Some Mothers Do Have Em (2)*

You catch some weird and wonderful stuff on dash cam.

Here's an example. Explanations are necessary.

I was scooting along in the bride's Focus, minding my own business, when I observed the following.

Elderly gent in front of me driving a Suzuki 4WD runs into the back of a hatchback at an intersection. That's not captured in the video, as it happens a few frames earlier.

Driver of the hatchback pootles around the corner and parks by the side of the road, no doubt with the intent of indulging in some deep and meaningful discourse with the driver of the Suzi, probably beginning with "Why did you drive into the back of my car?"

The answer may have had something to do with the fact that he was watching traffic approaching from his right, so he could pick a gap and drive into it. The gap emerged, but the driver of the hatchback was in it. Basically, he wasn't watching where he was going, never a good idea when driving in traffic.

He hits the hatchback from behind; the bullbar on the Suzi is dislodged by the collision and falls on to the road in front of it.

Elderly gentleman seems completely oblivious to this fact, and makes several unsuccessful attempts to drive over the bullbar (5 - 25 seconds in).

I watch this for a short time, and eventually conclude that someone should tell him that he isn't going anywhere. I put the hazard flashers on, get out of the car, tell him what's going down (the bullbar) and eventually remove it from the road (40 seconds in). He finally gets out of the Suzi and nearly clouts me with the remaining debris as he throws it on the footpath (42 seconds in).

You can see the driver of the hatchback (parked on the left) surveying the damage to the back of her car.

I finally decide that anywhere with a metre or two of this bloke and his Suzi is dangerous, and depart.

My bride, viewing the video later, chides me that I probably took a risk by physically placing myself in front of his car to pick up the bullbar, given what had just happened.

In hindsight, she's right.

*There is another Some Mothers Do Have Em on this blog,