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Entitled jerks don't always get what they deserve
By adamg on Sun, 11/16/2014 - 9:24am
A jerk in the South End got lucky this morning: Firefighters didn't smash out the windows of his expensive import when they arrived to put out what turned into a three-alarm fire on Rutland Street.
Looks like the fire was on the same side of the street as the moron's car, unlike the last BMW owner who parked in front of a hydrant that firefighters needed to access. Because Boston firefighters are not going to let a car get in the way of needed water.
As BFD, which took these photos, put it:
This never helps.
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Comments
So!??
Who is going to run that plate and dox the asshole? Anyone?
nobody who doesn't want to be criminally charged
...because the RMV database has some pretty strict rules for access. And such access is logged.
Please....
Really? In this state?
Dvd was right, owner identified
The owner of the car according to the Globe says he probably didn't see the hydrant cuz it was a dark night, or whatever
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/11/17/alarm-fire-tears-through-sou...
Excuse seems thin to me
If you live in the South End, isn't it more or less second nature to check to see if it's legit to park where you're parking?
Anywhere downtown
If you've lived downtown for more than an hour you a) check all the signs 50 feet in either direction (and after some bad experiences I've learned to check the little writing where the street cleaning is listed too!) and b) if there's an open space the first thing you assume is that there's a fire hydrant there.
Weak excuse.
Yes, and look how impossible it is
to see that bright yellow hydrant top. For the record though, I'm sure the o ya takeout was a little more important.
It wasn't in range of his backup camera.
Heaven forfend that anyone actually look before pulling in, use mirrors, walk around the car, etc.
I've accidentally parked in front of a meter before, yes - but not for any more than the 30 seconds that it took me to realize that I'd accidentally parked there.
O Ya?
Takeout, schmakeout. According to the Globe, he was parked there since Thursday night. Makes me feel a lot less sympathetic to his remorseful response.
Also, where TF was the Boston traffic department? They don't work on Fridays now? (I assume they don't work on weekends.)
They work Saturdays
Not Sundays - at least in Back Bay - not sure about South End.
What a lame-ass excuse
When you live in the South End and park on the street, you quickly learn where all the hydrants are for many blocks around. It's actually a good feeling (in the form of avoiding disappointment) when you can spot an opening half a block away and automatically know by rote that it's not a legal space.
Not just South End
You don't even have to live somewhere for this to be true. I've got the "blank space" pattern memorized for Brighton Ave in Allston, numerous streets in Brookline, parts of Cambridge near Kendall and Central Square, all around BU, and parts of the Fenway area too.
hmm
so did he/she get towed and ticketed after?
Definitely looks like there's
Definitely looks like there's a ticket. As far as towing, you can check once the database is updated:
http://www.cityofboston.gov/towing/search/
Michael Lewis Article
A great read on the entitlement of privilege and other stuff about rich people - some myths busted, some confirmed (spoiler alert - don't read if you want to keep hating the Koch brothers)
"a finding that was replicated in spirit by another team of researchers in Manhattan, who found drivers of expensive cars were far more likely to double park."
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120092/billionaires-book-review-money...
Only on UHub can an illegally parked car lead to Koch Bros.
Priceless.
Pot, meet kettle
Seriously? You're probably only mad he went there before you could figure out a way to blame Obama first.
Adam, you seem somewhat
Adam, you seem somewhat insecure. Your will take any chance you get to lash out at your posters and defend your HIGHLY liberal mindset.
Welcome to Universal Hub, friend
I say "welcome," because you're obviously new here - anybody who's been browsing the comments here for awhile would know this is just the sort of thing O-Fish-L has pulled several times in discussions about horrible crimes and the like. He just got beat to the punch this time, is all.
As for being a LIBERAL, yeah, I admit it - goshdarn if I didn't vote for that fella Obama twice (even if he isn't really a liberal, at least not when compared to actual liberals of yore). If you don't like it, feel free to express your outrage in a more appropriate setting (a discussion here that actually involves politics, rather than about some jerk with an expensive car, or Free Republic).
Here - I'll fix it for you
(spoiler alert - don't read if you want to keep hating George Soros)
Lewis cites an author who sets out to try and show how money has taken over modern politics. What he concludes is the likes of Soros/Speyer v. the Koch Brothers tend to cancel each other out. The result, at worst, is cynicism toward the election system - but very little sway on the direction of politics.
What we have ended up with though are right and left wing ideologues who yell at each other from the corners - and never engage each other in the ring of logic to see who really has the better argument.
You know Adams's name
whats yours?
Isn't it hard to study the influence of dark money
on elections by definition? Citizens United has only been with us for a couple of cycles, and we can't tell where the Kochs' or Soros's money ends up. Even the Lewis article admits its only evidence on this score is anecdotal.
Possibly the more pernicious influence resides in how unlimited secret campaign spending results in voter cynicism. We saw the results in the lowest turnout in 70 years for the most recent midterm elections. That low turnout -- combined with very effective GOP voter-suppression laws disguised as measures to combat a non-existent voter fraud problem -- hurt Democratic candidates far worse than Republicans.
In the long run, I think it's easy to guess that unlimited secret campaign spending will hurt progressive causes more than conservative ones. I'd be interested to see an analysis of where dark-money spending went in the last election, even if we can't discern precisely who it came from. At least you could count the spending on advertising in various media, though a lot of money also goes into less trackable campaign efforts like robo-calls.
That's
my neighborhood these days. A bunch of entitled twunts (20-something you-know-whats) who can't seem to think of anyone else but themselves.
My other fave example of South End entitlement: driving the wrong way down clearly-marked one way streets because they are just looking for a parking space and its ok because they live there. Doesn't matter that other drivers aren't expecting to come head to head with another car going in the wrong direction. And its almost always a BMW or a Land Rover.
This reminds me of the old The South End Is Over blog!
"I OWN here!"
For those of you heretofore unfamiliar with this gem of Internet awesomeness, you are quite welcome.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Doesn't look like much water is flowing through that hose...
At least the BMW driver found a space though.
Specialty plates
You know that the IC on the license plate stands for infuriatingly callous, right?
I'm sure
This asshat will just pay the ticket and do it again.
Maybe a ticket, tow, and mandatory 72 hr (paid) impoundment if the hydrant is needed would be a better deterrent.
I've never understood
Why aren't hydrants hooked up rotated 90 degrees so instead of pointing the street that can be blocked, they'd point to the sidewalk that almost never is.
Also, why isn't this:
the first thing that goes on the hydrant in these situations?
I mean, yes, we can complain that this driver's an asshole, tow her car, punch out the windows, whatever...and SHE might never do it again. But that doesn't stop the next person. Instead of complaining, we could also find solutions for the imperfect world we live in too.
I'll tell you
It all has to do with friction loss. The 5" hose hooked up to these hydrants gets pumped at 20-30psi. If you add a 90 degree elbow right at the hydrant, you'll cut that pressure in half. Now the engine pumping that line can push out about 1.000-1.250 GPM. Cut that by 50% and you're talking 500-625 GPM which is not enough to handle modern fire loads.
That's the reason. And putting wet stuff on the red stuff is what brings firemen home to their families. Is it so hard for people to not block the hydrant?
Swirly is gonna be pissed
that you Cliff Clavened before she could.
Hopefully she can give me
Hopefully she can give me this one. As a former firefighter I dislike this attitude. Firefighters just want to go home to their loved ones. Sorry, for that reason and that's reason alone, fuck your parking place.
Everyone wants the fire-fighters to get home.
The point is that these morons will always exist (unless we have some more structural solution like spikes in front of the fire hydrant). Given that there will always be a small chance that some idiot is parked in the way, should we have something ready that makes this less problematic when it happens? Maybe the suggestion is a bad one, but I don't think it is being made out of a sense of sympathy for the moron.
Yep
Bingo.
Why?
He actually provided factual engineering information, numbers and everything!
Also, many communities flush hydrants on a yearly basis - be kind of hard if they shot right into a triple decker instead of the street..
58 likes is more than I have ever seen before.
n/t
Better yet
Better yet, how about rethinking the 10 foot rule for parking near a hydrant? A firefighter needs only a couple of feet of clearance to catch a hydrant. That other 8 feet of clearance is nice-to-have, but hard to justify in a crowded city where street parking is in high demand.
Or how about expanding the 10 foot rule to a million miles.
No street parking for anyone.
Isn't that Brookline?
No overnight parking. The area north of Route 9 has to be the most densely populated area in the country that has no cars parked on the streets at night.
Hard to justify? Go walk
Hard to justify? Go walk around and measure the nearest 5 hydrants to you and i bet none of them have 10 ft around them. If you think shortening the distance will get people to suddenly start obeying the law you're awfully nieve. Get rid of all the hubway bike stations and "parklets" before you start complaining about justifying minimum parking distances to hydrants in the name of a parking spot.
I'll tell you what's hard to
I'll tell you what's hard to justify: a building going up in flames, or a life getting lost, or a bad situation becoming much worse, because firefighters are delayed in doing their job. AT ALL. I'm not a firefighter, are you? Maybe we should let the firefighters say what kind of space they need around hydrants, and not second-guess.
Firefighters say they need
Firefighters say they need enough clearance to turn the wrench, so if their wrench is length R then they need 2R total clearance. Meanwhile, some towns restrict parking to 10'. Others restrict to 15', which eliminates 30' of curb from parking.
Extra space around is nice, but not because it speeds up emergency response. With 20' you can park a vehicle in the spot for semi-emergencies. With 30' you can nose in a pumper truck without having to block traffic. Those are both convenient, but not critical.
The 10' rule in Boston probably dates back to a time when Boston had a fraction of the cars is has today. Since then, public parking spaces have become a much more valuable resource.
I have a lower opinion of people who drive BMWs.
I really do. They, more often than not, drive like such cunts.
The majority of BMW owners
are only assholes because they can't afford a Porsche. That's why they drive them like assholes to that next red light.
You can't show up
at the Vinyard in a Hyundai. Besides BMW provides matching bike shorts and Yoga pants in lieu of 0% interest.
Don't forget the BMW bicycle!
http://bmw-bikes.net/
Audis get my vote. I've
Audis get my vote. I've known only two Audi owners who weren't complete tools.
Infiniti Drivers
Even their ads reek of "you are ENTITLED to everything YOU want"!
Many who buy them believe this, if their driving is any evidence.
Yeah baby! If i had the money
Yeah baby! If i had the money i would drive a fiat or a BMW or a mini instead of my used volvo station wagon with 295,646 miles on it. And as for the cunt comment - it's a sin to say the lord's name in vain.
Any bimmer that's not an E30
Any bimmer that's not an E30 is worthless
I'm sure we'd all feel so
I'm sure we'd all feel so much better about this if it had been a Toyota.