The Mammoth Book of Weird News (Mammoth Books)

by Geoff Tibballs

  TRUCK DRIVER TICKETED WHILE STUCK IN HOLE

  Truck driver Michael Collins was on his way to collect a skip in London’s Belsize Park when his 17-ton vehicle suddenly collapsed into a hole in the road created by a burst water main. With the front wheels stuck fast, Collins waited for assistance but instead saw a parking attendant appear and, standing on tiptoe, plaster a parking ticket on his windscreen. Helpfully she informed him: “You can appeal.”

  FIRST-TIME FLYER TRIES TO OPEN PLANE’S EMERGENCY DOOR

  A Chinese man, flying for the first time, tried to open the airplane’s emergency exit door in mid-air . . . because he wanted to spit. Luckily a fellow passenger managed to stop him just as he was about to push the door open. The man was arrested when the plane landed in Shanghai.

  QUEEN IS STUCK BEHIND LEARNER DRIVER

  The Queen missed a royal fly-past in 2002 – believed to be the first time in 50 years that she had been late for an official engagement – because her limo was stuck behind a learner driver on a rural road. The Queen was on her way from her residence at Sandringham in Norfolk to RAF Marham at Kings Lynn and was already running late after getting stuck behind a tractor for two miles when the royal entourage caught up with 19-year-old student Sarah Proctor who was taking her tenth driving lesson in a Vauxhall Corsa. After learning that the delay caused Her Majesty to be late for the fly-past, driving instructor Martin Underwood explained: “Both Sarah and I noticed the Queen was behind us. We were observing the correct speed and there was no place to pass.” Sarah described the whole episode as “unreal”, adding: “It was so weird having the Queen behind you on your driving lesson. I could see her hat but I could not see her.”

  JOY RIDER STEALS 30 FIAT UNOS IN THREE MONTHS

  Police in Zagreb, Croatia, arrested a 20-year-old man on suspicion of stealing no fewer than 30 humble Fiat Uno cars for joy rides in a three-month crime spree in 2008. He abandoned the little cars in parking lots or alongside highways once they ran out of petrol.

  LOST CYCLIST TAKES LONG DIVERSION

  A Chinese cyclist’s search for a Munich subway station ended with him pedalling for miles down the autobahn – completely oblivious to his mistake. When stopped by police, the 26-year-old student said he was at the end of a 50-mile ride from Augsburg and had wanted to finish his journey by subway. So he had followed blue “U” signs (which indicate subway stations in Germany), unaware that similar signs also mark diversions – “Umleitungen” – and they led him on to the A99 autobahn. The man was fined $10 for illegal highway use and sent on his way with a map.

  MAN WAITS SIX YEARS FOR CAR TO BE REPAIRED

  An Argentine pensioner revealed that he had been waiting for more than six years for a Buenos Aires garage to fix his car. Jose Orono said he took his Fiat 600 to the repair shop in 2000 but a week later the garage owner told him that he still needed another two weeks to fix the car. “It needed painting and some minor mechanical work,” said Mr Orono, “but he kept making up excuses. One time, he said that his aunt had died and another that his shop had been broken into.” Having finally run out of patience, Mr Orono announced in 2006 that he was going to sue the garage. It is not known whether he is still hoping that his car will be ready next week.

  TRAIN STAFF BANG HEADS TO RELIEVE BOREDOM

  A group of Russian train conductors needed hospital treatment in 2003 after smashing their heads repeatedly against a train window to find out who had the strongest forehead. The conductors thought the contest would help pass the time on the long 3,000-mile journey from Novosibirsk in Siberia to Vladivostok but barely halfway through they stopped the train and demanded medical help.

  SAILOR ENDS VOYAGE TO SAVE WHALES AFTER HITTING ONE

  A California sailor who set off on a solo voyage to Japan in 2000 to highlight the plight of whales had to abandon the attempt just one day into the adventure after his boat ran into one of the mammals. The collision damaged the rudder of Michael Reppy’s 60-foot ocean racer Thursday’s Child, making it almost impossible to steer. As the boat prepared to limp into Honolulu, Reppy acknowledged in his online log “the irony of sailing to save whales and running into them”.

  DRIVER IS DOWN IN THE DUMPS

  A 65-year-old Swiss driver plunged 30 feet into a garbage bunker at a green recycling centre in Bazenheid in 2010 after accidentally hitting the accelerator instead of the brake as he was backing up. A shocked Heiner Mollard was winched to safety for treatment to cuts and bruises. To add insult to injury, he was fined $100 by dump bosses for leaving an “inappropriate item” – namely his car – in a recycling bin.

  WOMAN CRASHES CAR AFTER BEING BITTEN BY TORTOISE

  A driver crashed into an oncoming bus in Trimbach, Switzerland, after a tortoise bit her. The woman was travelling with two tortoises on the passenger seat of her car when one attacked her, causing her to swerve across the road and collide with the bus. Swiss police indicated that the tortoises were not wearing seat belts.

  REFUGEE TRAVELS 30 HOURS STRAPPED BENEATH BUS – TO WRONG COUNTRY

  A 19-year-old Afghan man survived a 30-hour journey strapped underneath a bus in 2009, only to discover that he had arrived in Poland instead of his chosen destination of Italy. The man used a belt to attach himself near the gearbox at the bus depot in Athens but unfortunately selected the wrong bus. So when he emerged from his hiding place at the end of the 1,700-mile journey and asked wearily, “Italia?” he was in for a nasty surprise. He was said to be exhausted, frozen and starving and had suffered a scratched face from the gear cable every time the bus changed gear.

  DRIVER TAKES WRONG TURN ONTO AIRPORT RUNWAY

  A Florida driver got lost and ended up on the runway of Tampa International Airport in 1998, causing a number of flights to be delayed. She had driven through a closed airport gate marked with “Do Not Enter” signs and, according to the airport’s assistant director of operations, “was on a runway staring at a 737”. She told police she had got lost while driving home from a party after fighting with her boyfriend.

  JOURNALIST’S VOMIT GROUNDS MIG FIGHTER PLANE

  A MiG fighter plane was put out of action for a week after a journalist vomited in the cockpit, damaging sensitive equipment. Kresimir Zabec from the Croatian daily Jutarnji List was researching a story with the Croatian Air Force but threw up as the MiG 21 sped through the air at 625 miles per hour during a flight that had been specially arranged for him. The plane was grounded for seven days while the hi-tech equipment was taken out and thoroughly cleaned.

  HOTEL PARKING VALET WRITES OFF $175,000 FERRARI

  Asked to park a $175,000 Ferrari 355 GTS for a guest, the 20-year-old parking valet at an upmarket hotel in Dana Point, California, merely succeeded in smashing the car into a palm tree just 30 feet from the hotel entrance. In a statement that was of little consolation to the Ferrari’s owner, the hotel’s executive assistant manager maintained: “We park hundreds of thousands of cars each year without a problem.”

  WOMAN HIT TWICE IN 24 HOURS BY SAME CAR

  An Icelandic woman with an unblemished driving record of 20 years was hit twice in 24 hours by the same car in 1999. First, she was driving in Akureyri when a car suddenly came out of a parking lot and smashed into her vehicle, causing wholesale damage. After renting another car, the next day the woman was hit by the same vehicle as she drove through a green light at a junction.

  BUS TOILET FAECES DUMPED THROUGH CAR SUNROOF

  A family were driving through Ohio in 2006 when the Greyhound bus they were following allegedly dumped the contents of its toilet through their open car sunroof. Robert and Angela Stokes and their three children were returning from a Mother’s Day meal in Toledo when they were suddenly covered with faeces, urine and toilet paper.

  LOST MAN DRIVES 370 MILES TO PICK UP MILK

  Eighty-one-year-old Australian grandfather Eric Steward drove for nine hours and over 370 miles after setting off early one morning in 2009 to buy a newspaper. The former navy seaman had intended making a short tri
p to collect the newspaper from a store in Yass, New South Wales, where he and his wife Clare were staying with friends. However he took a wrong turn and just kept on driving – all the way into Victoria beyond Melbourne towards Geelong. There he finally stopped at a service station and asked a police officer to contact his wife. When she asked her husband if there were any signs around, he replied, “Uh, Westgate Bridge”, in reference to the Melbourne landmark. That was when she knew he was hopelessly lost. Asked by the police why he had not stopped earlier, Mr Steward said brightly: “I just like to drive.”

  DRUNK DRIVER WAS ALSO BLIND

  Estonian police who stopped a car in the centre of Tartu in 2008 found that the driver was not only drunk but also blind. Officers said 20-year-old Kristjan Gradolf was apparently being given directions by a friend in the passenger seat. Gradolf had also been stopped while driving erratically the previous year. On that occasion he only confessed to being blind after he could not find the tube to give a breath test.

  ANGRY DAD HANGS SPEEDING SON’S CAR IN TREE

  After his 16-year-old son Stephen picked up his third speeding ticket within just three months of getting his driving licence, Alan Cost decided to teach him a lesson. He used a chain to suspend the pick-up truck from a tree in front of the family home on a busy road in Birmingham, Alabama. He also put a sign in the vehicle’s window, which read: “This is what happens when a teenager doesn’t mind.” Beneath was a smaller sign saying: “May be for sale.”

  FLATULENT PIGS FORCE JET TO MAKE U-TURN

  Excessive flatulence from a consignment of 72 pigs in its cargo hold set off a fire alarm on a South African passenger jet in 1995 and forced it to turn back and make an emergency landing. The alarm automatically released fire-suppressing halon gas, which unfortunately suffocated 15 of the valuable stud pigs. The animals were travelling by passenger plane because, according to an airline spokesman, passenger flights are “less traumatic for them than going on a freighter flight”.

  COPS CHASE GARBAGE TRUCK FOR 57 MILES

  A man in Minnesota led police on a 57-mile vehicle chase in 2009 – while driving a garbage truck. The chase began when police received a call about a drunken man trying to break into a house in Lastrup, but before they arrived he drove off in a garbage truck. In the course of the ensuing chase, he swerved the truck at police cars before accelerating away in reverse. After a deputy had unsuccessfully attempted to halt the truck’s progress by firing a shotgun at its engine, the fugitive was apprehended by a police dog while trying to complete his getaway on foot.

  SAFE DRIVER DID NOT HAVE LICENCE

  A pensioner on his way to receive an award for 25 years of accident-free driving was stopped by police at a roadside check – and admitted he did not have a licence. Wilibald Schmidt had been forced to surrender his licence in 1978 but had continued driving illegally without it. The motoring club in Essen, Germany, where he was a member, had invited him to receive an award for his “careful driving and good example to other motorists”.

  PILOT JAILED FOR FLINTSTONES SINGALONG

  Dutch airline pilot Wim de Nijs was sentenced to four months in jail after being convicted of jamming the air traffic control frequency and jeopardizing airport safety by singing the theme to The Flintstones over the radio for 20 minutes while landing his plane.

  DRIVER WAKES UP IN COFFIN AFTER CRASH

  A Croatian motorist who crashed through an undertakers’ window in 2009 woke up to find himself in an open coffin. Radoslav Pokrajac was hurled from the car through an open window and landed in the funeral director’s display of special offers. “He was very frightened,” said one rescue worker. “When he woke up, he didn’t know if he was alive or dead.” Funeral director Miro Zirdum said it was not the first occasion a car had crashed into his shop in Sibinj. “This is the third or fourth time I’ve had a car in my shop,” he said. “And none of them have brought me any business.”

  DISCARDED LEDERHOSEN CAUSE CITY GRIDLOCK

  During an argument with his girlfriend, a 30-year-old German man angrily threw his lederhosen out of the window of his Augsburg apartment – and brought the entire city to a standstill. For the leather shorts landed on an overhead tram cable and short-circuited its power, forcing trams to a halt and blocking a busy arterial road for hours. Police had to retrieve the garment with a crane and made the lederhosen owner pay for the operation.

  STOWAWAY DISAPPOINTED BY FIRST GLIMPSE OF NEW YORK

  A Romanian who wanted to start a new life in the US set about realizing his ambition by stowing away in a cargo container on a ship bound for New York. When the ship eventually docked, he slipped ashore from his hiding place in eager anticipation of experiencing the Big Apple. But as he gazed out at his new homeland, he was puzzled that there wasn’t a skyscraper in sight . . . or a yellow taxi . . . or the Statue of Liberty. It was only when he was arrested by docks police that he learned that the ship’s first port of call was not New York but the English port of Felixstowe.

  “BODY IN BOOT” IS FALSE ALARM

  A woman in England phoned the police to report that she had seen a car being driven at Leigh-on-Sea with what appeared to be a body protruding from the open boot. Police quickly found the car – with two legs sticking out of the back. They belonged to a garage mechanic trying to trace a noise which was annoying the driver.

  PILOTS OVERSHOOT DESTINATION BY 150 MILES

  A Northwest Airlines flight carrying 144 passengers from San Diego, California, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, overshot its destination by 150 miles in 2009 because the pilots were busy on their personal laptop computers and lost track of time and place. The captain, Timothy Cheney, and first officer Richard Cole said they had been distracted looking at a new crew-scheduling system on their laptops. It was only when a flight attendant contacted them on the aircraft’s intercom to ask what was going on that they realized they were flying over Wisconsin at 37,000 feet. Alerted to their lapse, Cheney told Cole to contact air traffic control because “we need to get this thing on the ground”. They duly turned the Airbus A320 around and landed safely in Minneapolis. During the flight, the airplane was out of radio contact for 77 minutes, causing officials on the ground, fearful that the plane had been hijacked by terrorists, to prepare to scramble fighter jets to intercept it.

  ITALIAN DRIVER IS LITERALLY STUCK IN TRAFFIC

  A motorist and his car became stuck on an Italian road in 2001 after a truck shed its load of glue. The truck crashed into a tree on a bridge between Milan and Pavia, spilling gallons of extra strong construction glue all over the highway. When the driver of the car behind got out to investigate, his feet immediately stuck to the tarmac. For the next few hours he stood on the same spot calling for help on his cell phone until rescue workers arrived to dissolve the glue.

  PASSENGER IS ORDERED TO DRINK HIS OWN URINE

  Airport security staff in China ordered a retired policeman to drink his own urine sample before catching a flight in order to prove that it was safe to take on board. Yu Fahai was passing through security at Pudong International Airport, Shanghai, in 2009 when he was challenged about a bottle of liquid in his pocket. “The checker asked me what was inside,” said Yu, who received a kidney transplant several years earlier and had to regularly test his urine for infection. “I told her it was my urine, and she told me to drink some to prove it.” After Yu lodged a complaint, an airport spokesman said the security guard mistakenly heard the word “urine” as “beverage”, and claimed Yu had his boarding card in his mouth, making his pronunciation unclear.

  INTREPID FLIER TAKES TO SKIES IN LAWN CHAIR

  California truck driver Larry Walters had always wanted to be an airplane pilot but poor eyesight prevented him from fulfilling his ambition. Undeterred, he decided to build his own flying contraption, which resulted in a crazy adventure in the skies above Los Angeles in the summer of 1982. After buying 45 weather balloons and several tanks of helium from his local Army-Navy surplus store, Larry strapped the balloons to an aluminium
lawn chair, which was in turn anchored to the bumper of his jeep. He then packed beer, sandwiches and a loaded pellet gun so that he could pop a few of the balloons when he was eventually ready to descend. His plan was to float gently up to a height of about 30 feet above his back yard and come back down a few hours later but when he severed the cord tying the lawn chair to his jeep, he instead streaked into the sky as if fired from a cannon. Rather than levelling out at 30 feet, he levelled out at 16,000 feet. There he stayed, drifting, cold and frightened, for more than 14 hours. To his horror, he found himself crossing the primary approach corridor of Los Angeles International Airport and a helicopter was sent to investigate after disbelieving airline pilots radioed in to report that they had passed a man in a lawn chair with a gun. Finally he summoned up the courage to shoot a few balloons and descend but as he came down the hanging tethers caught in a power line, blacking out a Long Beach neighbourhood. He eventually came to ground in a residential area of Long Beach and was immediately led away in handcuffs by waiting members of the Los Angeles Police Department. When a reporter asked him why he had done it, Larry replied nonchalantly: “A man can’t just sit around.” He was subsequently fined $1,500 for violating airspace and enjoyed fleeting fame as a talk show guest. Eleven years later, Larry Walters shot himself dead, aged 44.