Comments on: Car heads down subway stairs

By: GawainLavers

GawainLavers — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:45:00 +0000

Dominique Pinon FTW.

By: James B

James B — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:18:00 +0000

A legend in my own mind? Thats funny. I’m just helpful to people in need, and kind of disgusted by people who aren’t.

By: AlexG55

AlexG55 — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:48:00 +0000

I don’t think French staircases are built in inches.

By: Navin_Johnson

Navin_Johnson — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 05:36:00 +0000

So you’re kind of like the lead singer of Ministry as well as The Road Ranger. A legend. In your own mind…………..

By: James B

James B — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 05:06:00 +0000

Not really. There aren’t two lanes of roundabout traffic swerving around the vehicle.

By: James B

James B — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 05:05:00 +0000

I guess besides being the kind of guy that honks when a car breaks down in front of you, rather than getting out and offering to push them off the side of the road, you never built your own stairs either. Remind me, what is the inverse tangent of 7″ over 10″?

By: penguinchris

penguinchris — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 02:56:00 +0000

SF isn’t the worst for this, but since I’ve only spent a few days in total driving around there and I’m not familiar with it, I ran into many circumstances where it was very difficult to determine where you’re supposed to go. Signage and road markings all across the US – even, or perhaps especially, in confusing/non-standard arrangements – are abysmally bad.

It’s obviously not an enormous problem, but I guarantee that thousands of collisions (and many more near-misses) are caused by needlessly bad road markings and signage each year. It’s not just that they don’t have the money for more signs – the signs usually exist, they’re just useless or cause even more confusion because of their design and how they’re placed.

There’s a Monty Python sketch which includes a bit about keep-left signs that attack people. It stuck with me as a kid, for some reason, and then after I started driving at 16 it took a couple years but then I remembered it – and wondered why we don’t have those signs to indicate where to go so as to not run over a curb or go down the wrong side of a street. Turns out we do have those signs, but the way they’re designed is hopelessly useless.

By: llazy8

llazy8 — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:47:00 +0000

Same thing happened in Buenos Aires a little over a year ago.
http://xcolectivo.blogspot.com.ar/2011/02/al-subterraneo-en-auto-se-confundio.html

By: twianto

twianto — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 23:43:00 +0000

Very feasible. Wide, inviting stairs (or stairless, gently sloping ramps) are the norm. The last thing you want is people running crotch-first into a pillar during rush hour. It’s all about efficiency and throughput. Cars trying to take the subway isn’t exactly a common scenario.

By: twianto

twianto — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 22:13:00 +0000

“I made a mistake”… you think?

By: Michael Smith

Michael Smith — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 22:08:00 +0000

Its called Subway

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 20:33:00 +0000

The Sunset Tunnel has had a few of those.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 20:31:00 +0000

I just rewatched that about a month ago. Except for the absence of cell phones, you’d never guess that it wasn’t a new film.

By: Robert Baruch

Robert Baruch — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 20:14:00 +0000

Nicely done. That entrance does look inviting, if somewhat scary narrow and scary steep. *I* wouldn’t park there.

By: Robert Baruch

Robert Baruch — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 20:10:00 +0000

If the driver were drunk, then I’m pretty sure the article would’ve said the driver was drunk, not distraught. On the other hand, it’s not entirely clear from the article that the distraughtness happened before or after the car decided that it would be best to take an alternate mode of transport. Perhaps driving while distraught could cause this to happen.

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 20:04:00 +0000

I have a general rule about being under things that aren’t secure and weight more than I do…

Prude.

By: bcsizemo

bcsizemo — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:53:00 +0000

Thinking about it I would have almost imagined that there would be zoning laws or something so a retaining pillar/post had to be at the top of the stairs. I mean I’ve seen natural gas valves 30 feet off the road up a 45 degree bank in the middle of someone’s yard have iron posts protecting them…

Next time I’m in a city with a good metro system I’m gonna start looking to see how feasible it is to drive down the stairs.

By: bcsizemo

bcsizemo — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:50:00 +0000

If someone had a tow rope or some good wire I’d be happy to pull him out…

I have a general rule about being under things that aren’t secure and weight more than I do…and it’s not to be there.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:47:00 +0000

I’m not quite sure it was the same stairs. But it was line 9 as well (or maybe 10).
Nevertheless these people have to be blind. And not from Paris (I mean, come on, almost all the entrances for the metro look exactly the same, just like this one)…

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:44:00 +0000

Well… more of an explanation than an excuse. Still, if this isn’t the first time someone did this then either the parking sign needs to go or they should put up some kind of protective barrier. It’s not good enough for the vast majority of drivers to understand the sign properly if one out of every few thousand makes a similar mistake.

By: Mark Duanburge

Mark Duanburge — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:40:00 +0000

Take a virtual drive courtesy of Google: http://g.co/maps/5e2gv

By: LennStar

LennStar — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:36:00 +0000

I’m all for getting people from cars to public transit. But honestly, some people just have to exaggerate *everything*.

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:17:00 +0000

I think I found the video, but frankly it's a little anticlimactic.

By: Barry Figgins

Barry Figgins — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:06:00 +0000

I’m not going to try to push a car up a 45-degree incline. The benefit? I might help a stranger save 45 minutes. The cost? I might die. Not worth it.

By: GawainLavers

GawainLavers — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:52:00 +0000

People do this all the time in SF: one guy in an SUV basically led the police on a chase through the Metro after going into the tunnel at Church Street. Eventually his tires got caught on the tracks.

By: James Penrose

James Penrose — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:51:00 +0000

I don’t buy the guy’s excuse: Rarely have I seen a parking ramp that consists of stairs with handrails. and a really large Metro sign above it. Wonder if he had already had a few and was heading for the next.

By: GawainLavers

GawainLavers — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:51:00 +0000

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082269/

By: addalled

addalled — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:44:00 +0000

I do this when I play Grand Theft Auto but I use a motorcycle instead.

By: Navin_Johnson

Navin_Johnson — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:41:00 +0000

I’d say this situation would be infinitely more dangerous to the pushers than yours.

By: James B

James B — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:35:00 +0000

In some places, helpful passersby would have pushed him back up the stairs. He doesn’t look bottomed out. I received such assistance when my tailgate failed in a roundabout, leaving a 1000lb bundle of 2x4s dragging behind my truck. A bunch of guys ran over from the local fast food place, and lifted the bundle of boards back in my truck so I could get someplace safe to re-secure the boards. I was out of the road in about 90 seconds. And I’ve always pushed/pulled and generally tried to help people who were stuck like that, and still do.