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2009 Slush Pile

This item was recently submitted by a reader.
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Vote to tell me what *you* think!

Redneck Luxury Vehicle Delivery Inc

2009 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

This is one story I had to just start writing in order to come up with a catchy title. This is a personal account. The attempt to get pictures didn't work or I'd have some for you. The story takes a bit of a work up but basically it is how a simple car delivery from a tractor trailer can go really wrong and put human lives in danger.

This happened today, 26 July at about 6:00PM in Cincinnati where I work part time as a pizza delivery driver. We're on Colerain Avenue just south of Ohio 126, known as "Cross County" or "Ronald Reagan Highway."

Coming back from my 2nd delivery of the night, I notice a tractor trailer car carrier backed across our parking lot. We're in a small strip mall with a NAPA Parts and a bakery -- we're in the middle. Now this tractor trailer is between the first and second parking rows. Many of our store employees are staring at what is going on and I'm taking this in as I realize there's no way to park close to the store.

Now why would a car-carrying tractor trailer be doing this? This gets good: The vehicle being delivered is on the rear of the top rack. It so happens there's a retaining wall on the south side of our parking lot. The lot on the other side of the wall is nearly at the level of the top ramp. Well, this offers good support for the ramp so that the car drives off nearly level.

I'm surmising the owner of the car requested this. However, this retaining wall prevented an obstacle from being viewed: the parking stops in the lot on the other side of the wall. This wall is about 15 feet high and a parking lot for a cabinet maker store is on this higher level.

The great part is, someone drove the car off and it bottomed out over the parking stop. This is a nice car, too. BMW 4-door model if I saw it right. I didn't want to get too close and stare.

On my way back out for my next delivery, I asked our manager to get pics of this so I could send it in to you but this didn't work out. I looked up at the predicament: The driver is somewhat responsible as he has to deliver the vehicle safely. The owners are surveying the situation. One solution they tried was to start the car up and have the driver and the 2 owners push the car over the parking stop. This was naturally a no go.

As I was not willing to get too close (tempers could be high you know) I can only surmise what the reason for selecting this drop point was.

Well, the owners got a floor jack to try lifting the car up. OK, so they'll move the stop and then drive? You know ... they could have thought of that BEFORE driving off the tractor trailer.

The answer to the above question was a resounding NO! I missed the details as to why they did what they did. I'm driving out for my next delivery and they're TAKING OFF THE PASSENGER SIDE REAR TIRE ...

From what I could see, the parking stop was easily removeable once the car was elevated without removing a tire or anything from the vehicle itself.

Eventutally the tractor and trailer was moved ... putting serious scrapes in the pavement on the north side of our lot. The interesting part here is the driver took his rig over to the lot that the car was unloaded into. In other words ... hey ... what if they'd done this in the first place?

So let's sum it up:

1) The rig is between parking rows of an open store blocking customer and delivery driver traffic. We're a major name store so it's not like it could have been missed that our business would be impacted.

2) Who ever heard of unloading a Beamer like this? If I were the owner I'd be calling a lawyer over this one and I'd be paid, too.

3) OK, so the car gets stuck. No brainer if you have insurance ... call a tow company and take good CARE of that Beamer. Nope ... we'll use a floor jack and either remove the parking stop we didn't move in the first place or put something under the wheel it can roll over ...

4) The driver finally moves his rig over to the lot where ... he could have been in the first place. Something doesn't add up here.

This surely deserves honorable mention: Grown males, not kids -- check; doesn't appear alchohol was involved -- check; if they make the money to buy a Beamer it's assumed they have the intelligence to care for it -- in other words stupidity is clearly a factor -- check.

Well, the story ends like this: No injuries or mishaps though a 15 or so foot wall was involved and yours truly was wondering who was going to fall off it. Or ... if the weight of the car came down on the stop and snapped it, something I have seen happen, those concrete stops can go a LONG ways or snap up and kill someone quite quickly.

You know the driver stopped in and placed an order. Good on him. He looked sort of embarrassed -- we didn't say anything we just produced the order and he was on his way back to Georgia.

Why mention the tags on his tractor? Before I pulled into the lot I'd been chuckling over an old Jeff Foxworthy "redneck" quote I'd recalled: "If your sister has a tatoo and can tell a Georgia trooper where to get off while a cigarette is hanging out of her mouth and said trooper does as he's told, you might be a redneck."

It was just too funny to see this first of all, take in what was happening and the events that followed and remark mentally "Oh my friggin' God ..." and then see the truck was from Georgia after I'd been chuckling over that somewhat sophisticated Foxworthy quote about Georgia residents.

I had not even seen the truck until well after recalling this. It's just odd how things work out sometimes.

The story is worth a chuckle. I wish I could have gotten pictures. Even with what you guys have seen, this is one you'd HAVE to see proof of to believe it.

Submitted on 07/26/2009

Submitted by: Mike Durthaler
Reference: Personal Account

Copyright © 2009 DarwinAwards.com

>> Moderator Scores <<

Bruce said:
Definitely Toss: No Self-Selection
Thanks for a rather humorous story, Mike, but unfortunately there's no self-selection here. This sounds like it's just a case of extreme stupidity that likely resulted in significant undercarriage damage to a brand new luxury car but nothing more.


Candi said:
Definitely Toss: No Self-Selection
What Bruce said. But run a google search; SOMEONE's gotta be interested in this!


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