Skip to main content

Eyes on the road

A US driver has lodged a contender for the world's most feeble excuse for an accident following an incident near to his home in Oklahoma. The 68-year-old was on his way home from church when he drove his pick-up truck into a 2tonne elephant, and then claimed that he had not initially seen it.
February 22, 2012 Read time: 1 min
A US driver has lodged a contender for the world's most feeble excuse for an accident following an incident near to his home in Oklahoma. The 68-year-old was on his way home from church when he drove his pick-up truck into a 2tonne elephant, and then claimed that he had not initially seen it. The 2.44m high elephant had escaped from a nearby circus and suffered a broken tusk and an injured leg in the incident, although the accident could have been much worse had the driver not seen the fugitive animal at the last moment and swerved to avoid a head-on impact. The animal was attended to by a vet but was not seriously hurt. The driver's ego has been somewhat dented however.

Related Content

  • Crash avoidance technology on test
    August 22, 2012
    Nearly 3,000 cars, trucks and buses equipped with connected Wi-Fi technology to enable vehicles and infrastructure to ‘talk’ to each other in real time to help avoid crashes and improve traffic flow, began traversing Ann Arbor's streets yesterday as part of a year-long safety pilot project by the US Department of Transportation. Ray LaHood, US Transportation Secretary, joined elected officials and industry and community leaders on the University of Michigan campus to launch the second phase of the Safety Pi
  • Purple haze – the exhaust debate
    May 25, 2016
    Following in the wake of the VW diesel engine emissions scandal, serious questions are finally being asked with regard to exhaust pollution. Car manufacturers have published data on the emissions from their vehicles for many years, but there has been a widespread scepticism as to how these figures have been achieved. The issue of claimed road vehicle exhaust emissions is a case of smoke and mirrors.
  • Caught at last
    July 11, 2016
    A British man who managed to evade being caught for a number of driving offences over several years is now counting the cost. He had amassed a series of speeding offences in various high-end vehicles. In one incident he could be clearly seen in a speed camera image, making an obscene gesture at the camera. But each time the man was sent a letter informing him of an offence for which he would be prosecuted, he invented a fictitious name and personal details and claimed the person was living at one of the var
  • Road-rage rodent
    August 24, 2015
    An American cyclist suffered a road rage attack from a rather unusual source recently. The cyclist went to retrieve his bicycle and was intrigued to see that a squirrel was sitting on the saddle and sizing up the handlebars. The cyclist was amused but when he got too close, the squirrel sprang at him and the man retreated accordingly. Bicycle-riding animals are rare although chimpanzees and even dogs have been trained to do so. Quite how the squirrel intended to ride the bicycle away is unclear.