Welcome to another edition of “Weird and Wacky Wednesdays.” This week we spotlight drivers who clearly should not be behind the wheel. Sometimes it’s bad decisions, sometimes it’s bad programming but in each case, there is the possibility of spiritual growth.
Mass Hysteria
In Italy, the 29th Sportful Dolomiti Gran Fondo, held in the picturesque Dolomites region turned disastrous when a 76-year-old woman, in a rush to get to mass, plowed through safety barriers and hit three cyclists head-on.
The woman ignored race officials and volunteers, driving her Peugeot the wrong way up a climb, resulting in a collision that left former race winner Stefano Cecchini and two other cyclists with serious injuries.
The driver has not been charged. She claimed she was simply late for church. This may have been a case where authorities actually accepted divine inspiration as a contributing factor to what, one would think, would be criminal behaviour.
Don’t have a cow man!
The woman in the first story might have received godly guidance. Cows are considered sacred in some religions, but the religious angle doesn’t seem to have been a factor in our next story. A police officer in England has been removed from duty after a misguided attempt to intercept a runaway cow by slamming into it with his police car.
The 10-month-old cow, affectionately named Beau Lucy, had wandered into a residential area. After several unsuccessful recovery attempts, the officer decided to take drastic action. Images show the police car hitting the cow twice, trapping its head and upper body under the vehicle. Thankfully Beau Lucy survived and was reunited with her owner, but the officer now faces an investigation into his heavy-handed approach. A car is a tool that can be used or misused as a weapon.
Autopilot not piloting
We may be able to ask the officer in our second story what was going through his head when they made his decision to run down that cow. But for this third ‘driver’ we will never know. In Fullerton, California, a Tesla driver using the vehicle’s self-driving mode crashed into a police cruiser while the officer was investigating another crash.
The Tesla driver admitted to using his cellphone while his car navigated in self-driving mode, oblivious to the emergency lights and flares set up around the scene. It would seem a miracle to some who are on the lookout for signs of divine intervention, that no one was injured.
This comes as Tesla faces more lawsuits related to crashes involving its Autopilot feature. It would be a stretch to blame this collision on an Almighty, but the management of Tesla might be praying for a little help as the lawsuits pile up.
