With any luck, the insurance company won't cover the damage because it was the result of breaking the law.

will also screw up the doors pretty good.

Park your car in the fire lane ? Expect it to be rammed out of the way -- fire trucks have reinforced front ends just for this purpose. And local ordinances will free the FD from any fault.

off the car!

That's why they broke out the side windows, I imagine. It looks like the could have run the hose over the roof or hood of the BMW, but they kinda intensified the lesson with their fire axes.

Not a good idea to park there.

Someone blocked our driveway the other day. Getting the police and a tow truck to come took 9 hours. (Ample time for the driver to move the car him or herself.) That is a 95 dollar ticket plus a 300 towing fee. (And then there is the "per day" fee for storage at the facility.)

I would imagine that a hydrant ticket would be very expensive.

A knocking out of the windows is what the car deserves.

In fact, try to bend it at all.

No way that hose would have bent up and over a car that close. Most likely the firemen did not have enough radius to connect the hose to the hydrant even while it was not under pressure.

Having worked a 4" line or two in my stint years ago, the force behind that water is incredible.

I suppose they might have gone under it if there was adequate clearance, but it's clear that they couldn't go over the hood or roof. As somenoe said, "nice body work."

a lawyer

But I suspect he knows perfectly well it wouldn't end well....at all.

That is a significant drop in flow and pressure to fight the fire. I'm speaking as someone who plumbed in hundreds of pumps in my life.

That would not have made such a statement, but it would have allowed better flow.

When they turned on the line, there is a ton of water pressure in the hose, and the hose would attempt to straighten itself out, which would easily dent those doors.

You know what I mean, Vern?

and I got a discount..

I will never give up my beamers though

to find a pool of water in the back passenger seat...where the sun/moon roof was letting snow/rain/ice in..

New front seats would be more than $100.

Paid $2500 used. Sweetest car we ever had. But then it got old enough to need constant repairs, and with parts having to come from Germany, we couldn't afford to keep it up. We were still able to sell it to someone else instead of junking it, though.

when someone cuts you off on the road, or doesn't stop for a pedestrian crossing, or can't be bothered to signal a turn or lane change, they're driving a BMW.

There's actually research that backs this up, in fact:

it's more like 8 or 9 out of 10, and it isn't just Beemers, it's Audis and Mercedes.

Give a CT/NY/NJ driver a German car, and he'll probably try to drive it like a Nazi.

In our case, the BMW was the car we got (at the insistence of a friend who was an auto body guy) after the VW beetle hit some black ice and had a close encounter with a stone wall. And these days we're driving a 20 year old Chevy Cavalier.

If you see cars as interesting and/or useful objects and you've never bought one new, you're going to relate to them a lot differently than if you treat them as status symbols.

And of course I also grew up on cautionary tales about my grandfather. In the 1920s, when he was making good money, he once bought a new car and traded it back in after two weeks because my grandmother objected to the color of the upholstery. And around the same time, my mother's younger sister literally believed that the term for a pedestrian was "son of a bitch."

If the average BMW driver these days is the modern equivalent of my grandfather, it would explain a lot.

Every time I'm almost run over by some speeding executive coming out of his alleyway parking garage at 40+mph, it has been a BMW.

If you own a BMW please don't drive like these rich fucks in SF.

People rail about the "Google Bus", but think of the alternative: they all drive to work in their Beemers. Do you really want that?

Not seen much respect for the anti-Google bus protest "movement" such as it is. The city should charge Google a nominal use fee for the use of the stops.

Sooner or later, every asshole gets one.



(Not quite the same as a tautology, still leaves room for a BMW owner who isn't an asshole)

the pricks on the inside



Please don't assume car ownership dictates politics

Plenty of rw asshole subaru owners out there

Beautiful Mechanical Wonder
Big Money Works
Boring Middleclass Wankers
Born Moderately Wealthy
Break My Windows
Brings More Women
Broken Money Waster
Broke My Wallet
Bavarian Manure Wagon

4 inch, 5 inch, 6 inch are essentially above gound water mains, they don't bend well. My answer is the driver didn't care about the residents so f--k them.

That was done to preserve the pressure and rate of flow. Angler bends affect the ability to fight the fire.

park there. It's all about him/her.

from the windshield to the rear window...with a leaky hose.

I'm sure I am overstating this, but it just seems like it is always a beemer.

Makes it even better.

Hey whats that German word for enjoying the misfortunes of others?

But I don't think that it applies here.

This guy really deserved what he got....

Wouldn't it have been more efficient to hook a truck to asshole's car and drag it out of the way?

Where are you going to drag it off to? It takes a few seconds to pop out two windows with a hammer. I'm not going to second guess trained professionals who know that every second matters.

nt

Back in 1975, (I joined the FD in 1974) I/we responded to a call--kitchen fire. A car was in front of the hydrant with ample space empty in front of it. The responding Engine was a 1932 Mack open cab fire truck with a large thick, steel, chromed front bumper. The engine driver put the bumper to the back of the car and not so gently, moved it out of the way. In doing so FUBARed the guys transmission. Surprisingly, the town govt. ended up paying for the guys transmission.

How firefighters respond to these situations depends on how quickly they need to get at that water. Years ago I saw a firetruck do exactly what you're suggesting. They tossed a hook and a chain onto the front suspension under the car, hooked the other end to the firetruck, and quickly backed the truck up...dragging the car out of the way by its front wheel. I'm not sure what they damaged, but I know that it had to be towed away afterward because it was no longer driveable.

Probably get his or her attention.

Going to cost a pretty penny for repairs, yes indeed.

Boston firefighters actually have to do this a lot. Parking in that city is insane. I didn't bother owning a car until I got a place with off street parking, an extreme rarity in such a jam packed city.

have to waste to make sure this asshole's property is "protected"?

The rules are clear, don't park in front of fire hydrants, having lived in and near cities all my life, I have had to park my car a city block or two away from my destination because the only "spaces" free are those in front of hydrants, and I will not park in front of them, not even to run into a convenience store for a minute, I'd rather walk than be a danger to that community.

There are really no excuses here, and the responsibility to preserve your car ends when it endangers the welfare, safety and property of others.

If they had to break one window to do that, why not break the other one too?

Personally, I think they should have tried running it through the back windows first...

it would have been something to see that guy's face when he got back to his car.

A BMW owner was involved in a horrific accident. When the paramedics arrived, they found that the semi-conscious driver had lost an arm. He was moaning, 'my Beemer! My Beemer!' One paramedic said, 'look, buddy, even though you lost an arm, you're still alive, right?' The driver, then realizing that he had lost a limb, started howling, 'my Rolex! My Rolex!'

Only a selfish asshole would block a hydrant like that.

I have no sympathy for someone that puts others lives at risk by being an asshole...why didn't the person show up and move their fucking car?

But I've always wanted to do that on a call.

if they moved it away from the curb, they probably could have moved it a little more, or turned it around a bit and run the hose as usual, underneath the car.

That doesn't mean, however, that I'm sorry about what happened to the car.

I think they made a statement...and quite well, too.

They did what was fastest, smashed the windows.