Thud! Crunch! Screeeee! It's not my fault!

Shortly after 3 p.m. local time, I heard the distinctive sounds of a pair of vehicles finding each other in an orgy of bent metal and peeled rubber... tires. It sounded really close. After all, if I could detect the noise while sitting upstairs in my parents' house, with the stereo playing Doc Watson, it had to be within a two-block radius. I paused the cd, grabbed my camera, and hied myself out the door.

I was right. The accident was just over a block and a half away, at the corner of 8th Street and 2nd Avenue. I arrived on the scene just as the second police car pulled up, and then, about three minutes later, the fire department graced us with its presence, followed in another minute by the ambulance.
Fortunately, the presence of the latter two vehicles and teams, a standard precaution, was unnecessary in the final analysis. The crash was at a fairly low rate of speed. The SUV came out of this looking as though it had just come from the car wash.

And the passengers in the minivan had been protected by seat belts and side air bags
so the harm was strictly esthetic and financial.

And every little boy (plus a couple of big boys) in the neighborhood had to come out to see this.


(It really isn't my fault! I have an alibi... uh... I was... uh....)