My favourite accident

Pimme wrote about a police car chase, and it reminded me of one I saw here. It was brilliant. It went like this:

I was cycling along a small side street one fine evening, minding my own business, when I heard an amplified voice telling someone to pull over. I looked around and couldn't see a police car, but I pulled over anyway, just in case. And it was a good thing I did, because immediately there was a great revving of engines and screech of tyres and a van came hurtling around the corner, closely followed by a police car containing four policemen. Both vehicles just missed me.

The two of them zoomed up towards the next corner trailing a hideous cacophony of sound - the voice yelling, siren wailing, engines roaring. My mouth was still hanging open, so I closed it, got on my bicycle, and started to pedal up to the corner to catch some more of the action (you would have too, admit it). But as they disappeared around the corner there was the sound of screeching tyres and a loud crash, then screeching tyres again and another loud crash.

And then silence.

From start to finish the whole thing had lasted less than ten seconds.

When I got up to the corner I saw that the van had rounded the corner too sharply and hit a power pole. The police car had done exactly the same thing and crashed into the van. The driver of the van was looking dazed, and couldn't get his door open, and the policemen were all frantically trying to get their doors open and failing, too. Everybody was trapped. It didn't just sound like a cartoon, it looked like one, too!

A group of spectators had gathered. Everybody was standing well back and trying not to laugh, not always successfully.

After a few minutes the police finally got a back door open and the two policemen in the back got out. The two in the front indulged in some undignified contortions to squeeze over the seats, and followed. One started trying to open the van door, and the other three took charge of the crowd. They strode around masterfully waving their arms and trying to get everybody to go away. I got the impression they would have liked to arrest us all.

I wasn't close enough to hear what they were saying, but it seemed to be something like, "Move along, move along, nothing to see here! And IT'S NOT FUNNY!" The spectators' faces were quite clearly responding, Oh yes it is! That was better than TV! Do it again!

I've always wondered what their official report looked like. "We apprehended the suspect by immobilizing him between our vehicle and a power pole."