Tuesday 23 November 2010

Tonight's Scene From my Window

Four hours ago there was a screech of tyres followed by an almighty bang. A car was smashed up at the road junction a few houses away. There was a lot of angry shouting and a crowd of about fifty people out there. Somebody yelling "Get out! get out!", and not in a sympathetic way at all.
A short while later, ambulances, (at least two, plus paramedics), fire crews, and eventually police arrived. I just looked out again. A big truck-crane, more police, men in yellow coats... police tape across the road by my front gate, and a bored looking police officer telling both traffic and pedestrians to turn around and seek another route.
Looks like they'll be here a while.

Update: Car was a stolen Renault Clio, out of control, during the early evening rush, when commuters seek to bypass the main routes via our leafy road. The car came sideways out of a cross-junction, and somehow missed the evening line of cars, it shot across the road, spinning and smacked sideways into a tree, wrapping itself around the tree and smashing a cast-iron telephone-cable junction-box and uprooted a four-foot iron bollard. Two men are seriously injured in hospital... others mysteriously evaporated before police arrived. the car had to be cut open to get the rear seat passengers out. ~There's bark damage about eight feet up the tree. I'm all for car-thieves getting killed during their escapades, but it's only luck these guys didn't kill some innocent commuters. And the tree. the tree. I get very angry on behalf of trees. It's been growing there for a hundred years.
The driver probably won't get found.... unless he's dumb enough to take his injuries to hospital and claim he got them falling downstairs.

Good night all.
"World Outside Your Window" Tanita Tikaram

 

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