By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

Every guy shooting wants to get as close to the action as possible, but something tells me the dude manning the camera here has invested in a zoom lens. He takes a pretty hard lick from the business end of the burly 4×4, but at least he’s knocked out of the way. The guy I was worried about? The one that gets run over immediately afterward. The way the truck is bouncing made me think the worst, but fortunately, he climbs out from under the rig unharmed. Given that the driver just keeps going like nothing happened, I have to wonder if he knows how close he came to killing somebody.

There aren’t many details available, but Jeremy Clarkson has been hurt in a high-speed crash while filming a segment for Top Gear. Fortunately, his injuries were far less serious than the brain trauma suffered by colleague Richard Hammond last year, and he’s already recovering at home. Obviously, it takes more than little old car wreck to shut Clarkson up—here’s what he had to say about the state of his body after the incident: "My right index finger looked like a burst sausage, my left shin wasfatter than my thigh and my back felt like someone had driven over itwith a pile-driver." Yikes. Get well soon Mr. Clarkson, hopefully we’ll get some more info once the new Top Gear season starts in November. via The Mirror

Be sure to pull all the way off the road…

I’m sure David Wallens will cry a little bit when he sees this photo. Apparently some lady forgot to put on the emergency brake when she parked her Miata, and the car rolled down the hill and into a neighbor’s pool. "Police and the tow truck driver estimated the car was going 40 mph before it hit the water." 40 mph? Must have been quite a hill. There’s a pic of the car being pulled out of the pool after the jump. York Daily Record via Jalopnik.

Continue reading "Miata Goes Swimming" »

Check out this documentary trailer for Crash Course: The Accidental Art of Arnold Odermatt. Odermatt was a Swiss police photographer who documented crash scenes from 1939 to 1993, resulting in the haunting stills that the teaser gives you a glimpse of.  Not much info yet on the forthcoming documentary, or its release date, but we’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, there are at least two collections of Odermatt’s car-wreck photos available for purchase on Amazon.

From the way the tower explodes after the car’s impact, you’d think the guy shooting the action would be a goner. But amazingly, after all the rubble settles, he stands up! Bravo dude! Hopefully he just got a good scare and didn’t get injured. Wonder what this clip looks like from his angle?

Talk about bad PR. After investigating an accident which killed two children in 1999, a French court determined that the brakes of the driver’s Volvo 850 were faulty, and convicted the company of manslaughter. While dead kids don’t look good on any company’s resume, for one that’s stressed safety as much as Volvo has, it seems particularly ugly. Of course, Volvo plans to appeal. More details over at BBC News.