Saturday, October 3, 2009

Overture to an Overturned Automobile . . .

For no particular reason other than the fact that her blog happens to be one of the very best and most engaging blogs I've come across in this first year of blogging, I'd like to dedicate this one to La Framéricaine and her other half le Framéricain, and her blog Halfway to France . . . where just a couple of posts down she posted pictures from a calamitous accident in a town in central France which featured a car which had somehow become overturned, overwhelmed no doubt by events beyond its control; something which can happen to the best of us when we least expect it I suppose. By some odd act of serendipity, the same day I saw her post with the upside down car, I had just seen an automobile in a similarly unfortunate position earlier that morning, in a ditch along a road near Quend. It must have happened that Saturday night, as it was quite fresh, and was removed by the police shortly after I took this photo of it. So, drive carefully folks, right on over to "Halfway to France", to check out some fine writing, linger to browse her back posts, and don't miss her even finer reactions to whatever comments you might like to leave her. In the meanwhile, don't hesitate to expand on how you think this could have happened, and who the occupants may have been, and where they might have gone after crawling out of their upturned car in the wee hours of a Sunday morning . . .
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And yes, Arnaud, as you can see from the logo, it's a Peugeot . . .
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22 comments:

CiCi said...

I'm not so sure that anyone was able to crawl out from inside this squished car. Looks pretty totaled to me.

Lille Diane said...

I actually looked at this without flinching. I must be getting better.... whew

Steve said...

Looks like it wanted to be a convertible real bad...

Jill said...

Looks to me like a giant stepped on it!

Selina Kingston said...

Looks like one of those films where the earth gets hungry and turns on its inhabitants. Is there a film like that - there should be!!

Owen said...

Hi TechnoB., it does look that way, I know, but it's a little bit of an illusion, because in fact, all that tall grass, there is a ditch, and the upper part of the car's body, with the windows was not crushed, but was laying in the ditch. People we were staying with went out for an early morning jog, and saw the wreck there, and commented that they think whoever had been in the car when it flipped had kicked their way out through the driver side window... hopefully not too badly banged up...

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Hi Lille Diane, that's good news ! Hope all is well in the new house...

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Steve, either that, or it had a really bad itchy spot on top, and just absolutely had to roll over and roll around to scratch it ? Our cats do that sometimes...

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Hi Jill... do you suppose there are giants roaming around out there at night ? And what sort of giants ?

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Hey Selena, I think sometimes that happens... well, on a longer time scale, everything on the surface gets devoured by the Earth sooner or later. As for there being a film... the evening news has films of the Earth getting hungry and turning on its inhabitants nearly every day these days... earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons... you name it, Mother Nature has all kinds of tricks up her sleeve still to teach us humans a little humility and respect... one can practically hear the hungry Earth's tummy rumbling these days... she's wanting a four course dinner ! And when she decides she wants something, she won't be denied...

La Framéricaine said...

Just trolling along through my "Blogs I Follow" list and what should I spy but a lovely compliment! And a great photo of what was, no doubt, once a lovely piece of luxurious automotive art. What a shame to thoroughly trash something so util, après tout.

I used to drive a courier van for a living in northern California and I've seen my share of traffic related fatalities; I've lived along the Orange County/LA corridor for two decades and seen more than my share of crumpled steel, glass, rubber, and plastic and I never fail to hear myself saying--they drive too fast, they drive too close, they talk too much, and they pay to little attention to the potentially very dangerous road. I just hate that. I would be so royally pissed off if I were to die in an accident. Never mind lose a loved one.

You will notice that I did not mention "They drink & drive." Gawd or the fates bless our pointed little heads if ever we dare to drink and drive. What a bloody waste...

Great photographic documentation of that wreck, mon cher! And thank you again for your kind words about Halfway To France. You made my day, Owen!

Lynne with an e said...

Drinking and driving is no longer the most serious risk factor, it's text messaging while driving. Concerned hosts are not confiscating car keys from inebriated guests but are hiding said guests' Blackberries, IPhones, etc.

Above all, do not blog and drive!

English Rider said...

I'm surprised a Peugot could get up enough speed to perform a flip:)

Margaret Pangert said...

omg! No one could have made it out of there alive! And isn't that a Ferrari logo?

Arnaud said...

Yes, I agree ! ;-)
I should take my camera to commute to work, there are at least 3 accidents per week on the expressway. On average, 1 upside down on the central lane, 1 crashed in a truck and the last one stucked in a ditch.
Here, truck drivers seem to drink, sleep and drive ! Depending on the order they did it, it's more or less dangerous ! ;-)

jeff said...

Tient ! Les tortues sont bleues cette année ? ! ? J'ose espérer que les occupants étaient sains et saufs...
Mais j'y pense là, d'un coup ! Tu seras pas entrain de nous dénigrer notre Lion national en nous montrant une image pareille ? ! ?...
Comme quoi ! La tisane verte et le volant ne vont pas bien ensembles ! ! !...;-)
C'est curieux comme en ce moment, nous n'échangeons pas beaucoup de commentaires...! Surbooké... comme toi !
Passe un bon dimanche familial et plein de soleil dans la tête et dans les coeurs !
Amitiés Owen !
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Owen said...

Merci bcp PxPte Jeff, buveur de tisane vert... je pense je vais faire une cure de thé vert, pour remettre un peu d'ordre dans mes idées... qui sont, comme tu dis bien ici, surbookées... Le boulout est plus qu'éprouvant en ce moment, il y a du stress dans l'air dans tous les sens, les gens deviennent nerveux, irascibles, facilement énervés, un drôle d'époque quoi... merci pour ces voeux pour un dimanche... après avoir dormi jusqu'à midi, on fera peut-être une petite sortie vers le Chateau de Pierrefonds... connais-tu cet endroit ? Un chateau à l'échelle Disney mais rempli de charme; mais bon, ce n'est pas les chateaux qui manquent en France... tu en as vu d'autres sans doute... bref, oui les commentaires sont moins fréquents par ce temps de boulot dinguo, mais pas moins remplis de plaisir de sortir et voir L.I.B. et d'autres sites qui font toujours plaisir comme K'Line et IndiaP., et Random Shots et Clo et Roxana et j'en passe car il y en a tant et tant et tant de gens sympas derrière tous ces rideaux magiques, un peu comme le magicien d'Oz derrière son panneau de contrôle... bon dimanche à toi aussi...
:-D

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Arnaud, you mean to say you actually have a job ??? And here I was all this time thinking you were independently wealthy and spend all your time out photographing and travelling high mountain roads on motorcycles and popping off to Thailand and so forth... well, yes, I think it is rule number three in the photographer's handbook : "Never leave home without at least one operable camera in your possession and ready to use at a moment's notice as hasard and chance and serendipity can strike at any moment..." Three wrecks a day ?!? Wow, that's alot... hope you can avoid them, and get some pictures for us soon... not that I'm fascinated with auto wrecks or anything, but one or two might be culturally interesting... Hope it is not too much the order: Sleep, then drink, then drive...

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Hi Margaret, well, I hope no one was badly hurt here, my friends who saw it early in the morning like this checked to make sure no one was still in it, and said it looked like the window had been kicked out from the inside, and the people were gone... if there had been emergency vehicles in the night, we would have heard them, because it was just up the road from where we stayed last weekend... Anyway, no, not a Ferrari, it's definitely the Peugeot lion logo... the Ferrari logo is a horse reared up... Have a great weekend...

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Dear ER, I see you have great fondness for Peugeots... you must have some memories. I have to admit, I've had a few Peugeots, and am in the process of selling the last one, and will never buy another, after the bad experiences we had with this last one... hope you and the collies are ok... et un bon dimanche à toi....

Owen said...

Dear Fram, un plaisir je t'assure, the pleasure is all mine, well maybe not all, because I get the impression that you are vastly enjoying yourself each and everytime you sit down to write... but why not, because you do it so well...

Drunk drivers are one of the major scourges of our times, I think our justice system is still far to lenient with such folks, when you hear of people being convicted for the fourth or fifth time, and still out on the streets. MADD still has no shortage of work.

You said you drove a courier van ? For a parcel delivery company ? I know for sure such people who spend alot of time on the roads see all sorts of things... not always very pleasant... our mad love affair with motor vehicles and gasoline ! Anyway, you are more than welcome...

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But Lynne,
My driving time is just about the only time I have these days to blog, and now you want me to cut that out too ??? I had rigged up a very nice little system that allowed me to lash the portable PC directly directly to the steering wheel, and apart from running over a few of the ubiquitous poodles around here (as in A Fish Named Wanda) I haven't had any accidents, yet... Only you could think of such a thing, but if it's been thought of, it's probably been done, what with internet access on i-phones and whatnot...

Hope you are having an absolutely fabulous time out in the vast west end of that country of yours... Say "Hi" to Fred Herzog if you happen to see him out with his camera, ok ?

Anonymous said...

Car accidents are not fun. I hope the driver got out okay. Peugeots deserve squashing.

Janie said...

I hope someone crawled out of it, but I have my doubts...

Marguerite said...

Looks like an all too familiar scene, here in Cajun Country. Unfortunately, the Cajuns like to drink too much and drive too fast! Hope that the occupants of this Peugoet survived. And thanks for the blog link, Owen! I will check it out.

Batteson.Ind said...

an unfortunate trend amongst young fellas over here at the moment. They love speeding about killing themselves (or more sadly their passengers)... hope the occupants of this car managed to get back home safely!

Anonymous said...

May you have always a safe drive wherever you go.

Thank you for putting on the shoes and searching for the new site of mine. It would be an honour to see your bloglist updated. A wonderful start into the new week for you.

Owen said...

Hi AquaCats, have you ever come across the Darwin Awards ? An award for people who take themselves out of the gene pool through their own (idiot) acts ? There's a web site with some quite amusing stories on it, if you haven't seen that before, just Google Darwin Awards...

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Hi Marguerite, well, hopefully we can all manage to stay out of the way of people who drive insanely, in Cajun country or elsewhere... a pox on drunk drivers, a pox on risk takers who jeopardize others...

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Janie... the awful mysteries of the night, and things that happen in the dark... I'm hoping they crawled out and crawled home, and weren't too hungover when the police knocked on their door...

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Hi Dedene, I see you belong to the ranks, like me, of Peugeot bashers... I had a few different Peugeots, and never again...

Owen said...

Hey Robert ! You slipped in just as I was answering the latest visits... yes, of course, I am going to update my sidebar blog list of fun and fascinating sites right away, was meaning to, but hadn't gotten around to doing so... your blog is always so... hmm... challenging to read, in a positive sense, you always throw in such a good dose of philosophy... so, am off to update the link right now ! Take care, and thank you so much for your warm and thoughtful visits, I always enjoy reading your comments on all the other blogs where I run into you too...

The Sagittarian said...

Ouch!