PIO came over and told me to get the @#$# back before more shocks exploded.

When shocks cook off in a car fire, they become missiles. I covered a car fire much later in my career (farther back this time) and heard the shock let go, then heard a big impact. After the fire was out, I was getting closer mop-up shots when I noticed a hole in the passenger door of one of the fire trucks. The shock-missile (this one looked like a hatch strut) ended up in the passenger seat - went completely through the door.

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no t-tops on a T/A. you dont see that very often. i drove a 88 formula tpi/5spd with no t-tops. cant recall if it was an 87 or 88? been told that was a fairly low number car for those options.

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I once talked to a firefighter about car fires. He said there were certain zones you didn’t want to be standing anywhere near a burning car because of the dangers of shock explosions. I guess these things really launch. I guess the gas tank isn’t really that big of a deal compared to everything else on a car these days.

Here is another one. I think it might have been a Chevy BLAZER and it certainly lived up to its name. All kinds of thing blew and went flying. I guess the rear gas shock expanded because the back hatch opened up on its own.

The horn decided to honk on its own because I guess wiring or a switch was melted. I wonder if the cops should have closed that highway until this was under control. Cars and trucks were just going on by as parts shot off this burning car.