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Posts Tagged ‘crashes’

Driver ploughs through wall because Sat-Nav ‘told him to’

January 13th, 2010 dailywail No comments

The historic gate was destroyed because the Sat-Nav assured the driver he could make it Pic: Europics.at

THIS six-hundred-year-old medieval city gatehouse was destroyed when the driver of a giant frozen food lorry followed his Sat-Nav to the letter.

Police believe the 47-year-old driver’s gadget told him to go through the ancient gate – built in the 1400s – in Schaerding, Austria, despite a strict ban on trucks in the historic city centre. So he did.

The gatehouse, before the Sat-Nav got involved

Astonishingly residents in an apartment attached to the side of the gate – who would normally have been watching TV in the lounge – survived because they’d decided on an early night because there was “nothing worth watching”.

One neighbour said: “He hit the arch and it didn’t look too serious – and then the whole wall fell away.
“The driver must be a fool because anyone could see he wouldn’t make it.”
The arch was lovingly restored in the 1950s, after sustaining damage in World War II, reports the Austrian Times.

Introducing…padded car parks for women drivers

January 4th, 2010 dailywail No comments

The car park spaces are pink, which is a pretty colour women can see Europics.at

PADDED car parks are being introduced at shopping centres across China in a desperate bid to cope with the menace of women drivers.

Dozens of centres  in the north of the country now feature sections with wider spaces and colour coded walls to make them easier for women to spot.

The purple and pink colour scheme is also supposed to ‘ease the anxiety’ women feel when trying to reverse into a parking space.

And even the pillars are padded with foam to soften the impact of shunts.

Wang Zheng, boss of one of the shopping centres in Hebei, said: ”There is a scientific basis for all this.

“Women have a poorer sense of distance when they are locked inside a small space.

“That is why female drivers often bump the front and back of their cars.

“There is also a 15 per cent greater chance that a woman will drive her car door into another car when she opens it.”

He told the Austrian Times: “Each parking space is three metres wide, much larger than normal parking spaces and there is more CCTV to help women feel safer.”

Italians complain high-speed car crashes are being made ‘impossible’

December 19th, 2009 dailywail No comments

TVs are being dumped in the streets all over Italy, much to the frustration of drivers  Pic: Europics.at

TVs are being dumped in the streets all over Italy, much to the frustration of drivers Pic: Europics.at

DRIVERS in Italy are furious that they can’t get up enough speed to crash properly – because the country’s streets have been littered with thousands of TVs.

It is traditional for Italian drivers to plough straight into pedestrians or other vehicles shortly after leaving home.

Many Italians even consider extensive damage on their cars to be a ‘badge of honour’, with most vehicles badly battered within minutes of leaving the showroom.

But their mission to cause constant pile-ups has been made harder since Wednesday, when the government ordered the switch-off of analogue TV signals across the country.

Rather than recycling their old sets, Italians nationwide have simply been dumping them in the streets – causing traffic chaos.

Drivers in one district of Naples, in southern Italy, have complained they even have to change their daily route because of hundreds of old TV sets thrown on the streets after the new law.

One said, without a hint of irony: “It’s become like an open-air scrap-yard.”

‘After 300 yards, stop, turn around…and die’: Your sat nav could kill you, police warn

December 14th, 2009 dailywail No comments
An idiot driver turns around as traffic approaches at 50mph

An idiot driver turns around as traffic approaches at 50mph Pic: europics.at

SAT NAVS are going to kill people because idiot drivers follow their instructions ‘blindly’, police chiefs have warned.  

Dozens of motorists have been caught on CCTV turning around their vehicles in high-speed tunnels  despite the threat of oncoming traffic –  ”because their sat navs told them to”

And now furious Swiss cops have spoken out about the perils of the satellite navigation systems.

They have published traffic images from the notorious Gotthard tunnel to illustrate how crazed drivers make u-turns as traffic approaches at more than 50 mph.

Damian Meier, head of traffic police in the Swiss province of Uri, said: “This is not an isolated case. More and more drivers are asked by their sat navs to take a u-turn in the Gotthard tunnel.”

He added: “The majority of drivers taking a u-turn in the tunnel are from abroad.”

Meier told the Austrian Times the sat navs often ‘revise’ the route after entering the underpass and advise drivers to turn around and take a local bypass instead.

Finally, proof that taking the bus is more likely to kill you

December 10th, 2009 dailywail No comments
Brigitte Dentler is not a woman you'd want driving your motor

Brigitte Dentler is not a woman you'd want driving your motor Pic: Europics.at

WHO said taking the bus was safer?

Commuters waiting for their ride were left terrifed after a 78-year-old woman accidentally stepped on the gas, in reverse gear, and drove off a wall into their stop in Salzgitter, Germany.

Brigitte Dentler managed to drive herself up the wall, literally, as she left the car park of a local DIY store.

A police officer said: “She had a problem with her clutch and the next thing she knew she and her car were sitting in the queue at a bus stop.”

“She was a bit shaken up but at least she was well placed to catch the bus home,” he told the Austrian Times.