late last night.
i'm in the kitchen finishing up a few things before bed. as i'm leaning forward to close the window i hear:
CLUNK< CLUNK>CLUNK…as of metal laboring, then scraping very loudly, then, CRASH..the sound of glass breaking….
me: shoot! that's a car accident.
i live just below a bend on a mountain pass, which is basically about 5 metres from my driveway. as i'm looking out of the dining room window to see if i can see anything i hear what sounds like a hubcap spinning and then quiet.
(please don't ask me to reveal just why i know what spinning hubcaps sound like, just trust that i am familiar with the sound)
grab the phone and into the car. as i pull out of the driveway i hear the sound of a car pull over and the sound of two men talking. it's a few minutes later and i see a flatbed trailer parked on the side of the road. making sure i'm safe, i ask the guy if he's ok. there are no marks on the truck, nothing is broken and he looks fine.
"yes" he replies, "i'm fine" and starts the truck and quickly pulls away.
*so what was all that noise?*
i have a quick look around and find a car in the ditch, a few metres from where the truck was parked. it's tires are deep in the mud and there is not a scratch on the car anywhere! mirrors are intact, hubcabs fine, nothing damaged. no broken windows. the car is locked up tight.
intriguing. off to the police station to make a report, because this is just too weird. i mean, i HEARD IT!
anyway, they took it from there..pulled the car out and took a statement.
so, what happened on the bend outside my house last night? any ideas from the Opera detectives?
Are you going to send pictures? I would think the guy who went into the ditch had too much to drink a second car and the flatbed was a third vehicle involved. The first guy needed a ride and the second car took him. That way he didnt get in trouble with the popo’s :whistle: the hub cap since you didnt see it was probably put back on the guys car so he didnt loose it.:devil:
wow… I’m SO curious now. :)(how much is a plane ticket Ottawa – Cape Town?)
Yeah, I’m with LC on this: the car in the ditch wasn’t the one damaged in the accident. There might have been a third vehicle, or the truck was actually damaged. You probably only saw one side of the truck, right? Maybe it hit something else, and the car was just trying to dodge the truck.Also, did you have a look around to see if there was any debris elsewhere? The car in the ditch was fine, so the hubcaps and glass had to come from something else. If the truck lost a hubcap, it wouldn’t have been hard to put it back on. They could have done that before you got out there. Some glass, though, should still be around. Have you had another look?Here’s another thought: call the police in a couple days to see if they’ve figured it out.
Ok, there shouldnt be a hub cap for the flatbed, you are talking larger flatbed right? Or is that the term for a regular truck over there. A couple questions:How much time went by between the time you heard the noise until you spoke with the guy in the flatbed? Which direction was the flatbed going on the road? Which direction was the car in the ditch facing?Was there anyone else in the flatbed cab? Was the flatbed loaded with anything? Did you see any glass or just heard the sound of breaking glass?Did you assume the vehicle in the ditch had no damage or did you walk around the vehicle on all sides and look?What were you wearing when you went out there? Did you have you hair in a ponytail?:devil:
Yo, LC, think about it: anybody can simulate the sounds of a car crash with a CB radio, a lighter, and two squirrels. The bad guys do it on Scooby-Doo ALL the time!Does the word “duh” mean anything to you?
This is something to do with secret service :left: :eyes: You better try not to be too nosy…..:D
i’m a scarily observant person. it would be hard to rival my ability to notice things! even small details. VERY small details.there was no glass on the road or anywhere else, or any other debris. i have a very powerful torch and a headlamp, so i could see fairly well..for the middle of the night. about 7 minutes passed between when i heard the noise and reached the truck. it’s a flatbed trailer..the kind that transport cars..this was a single car trailer..the flatbed and truck were facing the same direction, both towards the bottom of the bend. there was only one guy in the trailer, but i didn’t get too close, because i’m not stupid. i AM standing on a mountain pass at 12 a.m.!i know what breaking glass sounds like. i examined that car about as well as i was prepared to do, at 12 a.m. i was wearing pyjamas and an attitude. as usual. sure, i’ll phone and ask, but i’m not THAT fussed about it..just curious.:D
It is possible that the car had driven into the ditch at a earlier time. The ‘flatbed’ sounds like a recovery vehicle. What you heard may have been a failed attempt to remove the vehicle from the ditch. Chains can sound a lot like glass breaking at 00h00 and the hubcap could be any similar round disk like object that was dropped and presumeably picked up and placed on the passenger seat of the recovery vehicle. :sherlock:.
darko> 😆 they could tell me but then they’d have to kill me?adele> that was one of my theories. :up: and could explain why there was no damage to the car. i also thought that trailer guy for some reason braked sharply as he came round the bend and somehow the car came off, but it shouldn’t had it been secured properly and it would have surely rolled and not been in such pristine condition!?the second car i heard definitely came up behind the truck, not from the opposite side of the road..so i think he was also just asking if he could help. possibly HE saw it all.
possibly it’s as simple as drunk guy going off into the ditch and the second guy giving him a lift..while trailer guy got his bearings after coming up behind this little wobbly.maybe the sounds i heard were just the trailer breaking sharply on the bend as he came up behind drunk guy doing the big stupid. i definitely heard glass though and metal…. i do hear cars and big trucks on that bend all the time..and this was definitely out of the ordinary…i fully expected to find somebody hurt or at least damage to the car.. or i wouldn’t have been there in the first place. but sound is amplified too on that little dip…so maybe it sounded worse than it was..hmm. i don’t think so..LC your theory is possible too.
:sherlock: How mysterious! The car in the ditch – I wonder, they weren’t trying to dump a stolen car? Perhaps one that had been involved in some crime or other…we sometimes get dumped cars in the quiet lanes around here. Teenagers joy-ride them and then sometimes set fire to them :eyes:
could be i guess, but if you’ve ever heard glass breaking you’d know it doesn’t actually sound like anything else. glass and metal make two very different sounds. who can mistake the sound of breaking glass? a hubcap makes a very distinct sound due to it’s very unique shape -once you’ve heard it you are unlikely to mistake it for anything else. unless an ashtray was rolling down the road.guy has a smoke and a drink on the side of the road, smashes his whiskey bottle on the tar and rolls his ashtray down the hill. 😆 i wouldn’t have admitted to that either.:lol:
flatbed trailer, in case anyone is confused by the terminology:
yes this style, but single. nice car. not super-nice, but nice.i was wearing a braid. :devil: and no i’m not too old for braids. and a headlamp. maybe i scared him!? ha ha :p
So semi truck flatbed, that is larger then what I had pictured in my mind. There was one car on that style flatbed?what kind of car was in the ditch, nice, expensive, or shit old???:devil:You never told me about your ponytail either :whistle::devil:
Like actually a headlamp on your head. Now that is too funny. I need to see some pics of that. How about you take one in the mirror 😆 not in the dark either :irked:Mining Michelle :devil:
yep. they’re made by petzl and most conservationists have one…they’re used when fighting fires at night, or various other activities happening at night..like frog hunting! yeah people sometimes laugh…then they follow you because you’re the only one who can see, then they buy one HAHA! 😆 they light up to 45 m. here’s a pic of one:
I bet you are the picture of hottieness :lol:I have one but am sure I dont look nearly as hot as you :whistle::devil:
45 meters! That’s damned impressive. How long does it last with a fresh set of batteries?My headlamp is lower-powered than that one. It’s still great for hiking AND reading!I’m no closer to figuring out this did-a-car-crash-or-not conundrum. Like some others, methinks the car was in the ditch before the truck and trailer showed up. Those guys were just trying to retrieve the car and it didn’t work.Or worse, the car died, they drove up to haul it away, and it slid into the ditch.Maybe?
It is probably too hot in SA now :whistle:
:doh: what if the car ran away because the owner was abusive and didnt change its oil; but then when it was running up the hill its poor little heart couldnt take it and it died a lonely death in the ditch :whistle::devil:
LOL, LC i’m sure neither of us look good in it! 😆 i’m pretty sure it was tragic like that..the car debacle..a motorised tragedy if ever there was one.Darks…!!! :lol:James..it lasts about 2 weeks-used approx 4/6 hours per night..i really don’t know what happened, but it was most strange. something more than that happened, my ears say. the guy that stopped, just before i got there sounded concerned…
I dont know, if it is dark out and I am facing the person (with the light on); they might think I am a hottie :whistle::devil:
Definitely time to call the police and ask them if they’ve cracked the case…
Deke, ever phoned a South African police station!? :left: :right::lol:LOL@LC!!! this is one case then where bright light is an aid rather than a hindrance!?
and combustion gasses instead of flowers :devil::lol:
😆 of course, that might be the only way I can get a date :whistle: I usually take the woman for take out and eat in from of the truck using the headlights for romantic lighting. :devil:
😆
:eyes: depending on dinner it could be just gas :whistle::devil:
i’m a really cheap date then. i have my own headlamp.:lol:
maybe we’ll be blinded and there’d be hope for both of us. :devil:
yes, but I your headlamp would cancel out mine and you would run :whistle::devil:
blinded by the light, back it the olden days that was a great song :lol:I dont think would be that lucky :whistle::devil:
it WAS! a great song…i’m not lucky all that much..or maybe i am.it’s hard to tell.
Hey, you’re alive aren’t you?How much luckier can you get? 🙂
i didn’t say i didn’t feel lucky did i? just that i wasn’t generally lucky in the winning the grand prize fashion! i feel lucky all the time!
I feel lucky in the ‘Winning the same prize 3 times’ stakes. I have now won 3 DAB radios, and I can only receive 17 DAB channels here. What’s more over half those 17 are just relays of existing AM/FM stations and one of the remaining channels just plays birdsong, all day and all night…
is it at least a nice bird? ha ha! maybe we’re all luckier than we know..perhaps we walked through that door seconds before a hammer fell from a scaffold..or picked the sauce that didn’t contain the botulism or…got the doctor who’d had some sleep before that surgery.. 😆 :up: that’s what i meant by it’s hard to tell.. 🙂
A few years ago, an American radio station was getting repairs done during the evening shift. Every night from about 10:00 PM until the morning shift, they just broadcast ambient noise from the docks nearby: birds, boats, waves, wind, what have you.That went on for a few weeks, until repairs were done. They started broadcasting music again, and the listeners were livid; they wanted the dockside sounds back on air again. The radio station relented and its audience increased.Weird, huh?
i’d be down with that :up: sounds great. cute story!
Hey, I finally browsed the comments and I have the EXACT same headlamp!You’ve got damn good taste woman… The best part is the swivel.
it is a nice one isn’t it? we need to get you a red light, then together with the wheelchair you’ll have your own ambulance. 😆
:eyes:
ha ha Dillon! OH MY HECK!
Damn.. I knew I should’ve pulled this from the Katrina wreckage when I had the chance.
I could’ve charged exorbitant fees to folks this whole time with this in tow behind my antique wheelchair and flashing red petzl!
visit D’s Blog LC! This must be another one of my non-jokes! 😆 ha ha!
“OH MY HECK!” Have you been watching Partridge Family reruns again? Naw, this modified shopping cart/chair was in the median of a trashed highway when I got back after the hurricane. It was really surreal. It’s hard to believe someone actually went through the trouble to paint it up like an ambulance in the days of limbo following the flood. I can’t imagine not having any real food or water for that long. (The victims did have an ample supply of dry snacks and liquor from the local convenience stores though, so having nothing but sugar, salt, and booze for 3 weeks could’ve easily led to the artistry known as the “9th Ward Ambulance”.
LOL! yes. did somebody actually use it, perhaps? for carting all that anti- and pro-dehydration around? maybe they did. it’s hard to believe any of that happened..when i see that footage on tv, it blows my mind to smithers every time, really. what is it feeling like over there, now?
Those that work and can afford to rebuild are and those that can’t are homeless. There are only so many hand-outs to go around. There’s a huge fuss about racism and inequality down here as far as financial aid goes, but New Orleans is a has always been a bastion of learned helplessness. These folks (which just happen to be 98% black) lost everything and rather than pulling themselves up by the bootstraps and getting a job have been playing the race card for almost three years. I’m not racist. These are the facts. I lost everything as well but I’m not bitching about it. I’ve got bigger things to bitch about, like my ankle…. I started a business and now it’s taking off like thousands of other small businesses in the city.Two days ago, 2000 people waited in line for 572 Section 8 vouchers and were upset when they ran out. The fact of the matter is that it’s tough walking the streets here watching the eyes of those that are watching you. They automatically think I’ve had everything handed to me which couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve been on my own since I was sixteen and I wish a larger part of the population here would stop acting like children and get off the government tit. Whew! Sorry about that. I had to get that off my chest. So, um, that’s what’s going on in New Orleans…
Well, she DID ask… I have to side with you, too.People not in the midst of it only hear what they want to hear when facts are laid bare. You aren’t saying, Dillon, that black people are evil. Rather, there’s a large section that wants a handout. They reinforce their position by shifting blame to racism.I’m from Memphis, where whites are in the minority. The “let’s bitch about life” dynamic follows similar lines to New Orleans: there’s an epidemic of learned helplessness. Many on the dole just don’t realize that they can earn a good living. Welfare is the expectation that they have seen all around themselves from the beginning.Many, however, know better. I’ve known and worked with people of all races who managed to do well by themselves and others by being honest and hardworking. The tide is shifting, but it takes time.
It’s definitely gonna take some time. Progress is competing with what’s become known as the “Thug Culture” that’s glorified in rap music, ect. I know plenty of white folks that are the same way. It’s not about race as much as it is about class. So, Michelle, sorry this has what it has. Did you find out anything about the mysterious accident?
Sounds like South Africa. :whistle:
ok, I will check it out; wouldnt want to get smacked in the head by a wing :eyes::devil:
yes all of this is true, my general perception is that not all measure equally in their understanding of survival mechanisms, however, this is not to be wondered at since this is not Utopia, it’s earth. and as such will always be subject to infinite varieties of things that fail to be fair. i also think we’d need to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes in order to pass judgement with impunity.as James said things are beginning to change slowly..global consciousness is gently shifting which i prefer over some of the rah-rah changes of the 50’s to 70’s which, while they had their obvious merits did happen too quickly for several related systems to quite keep pace, which caused a lot of the complications we are now seeing IMHO.possibly this gentle change we are starting to see, where people are beginning to understand links in the chain rather than quick fixes is just what the planet needs to thrive rather than just survive.
I have found this whole thing to be very amusing, and sometimes down right funny. It is also very interesting how you started out talking about one thing, and ended up on a subject completely unrelated. It’s almost like a word association game that I played with some friends via email.I would however be very interested to find out the answer the mystery of the car in the ditch, and the flatbed trailer.Excellent post Michelle. :up:
Thanks Larry! That happens a lot on my blog..the meandering topics. i rather like it :up: perhaps i should phone the coppers!
Do you think they would tell you what happened? I know that if you call the cops here, they would tell you nothing, but I have a brother-in-law, who used to be a cop, and he still has a police scanner in his van, so he tells us things that we would never hear on TV, or read in the news paper. Sometimes things we don’t want to hear. :right:
since i called it in they might be nice. if they can find the file or the person who filed it..or the filing cabinet..or their minds.. 😀 poor SA police force!!!
yes it can
I looked at the next page, with the stats for Western Cape.About 10-15% of those crime totals is attributable to Western Cape.I’m pretty sure that the SA police earn their paychecks.
Oh now, they can’t be that bad, can they? :confused:
and you just thought i was a whining alarmist 😀
meagre though they are they do earn every cent. have you noticed how we like to bash each other and property around a lot.in the Western Cape? indeed. when we’re not jacking cars and doing meth.
Underpaid police?Rampant violence and vandalism? Carjacking and epidemic meth usage?For all that, Western Cape could be in the States.
a few of the states maybe, not most of them. the average criminal over there is a lot more genteel. :Dthere are these shows on tv you know… 😆 which are beyond amusing especially the “crime” in Canada.
Yeah, I can just hear the exchange between a thief and his fellow Canuck ‘victim’…Victim: “Hey, officer, that good-for-nothin’ hoser stole a swig of my beer, eh!”Officer: “Oh, that’s no good. Don’t worry, buddy, he’s gettin’ a ‘time-out’!”Victim: “Okay! Can I buy ya beer for your trouble?”Officer: “Well, I don’t think… wait a sec! We’re in Canada, eh? ‘Course we can drink on the job!”
LOLLERS. well it occurred to me that if the incidents that made the directors cut were…”two guys drinking at the bus stop” (“eh, you’ll have to pour out that beer, huh? not all of them just the open one, yah?”) and “couple in domestic fisticuffs” then it’s a country i’d like to live in! 😀 fer sure.
Maybe Canada is cool because it’s stoned? :rolleyes:Urban Dictionary: Vansterdam Slang name the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is nick-named this because it is said the pot smoking is as open to the city of Amsterdam in Europe.Vancouver + Amsterdam = VansterdamBut the American DEA isn’t too happy with us:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,122789,00.htmlOn top of that, gay marriage is legal here… 😀 They are scared to death now. I think we are next right after Iraq!
HA HA! so THAT’S your secret. you’re all stoned!”marijuana seizures have tripled” (up to about 3 a year now?) LOL!wow dope and gay marriage! such EVIL!ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!i just came back from my local cop shop. all was quiet there but the front door glass was totally smashed in which suggested it is not usually the case. i asked the officer behind the counter what it was like at that station:”BAD” she said. and somehow still managed to look bored by it all. i wonder if all South Africans have this sort of air about them? sadly i expect we do. a sort of resigned to crime air.
Yeah, it’s not like America is a backwards country or anything. :rolleyes: One of my friends is heading up to Vansterdam next month to marry her girlfriend. It’s a shame that they can’t just get married here, but I’m excited for them. :yes:
yes. good for them! and good luck too! :up:
Why those harlot Philestine, twisted, infidel lesbians, taking advantage of the lax, liberal, free-love, drug-addled legal system in the north where it’s too cold for the human brain to function properly….It says right here in the Right-thinker’s Translation of the Bible, in Newteronomy 69, v. 901 “Cast all those who practise witch-on-witch action into the waters of the sea and let them not out again until their nipples are all hard and they cry out for real US hetro lovin’.It’s in the book.
ahhh Deke you’re too funny.yah get out the stakes.would you like fries with that?
Being a vegetarian, I misteaks.Tell Frie he can have them, I’ll cook my own.:chef: