Every year in the rural U.S. many unsuspecting sleeping cows are tipped over by pranksters.
In Amsterdam, especially, “Smart Hater Vigilantes” roam the streets tipping over unsuspecting tiny Smart cars, often into Amsterdam’s many canals.
Smart tipping has also been reported in Canada too, for quite some time and to a much lesser extent in the U.S. But, it’s just getting going.
Bored teens think that tipping cows or Smart cars is extremely funny, but to owners, not so much.
Is this more a question of “When” will this Smart car tipping become a popular prank in the United States, rather than a question of “will” it become popular here?
Do you find any humor in tipping cows or Smarts or is this just sick?
Should pranksters just move Smarts to a different or unusual location instead of tipping them? What would be harmless and funny?
Finally, will this sport endanger the future of all little light-weight cars by making them at risk to damage and higher insurance costs and/or possibly causing them to be “unreliable” transportation?
CSA
Back in the late '50s, I can recall my brother and a few of his friends carrying a woman’s Hillman Minx and placing it on a sidewalk as a prank. They knew the woman, and the car was carefully placed–on its wheels–on the sidewalk. The woman was able to use an adjacent driveway to easily drive her car away afterward. This was a prank, since nobody was hurt and no property damage took place.
On the other hand, let’s just hope that this Smart Car Tipping does not gain any traction in the US. There are pranks, and then there is vandalism, and this would come under the category of vandalism. And, as CSA implied, once this starts taking place with Smart Cars, then it will likely happen to owners of other small cars.
If this takes place, it will need to be prosecuted, and not tolerated as merely a prank.
Smart vs not so.
How to transfer the burden upon those who use vehicles that impose a risk by being excessively massive, rather than upon those who take the risk by using a more appropriately massive vehicle. The silly situation appears to be that of needing a massive vehicle just as defense against others who impose a threat by putting their excessively massive vehicle on the streets and roads.
VW Beetles used to be the target of choice (not that I know about it…). More unusual was the Honda 600 that a kid at my high school drove. Some “friends” turned it sideways in its parking spot, between two cars. He was late to his after-school job, had to wait for one of the cars to leave!
But car moving is way different than car tipping - I’d hate to guess the $$ to repair the damage to a car tipped on a parking lot…
I wonder why they pick on small cars and not motorcycles. Perhaps it is the threat of an a__ whipping.
These small car owners should come together and set up a few sting operations with tasers at the ready. After a few pranksters spend 5 or 10 minutes writhing on the ground, word will spread that it isn’t wise to mess with someone else’s machine.
Although I have been quite drunk in my bartending days, I was never quite drunk enough to want to go cow tipping. Part of the reason is that I went to high school in Dallas, and I knew that kind of thing could get you shot.