OT This seems impossible to me, but here it is OT

[PatS....]

http://www.break.com/index/woman_flips_car_on_gate.html

[greg g]

Well it did flip toward the centerof gravity.........

[David Maxwell]

Try this URL for some real driving lessons

http://tinyurl.com/yt76ar

[Don Coatney]

http://www.break.com/index/woman_flips_car_on_gate.html

Looks way too "staged" to me. Why would the guy re-open the gate and walk away quickly knowing that the gate needed to be closed again? And why does he close the door after the letting the victum out?

[greg g]

A little carribean auto cross action. erhaps a bit to much front brake bias but other than that the cars seems well sorted.

http://www.extremesportclips.com/viewvideo.php?vid=157&sec=mr

[Brad Lustig]

Try this URL for some real driving lessons

http://tinyurl.com/yt76ar

They looked like boats in a fast moving river!

How about this for making your butt pucker.

http://graphics1.snopes.com/photos/accident/graphics/scary1.jpg

http://graphics1.snopes.com/photos/accident/graphics/scary2.jpg

http://graphics1.snopes.com/photos/accident/graphics/scary3.jpg

I don't know how accurate the story is, but apparently the truck crashed through the barrier, flipped over the large pipe in the middle and ended up 180 degrees on the edge of that cliff.

If the pictures don't work for you, here's the thread (it's on Snopes)

http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=1033

[T.Tom Meshingear]

As Paul Harvet might say.. Here is the rest of the story.

A 38-second video of a pirouettes and smashups proves to be a preview

Friday, January 19, 2007

AIMEE GREEN

The Oregonian

The West Hills driver who helplessly skidded into seven cars during Tuesday's snowstorm -- a drama caught on video and aired nationwide -- would just as soon stay out of the spotlight.

Broughton Bishop, the driver of that Volvo sport utility vehicle, however, is doing perfectly fine, his wife reports. His only injury? A gash to the head that required a few staples.

"He feels very fortunate to have walked away from it," said Mary Bishop, who added that her husband would rather not be interviewed. "And he feels very fortunate that no one was hurt, besides a few cars."

Broughton Bishop, 79, declined an ambulance ride and even made his way to the office at Pendleton Woolen Mills, his family's business.

"I think he's just that kind of person," Mary Bishop said. "He doesn't make a big deal of things."

The 38-second video clip was recorded shortly before 9 a.m. by Derek Porter, a Southwest Portland resident and Beaverton instructional assistant, from the rooftop of his apartment building.

It shows Bishop's Volvo spinning 630 degrees and sliding hundreds of feet down Southwest Salmon Street and then 20th Avenue, next to the Multnomah Athletic Club and PGE Park. It starts as the Volvo bounces off a vehicle, spins in the center of the street and then sails through a four-way stop. The SUV hits a utility pole, another parked Volvo, a retaining wall and then rolls backward down the hill into five cars that appear to have already crashed into each other.

The videotape also captures the sound of one loud bang after another.

While Bishop's wild ride may have made Portland's snowstorm famous, it by no means was the only one that morning at that steep, icy intersection.

In the minutes that follow, two other cars roll down the hill and crash into Bishop's Volvo.

And minutes after that, another driver helplessly slides through the four-way intersection and down Salmon Street, into an SUV parked at an angle in front of the Multnomah Athletic Club. After the impact, it keeps going, sliding sideways.

When a Portland Fire & Rescue truck shows up and tries to block the intersection to traffic, more cars crash into the truck.

"I was just watching the nightmare in progress -- there was nothing you could do," said Patrick McKenna, whose car was hit by Bishop after it too had struck another vehicle. He then watched other drivers smash into each other as he waited for police to arrive. "We were helpless."

McKenna, who works as a TriMet bus driver, said he left home in light snow early Tuesday morning to shop for groceries. He checked the forecast and saw that TriMet wasn't chaining up its buses. So he thought he had nothing to worry about.

It later became apparent that TriMet was caught off guard. A pedestrian watching the chain of collisions ran up Salmon Street and warned a bus to take another route.

Scott Osburne ventured out into the storm around 7:30 a.m. to drive his son to school after checking the Portland Public Schools' Web site. The school system didn't announce the closure until after he left home, he said.

He started down Salmon Street but gave up when he realized how slick it was. Osburne parked his car near the athletic club, where it later would get hit by Bishop's Volvo.

Osburne said he understands why others -- even later in the storm -- would attempt the hill.

"People say, 'Oh, I can make it. I have four-wheel drive,' " Osburne said. "But four-wheel drive is good for going, not for stopping."

For all the morning's loud crashes and bangs in the neighborhood, no one appears to have been seriously injured. And the morning's events sure provided something for neighbors to talk about.

"I've been to demolition derbies, but none of them were as bad as the cars crashing on our street," said Gordon Klein, who lives on the corner.

Aimee Green:503-294-5119; aimeegreen@news.oregonian.com News researcher Lynne Palombo contributed to this story.

©2007 The Oregonian