Crushed by noodles

Lin Hu, a cab driver from Xian, China, is lucky to be alive after his taxi was crushed under the weight of pallets of instant noodles. The student meal of choice was being transported by an overloaded truck that careened around a corner towards Mr Hu.

‘It was swaying from side to side and could hardly steer. There was nothing I could do to keep out of its way,’ said the 43-year-old.

‘I’m lucky to have walked away from the accident but my cab is a write off.’

Amazingly, Mr Hu emerged from his yellow and green taxi without a single scratch and has stated he will pursue the offending transport firm for damages.

Keep on truckin’

When Lu Chen from China smashed the front of his truck windscreen he took matters into his own hands. Rather than call road recovery Lu got back into his truck and sat in his drivers seat surrounded by twisted metal so that he could repair it for a cheaper rate.

The 38 year old was caught by local police after his slow speed had caused traffic to back up behind him. After what must have been a very convincing speech to the police, Lu was allowed to carry on to with one proviso – that he purchased a pair of goggles so that he could drive at the proper speed!

“I didn’t want to slow other drivers down but I wasn’t going to be ripped off either,” Chen told police.

Meanwhile in Lithuania…

Arturas Zuokas is not your run of the mill Mayor. Whilst most Mayor’s busy themselves with opening local shops, Mayor Zuokas has made it his personal duty to rid his streets of illegally parked cars in the country’s capital Vilnius.

Disgruntled members of the Mayor’s office complained of receiving hundreds of complaints from cyclists, stating that the cars were blocking their bike lanes. Mayor Zuokos’s logical solution was to drive over an illegally parked luxury Mercedes Benz with an armoured tank!

“If you have a car and a lot of money, it doesn’t mean you can park whenever you want. There has been an increasing number of such incidents lately, and with this action I want to remind, that behaving with a lack of respect to other people is wrong,”

Whilst we hope Boris Johnson doesn’t follow suit, who can deny the spectacle of Boris roaming the streets of London in a tank?

Offensive bumper ornament on trial

Drivers can be slapped with a fine for any number of violations but breaking obscenity laws is one that most of us would expect. Not so for Virgina Tice from South Carolina who is awaiting a ruling for displaying a pair of “comedy plastic testicles” from the rear bumper of her truck.

Police officer Franco Fuda who originally ticketed Ms Tice apparently decided to some investigating of his own: “I went to (a) few websites that said, excuse the expression, ‘show your nuts,'” he said. “I didn’t see anywhere it said support your local proctologist or farmer.”

Ms Tice’s attorney, Scott Bischoff, had this to say, “She’s such a sweet lady and she just says ‘I don’t want to pay the fine.’ We’ll let a jury decide whether this is really criminal behaviour. I don’t want to take away from the importance of free speech, but it’s really comical,” he said.

Guilty or not guilty?!

Aerodynamic lorries

Given its unavoidable size and weight, a fully sized lorry is not exactly the most aerodynamic of vehicles. Much like how winglets for planes reduce wind resistance, the “TrailerTail” by ATDynamics is attached at the back of the lorry, making the lorry more aerodynamic.

Comprised of an unassuming plastic composite and metal tubing, the TrailerTail reportedly reduces fuel consumption by 6 percent! Could we see more and more lorries sporting drag reducing modifications in the future?

Facebook catches fraudster

After making a fraudulent claim for £1million as a result of a road collision, ex-lorry driver, Graham Loveday was embarrassingly caught red handed after posting photos on Facebook. Mr Loveday claimed that he was unable to return to his job in the transport industry after his collision, stating “going into a car fills me with dread.” However the lure of a holiday in Italy meant Mr Loveday gave up his wheelchair to drive the 2000 mile journey with his wife.

Insurance firm Acromas’s lawyer told a judge: “He told a solicitor he had travelled by plane and was taken in a wheelchair.”

Judge Sir Anthony May said: “Mr Loveday had given a bit of a show of staggering from his seat to give evidence and pretending not to remember things.”

Mr. Loveday was found guilty for lying 14 times in court papers and sentenced for nine months of jail time.

Swimming with the sat nav

An Austrian woman has proven that some of us might just be a little too dependant on the sat nav when it comes to driving. Typing in Lake Grundlsee into her sat nav, Petra Lang, took the directions to the lake all too literally.

After driving through undergrowth Ms Lang finally made it to the lake, albeit head first. “She insisted the sat nav system was to blame,” one rescuer explained. “She said she typed in that she wanted to go to the lake – but got closer than she intended.”

Luckily Ms Lang was able to escape and fire fighters removed the van from the lake.