Ekaterinburg

Here are two videos shot in Ekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia.

The first is another bit of bad driving (see Whoaaaaaaaa!), this time by a driver who apparently was so intent on beating the red light that he wasn’t keeping an eye on the road.

It’s been suggested that a gas main burst, causing the road surface to rise up, and that stopped the van dead. One wag commented, “In Russia cops don’t stop you for running a light, the road does.”

The second video is a beautifully-filmed time-lapse tour of Ekaterinburg, shot in January 2013 by Dmitry Krylov.

Caught on Video

Just over two years ago the Galveston Daily News reported that “Police on Friday identified a Lufkin man who accidentally drove a $2 million Bugatti Veyron, a rare automobile that is perhaps the world’s fastest, into a saltwater lagoon. Andy Lee House, 34, owner of Performance Auto Sales, told The Daily News on Wednesday that a low-flying pelican distracted him, causing him to jerk the steering wheel a bit — and he then dropped his cell phone.”

Unknown to Andy, however, his “accident” was captured on video. He was driving his Bugatti along the water frontage. Two guys driving on I45, parallel to the frontage road, spotted the car (thinking it was a Lamborghini) and one started filming it. They kept pace with the Bugatti at about 80km/h until it drove off the road and into the lagoon.


Warning: bad language at time of impact!

Now, as reported in The Age today, Andy is being sued by his insurance company, which claims he deliberately ditched the car in order to claim a $2 million payout. The insurer argues there is no pelican to be seen in the video, and no skid marks on the road.

I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusion.

Interestingly, when I first got on the internet in 1998 two of the first people I met online were from around Lufkin, a city of 35,000 in eastern Texas. It’s south-east of Dallas, and about 275km north of Galveston. I wonder if they know Andy House and Performance Auto Sales?

Japan’s tsunami up close and personal

Yu Muroga was doing his job making deliveries when the 11 March 2011 earthquake hit in Japan. Unaware, like many people in the area, of how far inland the Tsunami would travel, he continued to drive and do his job. The HD camera mounted on his dashboard captured not only the earthquake, but also the moment he and several other drivers were suddenly engulfed in the Tsunami. He escaped from the vehicle seconds before it was crushed by other debris and sunk underwater. His car and the camera have only recently been recovered by the police. The camera was heavily damaged but a video expert was able to retrieve this footage.

Watch the pedestrian and note the car rocking at 0:10.

Source: flixxy.com, Japanese tsunami viewed from a car