Truck plunges off cliff edge

Marit Almendingen of the Helgeland Arbeiderblad writes that the truck driver survived this terrifying drop in Norway. [via Hooniverse]

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http://www.facebook.com/people/Bilbo-Douchebaggins/100003580953517 Bilbo Douchebaggins

Are Norwegians known to be emotionally restrained, generally? Seriously.
- Tore Sinding Bekkedal
  
  Hm. Quite.
  - jimh
    
    I want to go to there…
- voiceinthedistance
  
  I’d venture so far as to say that their reactions ran the gamut from taciturn to reserved. More like stiff upper body than stiff upper lip. I suspect that I now know how to say “Dear, dear. How unfortunate”, if I’m ever in Norway.
  - Johan J.
    
    No, now you know how to sound upset.
- Culturedropout
  
  Well, I was wondering what a couple of gomers are doing going down the road filming the back of a truck in the first place. And I’m with you – there should have been a little more freaking out, and at least a couple of people screaming, “HOLY F’ING S**T!” in Norwegian.
  - nixiebunny
    
    I definitely heard one of the people filming say “Uh-oh” in Norwegian.
- Johan J.
  
  There are a few “helvete” (Norwegian for “Hell”) in what the person in the green working vest is saying, so, well, that’s an emotional response, isn’t it? He sounds pretty upset to me.
  
  (It goes the other way too: most Scandinavians really can’t understand the American habit of screaming as soon as something happens.)
http://www.bytehead.org/blog/ Bryan “bytehead” Price

Firefox (11 and 14) can’t display the video.
- ROSSINDETROIT
  
  Possibly it’s overloaded at the moment. Chrome can’t connect either. I’ll try yelling.
  
  COME ON INTERNETS I WANT TO SEE A NONFATAL TRUCK PLUNGE RIGHT NOW!!1!’LEVEN.Did that work?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  “No video with supported format and MIME type found.”
  
  It works if you follow the link.
  - http://www.bytehead.org/blog/ Bryan “bytehead” Price
    
    All I could read was “and MIME type found”. :)
    
    And yes, I have seen the video. But I wasn’t sure if it was just me.
- http://twitter.com/cicadamania Cicada Mania
  
  It’s a mp4 file, which Firefox doesn’t support natively. Welcome to HTML5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video#Table
Antinous / Moderator

I know that they regularly have shit weather and whatnot in the Norway, but is it really prudent to tow that big-ass truck on a snow-covered, winding mountain road with that little tow rig?
- ROSSINDETROIT
  
  Probably not prudent, but not out of line with the kind of bad ideas I see carried out by tow jockeys around here. Just really spectacular in this case.
  
  ETA: still can’t load it. Probably just as well. Back to back with that Lynch video right before bed is probably unwise.
  - EH
    
    it appears to be a straight html5 embed, do you have javascript disabled?
    - http://www.bytehead.org/blog/ Bryan “bytehead” Price
      
      I’ve got all scripts loading, and it still isn’t working for me.
  - http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith
    
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEzABU5LnjE
- http://twitter.com/GideonTJones Gideon Jones
  
  What should they have have towed it with? That tow truck is the sort I’ve always seen taking care of semis.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    A heavier rig that maybe came closer to the weight of the semi. Or possibly done a better job of plowing the road. Or getting the road shut down so the truck could be towed straight down the middle. There are a half dozen physics lessons going on in that video. There just shouldn’t be that many variables in a job involving so much heavy equipment.
    - nixiebunny
      
      That was about the biggest tow truck that exists for towing highway vehicles. The road should have been plowed, but truckers have schedules to meet. At least they only lost one tow truck (that we know of).
    - http://twitter.com/CreepingSword Spezz
      
      Im sure physics is entirely lost on him, why would you hire someone who uses their brain to do a job? He could drive a dozen trucks off a cliff and still have his job, because he’s the bosses’ son’s friend or some equally retarded nepotistic shit.
  - Guest
    
    um, a wrecker. That’s different from a tow truck. It’s the thing you see towing tow trucks.
- bcsizemo
  
  But all the ice and snow would make it that much easier to tow?
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    This is one of those situations where friction can be both your friend and your enemy.
    - Guest
      
      Santorum for President.
MostlyDifferent

And when they finally pulled the body
from the twisted,
burning
wreck,
it looked like
THIS!
https://flipcups.com/store/secure/images/products/265_large2.jpg
- dculberson
  
  Tell ‘em Large Marge sent ya’!
- M Carlson
  
  This is so full of WIN
nixiebunny

Good thing that there was a guard rail to stop the truck from falling over the edge.
semiotix

I didn’t realize a tow truck was involved, so at first I thought a big truck slid off the road, and then the smaller truck in front of it was, I don’t know, consumed with grief or something and so threw itself off as well.
- Culturedropout
  
  You’re weird. I like that.
http://profiles.google.com/chudez Ted Bautista

where’s the hollywood-esque fireball?
- Finnagain
  
  They didn’t bother to film that.
  - wizardru
    
    It’ll be added in Post.
- Guest
  
  this was a scandanavian film, sir.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Peter-Dickson/1280707658 Peter Dickson

I really want to have the tow truck driver’s comments translated.
- cat0
  
  He’s saying “What the hell just happened?” “What the hell did he do here/there?”. The newspapers here seem to agree that the big truck turned/slid of by itself. It was registered in Lithuania - foreign trucks tend to drive to Norway on bald summer tires and end up stuck on even the smallest incline.
silkox

It looks like the tractor dropped its right-side wheels off the pavement next to the guardrail, and the tow truck was trying to get it loose. When the tow truck pulled the front of the tractor to the left, the back of the tractor went to the right, along with the front of the trailer. That shifted the center of mass of the whole works over the edge. Seems like a rookie mistake on the part of the tow truck driver, and it would be fun to have his comments translated. And his boss’s comments, too. And let’s not forget the truck driver’s comments!
- http://illustratorhints.com/ Jesseham
  
  I’ve got the truck driver covered for you: ”shit! shit! shit! ow! shit! shit! ow! ow! shit! shit! ow!”
- http://profile.yahoo.com/FRJD66AT6LQ6CZZ46XJO43A4FM Artor
  
  It looked to me like the truck was in the road, and pulled to the shoulder to let the car pass, but the shoulder was just a ledge of snow.
http://twitter.com/jmck John McKenzie

Saw this almost happen to a log truck that had been aggressively tailgating our Forest Service pickup all the way down a winding mountain road*. Finally passed us. A couple of turns later, we came across the truck toppled over halfway off the cliff. The driver was crawling up back onto the road, completely drenched in sweat. We stopped for him.

*Loggers love to try to run Forest Service trucks off the road. Because the Forest Service is the Feds. Never mind that it exists primarily to tidy up forests for easy logging.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Maybe you should have chummed the road for bear instead of picking him up.
- Guest
  
  The sweat was from the meth.
jimbuck

I don’t speak Norwegian but they sure seem pretty relaxed about it all! Like the reaction someone in NJ has to seeing a dead deer in say, Hoboken. Just a little upset, and a bit a little surprised there’s a dead deer in such a heavily populated part of the state.

I’d like to see a video of Norwegians doing some serious storm chasing…. and compare it to Americans doing the same.
- https://www.facebook.com/rgovrebo B. Peasant
  
  I am Norwegian, and I thought the tow truck driver sounded very agitated.
copperwatt

Of all the possible reactions to witnessing this event, ”mildly bemused” is not high on my prediction list.
Petzl

Utforkjøring, indeed!
- Henry Pootel
  
  Utforkjøring believable
http://twitter.com/_nb Nicolas Bouilleaud

Wait, no explosion?
penguinchris

30,000 pounds… of Jarlsberg
ShawShaw

The tow truck driver survived because he didn’t go over the cliff with the truck! He opens the door and jumps out just seconds before the whole rig goes over the edge. He might be dumb when it comes to properly towing things, but you gotta give him credit for being quick on his feet there.
- https://www.facebook.com/rgovrebo B. Peasant
  
  The tow truck driver bailed out, yes. But the Latvian truck driver who was being towed didn’t.
Drabula

I was in Oslo in December and was surprised that no one apparently shovels their sidewalks. The whole visit was an exercise in not slipping and breaking my ass, so it doesn’t surprise me if they don’t plow their roads either.
http://japansunset.blogspot.com igzabier

The truck driver survived with some broken

bones-cushioned by styrofoam boxes of fish!

The Norwegian airbag!

Makes the story most amazing.
Preston Sturges

I think it was Spy Magazone that would run clippings that people sent in and someone collected articles about “bus plunges.” Apparently there is some style book that says buses can only “plunge.” The can’t just “fall” into a ravine or “tumble” or “carom” or “cartwheel,” they have to “plunge.”