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Tuesday, April 24, 2007 - (see all news for this day)
illegal parking & a smash - 01:44 PM
(filed under 'general')
yesterday morning i was inside playing with smiley & i heard the unnerving screeeeech & crunchy smash noise of a car accident just outside our block of units.
this'll be a long story, so keep reading if you have the time or the inclination.
i didn't do anything for a few minutes because i had smiley with me & didn't think i could be that much of a help with a three & a half year old in tow, but when i didn't hear anymore noise from out there, i wondered if anyone at all had gone outside to help. so we got our shoes on & went outside. there was indeed a smash.
let me tell some back story first, though. for about two weeks, there'd been a white station wagon parked outside the units on the street. it was in a no parking zone & was parked at a slight angle. one or two windows were open or partly open & one door looked as though it had been in an accident. all except for the fact that the number plates were still on it, it looked as though it had been stolen, taken for a joy ride & dumped.
funnily enough</sarcasm>, being in the no parking zone made it kind of dangerous for anyone wanting to turn into the units. you had to come to an almost complete stop on the busy road with cars having to slow down behind you before you could turn the sharp left around this car to get into the driveway. then, of course, you'd be stuck there waiting for the slow old gate to slide open far enough to get the rest of the way through.
i called the police when i realised it had been there for about three days. they said it wasn't really their thing at this point (unless maybe it was on private property .. not sure), that it hadn't been reported stolen & that i was to call the council. if i recall correctly, i think it was the weekend or easter friday or something, so i called the council on tuesday or wednesday after the easter public holidays were over. it had been about five days at that stage. they said they'd send someone out to put a sticker on it to say to move it or it would be moved for them.
it took them another four days or so to put that on it. by that time it'd been there for about two weeks. every single time i turned into my driveway, i'd get annoyed about having to go around that stupid car.
so lo & behold, this is the car that had been smashed into. a ute (utility .. pickup truck if you're in the usa) had come flying along & somehow been at the side of the road & hit it head on .. at some considerable speed, i think. when i'd heard the original smash, after two or three seconds, i heard another smash noise. i figured the car that had been hit had then hit another car in front of it. well, the station wagon has been pushed about twenty feet forward & had hit a power pole on the grassy easement beside the path. the car was half over the footpath!
it had been hit so hard that the back window of the station wagon had popped out completely & was lying on the road, all broken up but being held together by the window tinting, just a foot or two from where the front of the car was originally parked!
there were some people standing on the footpath near the car against the tree & some were nearby helping the guy who'd been driving the ute. they'd stopped their car behind his smashed one to see how he was, i guess. as i got out there, a young guy came up & announced "i've had medical training. does anyone need help?" he went to look at the driver of the ute who was on his mobile phone talking in a shocked voice to someone who needed to know what had happened. one of the by-standers told the young man said that the driver had said he had a sore foot, but seemed otherwise okay.
i went back inside with smiley & called the police to try to get something happening with the cars. there was stuff all over the road & it was a bit of a hazard for people coming past, even just because they might be sticky-beaking & not concentrating on the road.
the cops tried to pass the buck again, but i told them that the station wagon that had been illegally parked for two weeks & should have been moved ages ago was now half across the footpath & that the owners were not likely to be bothered to pay to have it moved since they'd left it there that long already. he said he'd send a cruiser past. a few minutes later i heard the short "reeow" noise of the siren as they pulled up.
about half an hour later, maybe a bit less, smiley & i were ready to go out to run an errand or two. when i opened the garage door, there was an ambulance parked in front of the gate & they were just about to jump in & go. i guess it was the driver of the ute & they were taking him to hospital to make sure he was okay .. or maybe he'd shown more signs of injury after i left the scene. a tow truck was across the other half of the driveway with the ute on the back.
once the ambulance left, there was enough room to move my car through & some police officers & what looked like ambos (although i don't know why they were still there after the ambulance had left, so maybe they weren't medical guys) helped to look out past the tow truck to let me know when it was clear to cross the road.
a cop car had been parked in the middle painted section of the road (you know where there might be a physical median strip, but they do it with painted lines instead?) to help alert traffic that there was a hazard & so i had to go past that to get out as well.
i was so annoyed that the council had been so slow in moving the car - well, more to the point: not moving the car. if someone had been walking on the path when the smash had happened, they could have been injured or killed .. or at the very least scared a whole lot.
when i came back from our errands, everything was cleaned up & the station wagon had been moved away somewhere, too.
.. & do you know what? one time when i was walking past that illegally parked car or maybe trying to get around it or something, i thought to myself, "if someone smashed into the back of that car, then maybe it might finally get moved!"
the owner of the parked car
should be charged with causing
the accident if he parked it
there. it is illegal to park there for a reason
i can't believe the local police would allow this car to sit there that long. wow! the poor guy that hit it was probably in shock. most times shock victims look okay until you notice the paleness and slurred speech.
one thing i like about living in the city is that nothing is left around for long. some people in the building next door dumped some broken furniture in the alley and it was picked up by the council within 24 hours (i got an ikea lamp out of the pile first though *g*).
and the other thing, we live opposite a major federal building so there are never cars left outside for more than 4 hours and if anything happens cops are on site within seconds! seriously! we stopped our friends car outside the building and within 30 seconds a security guard was telling us to move on!
when i read the snippet on your main page i thought your car might have been smashed into! am so glad it wasnt!!
What a story .. but doesn't a no parking zone imply that officials (cops or otherwise) patrol the streets, note the car and have it ticketed, clamped or towed away because of the illegal parking?
I'm guessing the (not) patrolling is the problem here..
Its Coralies birthday Saturday everyone so send presents ... she likes lots of presents !!!!
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Have you posted pictures of your neighborhood? I would be curious to see where this happened!