Karma police

[An Haddock]

I don't believe I've posted this before.



A few years ago I was driving up the main drag the next town over. On the right I see a little red car that's up on the sidewalk. The town has those huge planters for flowers and such every 25 feet or so. (concrete, around 4 feet high and 4 feet in diameter) Fortunately for the owner of the business whose sidewalk it was, the woman hit one of the planters which stopped her car. Otherwise she probably would have driven through the front window of my favorite BBQ place!

So I pass this mess of smashed concrete, dirt, dead flowers and red car, continuing on my way.



A couple of days later I stop by the BBQ place for dinner and ask what had happened.

It seems the woman driving the car was all hopped-up on some sort of drugs and jumped the curb. But after plowing into the planter, and in full sight of about 10 people on the sidewalk, she pulled her car back onto the road and KEPT DRIVING.

Stay away from drugs, kids, m'kay?

Unfortunately for Druggie Girl, the local police station was less than 2 blocks away. So the fine citizens of the town called ahead to let them know she was headed in their direction. She was pulled over and arrested for a variety of charges, including leaving the scene of an accident, driving while impaired, destruction of township property and probably driving while being a dumbass.

[eltf177]

I wonder what sort of excuse she had for the judge...

[siskaren]

and probably driving while being a dumbass.

If only that were actually a thing.

[MadMike]

Unfortunately for Druggie Girl, the local police station was less than 2 blocks away.

I can beat that. My wife's sister was hit by a drunk driver, right in front of the police station. She was OK, other than getting banged up a little, but I think her car was totaled. The drunk tried to take off, even though by this time half the cops had already seen what happened and got a good look at his plate, but his car was pretty much inoperable at that point.

[MoonCat]

OK *cracks knuckles*

A few years ago in a nearby smaller town, a drunken old lady drove down a street and smashed into quite a few parked cars, just one after the other, BANG! SMASH! CRASH! and kept on going. Cops eventually caught up to her and stopped her. She had NO IDEA where she was or what was going on.

And yes, it turned out she was drunk, not having a medical issue.

I remember this because my brother was working for a heating/cooling company at the time and he was actually on a job near that street while this was happening. I was very glad that his car was not parked on the "bumper cars" street

[Racket_Man]

My GF told me of a guy she used to go with who was in a MAJOR accident (buzzed or drunk driving) and drove off. Part of the damage was the front bumper was torn off WITH his license plate still attached.

HMMMMM I wonder how they found him?????

[BPFH]

I once owned a 1999 Hyundai Elantra. I bought it used (165k miles on it!), and put about another 90k on. My plan was to either (a) drive it into the ground, or (b) cut the insurance down to PLPD ("personal liability and property damage", the statutory minimum I'm required to have) and give it to my son, who'll be 16 shortly. The car proved remarkably resistant to my attempts to drive it into the ground, though--I went in to have the oil changed once, only to be told that there was "maybe half a quart" (500 ml or so) in the engine (it should have had 4 qt/3.8 L). No, I didn't ignore the oil light, it never came on.

What finally killed it was a silver PT Cruiser. My car was parked at the side of the street in front of my house. The PTC hit it so hard it was knocked 6-8 feet forward, with both passenger-side wheels ending up on the curb. The driver reversed and drove off into the entrance of a nearby trailer park.

This was not the winning strategy it might have seemed to be. He drove into a trailer park with only one exit, and nearly hit one of my neighbors. The neighbor, who was understandably just a tad angry, had already called the cops by the time I got outside.

The officer who responded checked out the scene (silver paint chips and a gouge in the road, both from the PTC), then when his backup arrived, the backup parked in the exit from the trailer park, while he went in after the guy.

So let's see:

• DUI (likely both drunk and high, based on what the first officer said);
• leaving the scene of an accident;
• no proof of insurance;
• defendant in a small-claims lawsuit (filed to either get his insurance info so I could file a property damage claim, or get the money directly).

I'd call that karma.

[An Haddock]

OK *cracks knuckles*

A few years ago in a nearby smaller town, a drunken old lady drove down a street and smashed into quite a few parked cars, just one after the other, BANG! SMASH! CRASH! and kept on going. Cops eventually caught up to her and stopped her. She had NO IDEA where she was or what was going on.

I think I had posted something similar here before. Last year an old fellow on too many medications who shouldn't have been driving threw his car into reverse, went backwards on a side street, somehow avoided a fireplug and a street sign, and rammed into the side of a bakery. He missed killing the owner's brother by about 2 feet.

[wolfie]

I once owned a 1999 Hyundai Elantra.

Sedan or wagon? The second generation Elantras are nice cars.

I went in to have the oil changed once, only to be told that there was "maybe half a quart" (500 ml or so) in the engine (it should have had 4 qt/3.8 L). No, I didn't ignore the oil light, it never came on.

The light comes on when oil pressure, not oil level, is too low (assuming it works). It should come on when the key is in the "on" position but the engine isn't running, and go out once it fires up. Sounds like it was able to make pressure even without enough oil in the crankcase.

[Nunavut Pants]

The bad news about the light is that when it comes on, you are already doing damage to the Important Moving Bits (TM) inside the engine. Some older overbuilt engines (like an old small-block V8) are OK with a bit of damage that way. Others, especially newer ones, are not as over-engineered and will start giving you problems in short order after the light comes on.

Anyone with an old air-cooled VW Bug will reflexively try to turn the engine off if they see either light (oil pressure or charging voltage) come on, because either situation (oil pressure very low, or the alternator AND FAN not turning) will lead to engine demise pretty quickly...

[protege]

If only that were actually a thing.

If it was a thing...our jails would soon be overcrowded

But seriously, when I was living at my grandmother's farm, there were always accidents due to drunk-driving. Nearly all of the single-car accidents were because someone got blitzed, yet drove anyway...usually wrapping their car around a tree or telephone pole. However, the guy who took out our neighbor's gate took the cake.

This guy came roaring down our side road, blew through the stop sign on the corner (luckily, there wasn't any highway traffic that night), slammed through the closed gate...and promptly launched his truck (complete with camper shell, for extra mass) off the hill, landing what was left of it in the stream. Perfect swan dive, tossing the camper shell into the field--a good 30 feet from the highway

When the cops came to deal with the mess, the drunk was all "I could have sworn that road went right across!"

[CyberLurch]

I used to live in a rural town. It seemed that half the residents there had party plates on their cars.
It wasn't hard to see evidence of DUI, either. On one particular S-curve, there were huge holes punched through the brush and vegetation. Alongside the straighter section of road, all the underground telephone-cable boxes were all knocked down, bent, etc.

[wolfie]

Just curious, but what are "party plates"?

[Tama]

And for that matter why do they call it a fireplug?

My only wish is that the driver in the OP eventually gets on World's Dumbest Drivers.

[notalwaysright]

Just curious, but what are "party plates"?

Just looked it up, apparently in some states if a person has a restricted license due to a DUI they have to use special license plates. The ones I saw were bright yellow. We could use them here. I also heard that up north (BC) some levels of drivers have to put decals of "L" (I assume that means learning) on their car.

And I also hadn't hear the term "fire plug." I swear I learn all kinds of things here.