July 2006

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On Friday as I was coming back from downtown Chapel Hill, there was a delay. A wrecker was parked across most of both lanes of the street, trying to get a SUV extricated from a parking error.

The SUV's driver had apparently misjudged the edge of the small parking lot. Bad mistake, because the edge comes complete with a drop-off of several feet. So one SUV tire was hanging low, and the rest of that side of the vehicle was being supported by the railroad tie that formed the edge of the parking area.

For the first several minutes, it was interesting to watch the wrecker. Then those of us on the bus realized the wrecker was not going to succeed, since it wasn't able to get the proper leverage.

We tired of waiting. Cars coming up behind the bus were able to get around the wrecker, but there wasn't enough pavement clearance for the bus. Traffic made backing up and going another way be not an option.

Some of the passengers whose destinations were closer than mine chose to start walking. I didn't, because it was way too hot and I had way too much to carry to want to do that.

The wrecker driver was hell bent he was going to try again. But the bus drivers (there was another bus behind ours) had other ideas...they called the transit office and soon there was a police officer who could do more than glare at the wrecker driver.

The officer got the wrecker driver to disconnect from the SUV and get the wrecker out of the street. With the way cleared, those of us on the bus were able to go on to our destinations.

And I hope while he was delayed the wrecker driver figured out that he needed some help lifting the front of the SUV.