Extreme heat buckled a highway in Wisconsin over the weekend causing a car to fly through the air in a scene that looked more like a Hollywood movie stunt. The accident, which happened on Highway 29 near Eau Claire, was captured on video by Theresa Reich as she was trying to film the buckled road. “From the overpass we could see the big divots, but we’d stopped to take a picture of it because we’d seen a bunch of cars going over slowly, and scraping the underside of their cars,†Reich told WQOW. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf0l3NO-35U]car jump - YouTube[/ame] Source: Car launches into air after heat buckles Wisconsin highway | The Raw Story
Guess the driver was to distracted somehow to see those 2 large warning orange signs on either side of that X Games style ramp. Great launch, blew the landing. Hope they were OK.
Note to self: When approaching large, orange, impossible-to-miss-unless-you're-blind-as-a-bat-or-texting-or-facing-the-rear-seat-threatening-the-kids warning flags that are crowding the lanes on both shoulders, clearly marking something of significance that must be heeded, might be best to dial it back a few mph. :frown2:
Unless you've got an SUV that makes you feel safe, so you don't need to drive carefully. There's plenty of decent indicators over here that SUV drivers have higher levels of confidence - for example, a much bigger proportion than car drivers don't wear (compulsory) seat belts. So you've got an over-confident driver of a vehicle which is an increased risk to others (partly through lower driving dynamics, and partly simple weight) - they really need to be given a lower speed limit than other traffic, don't they?
im pretty sure i would of turned around because of the ride height of my car but even in an SUV i would have slowed down cause you never know what could be on the other side.
Concensus here is we are only willing to give the jump a 3 for completion. Initial launch and trajectory was flawless though. Not ready for the olympics.
Can you imagine what the person on the other end of the phone heard when the SUV took flight?:yikes::mad2::mad2::mad2::crazy::mad5:
Weeeeee......weeeeeeeeee........ [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxRoXuPjAKc]Geico Commercial Three Little Pigs - Wee Weee Weeee - YouTube[/ame]
I see no one has mentioned the possibility yet that it was intentional. Well, Scott may have implied it ^ . :biggrin5: I'm not talking about the highway buckling of course but the SUV hitting it with some speed. People do a lot of dumb things these days with their cars.....ever seen a show called "Dumbest Stuff on Wheels"? I wouldn't bet money but I think it's at least possible someone thought it would be fun to try to catch some air with Mom's SUV.
Yes it's true the warnings were hard to miss but lets be fair. Have you ever seen a bump/jump this bad in North America with the road still open? I have driven over many bumps that had warning signs posted I slow down but most are pretty tame even in the MINI. I can see someone in a SUV that soaks up train tracks and pot holes comfortably think nothing of a bumpy road. As for the video it does seem like it's pretty obvious the bump is pretty severe but the it may not have been so obvious from the drivers seat. Lastly why is it that when filming something like this that people suddenly lose all camera control? I understand if your friend/kid appears to have gotten injured but this? Keep the camera on the action.
According to the comments it was merely a small bump maybe minutes prior to the launch. ...and the driver probably wasnt paying very good intention. A road would have probably been closed if it were that large to begin with.
Around here, they only mark the small bumps - the big car swallowing potholes are never marked. love the pig
The standard joke from the old hands when driving along bad roads in India is: "It gets dark at the bottom of some of these potholes, doesn't it?"