h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just when the silly season threatens to get boring, you can always count on the British.

First, there's the hair-raising news that a coach (by which I assume is meant what we vulgarly call a 'bus' around here) jumped off a viaduct in Bath, Somerset, fell 30 feet, and landed on its wheels. Apparently, although the fire department had to use heavy equipment to prise the driver and another passenger out, there were no life-threatening injuries, for which we are all grateful.

You can read the story here, which is where I read it:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/three-trapped-after-coach-plunges-off-viaduct-near-bath.html

The really interesting part starts below the fold. That's where the British readers get going with their comments. After expressing a laudable concern for driver and passengers, and relief that all went relatively well, they dove in with the sort of nitpickery and pedantic commentary that usually characterises...say, h2g2.

Someone pointed out that they'd got the highway number wrong. Someone else wanted to know why they first said the paramedic who called in the accident was on-duty, then that he/she was off-duty. Make up your mind, they said. A number of people were wondering about whether this bus had seatbelts, a good question...

One commenter was annoyed. 'No co-ordination between emergency services still I see. Why would this incident warrant 12 fire engines ..... ' Someone else pointed out that this was 1.3 fire engines per accident victim... Somebody else said they'd rather have too many than not enough...

More than one reader was upset by the writing style:

'The word "carnage" seems a bit excessive in the description for this accident. It implies death on a large scale which, mercifully, was not the case here.'

Have you considered joining PR, sir?

A local opined that the driver was foolish to try driving a coach down Brassknocker Hill. Somebody else complained about the item calling the accident a 'collision' when nobody ran into the bus. Another know-all set him straight:

'They're called Road Traffic Collisions by the police as opposed to Road Traffic Accidents - as nowadays a lot of collisions aren't accidental....'

I do NOT want to go there.

Anyway, we're still astounded by the fact that the coach landed on all fours, that people got out all right, and that the emergency crews responded so magnificently. Good job, folks.

But the last word has to go to the reader who demanded: 'What's 30 feet?' (Pedant.)

To which another reader commented, '10 yards.' (Both comments have now been hidden on grounds of being boring. We disagree, that was a fun bit.)

I have relatives in Bath, and I can confirm that Brassknocker hill is, well, a bit steep.

It's also well off the normal route that any large vehicle would normally take between Bath and Southampton. Maybe these rockers should have taken advice from Peter Gabriel and turned left at Solsbury Hill.

Getting tired of reading the quaint cutsey American view of the 'British' as embarrassingly played up to at the Olympic ceremonies. Oh well it'll bring in the tourists.

Well, I enjoyed the comments on yahoo.uk, but I think the conversation would have gone differently in the US, viz:

In Texas, somebody would have wondered why the municipality bothered to run busses at all, as people who cannot afford cars are obviously 'on welfare'. This would have led inexorably to a discussion of the evils of socialised medicine.

In California, there would have been a sharp dichotomy between those who felt that there should be a Proposition prohibiting bus drivers over a certain age from keeping their licences, and those who wanted to know why these busses were not running on biofuels.

In red states, the accident would have been blamed (somehow) on the Democrats. In blue states, it would have been blamed (somehow) on the Republicans. The two Presidential candidates would have been forced to make position statements on public bus safety.

In North Carolina, somebody would explain that this had happened to them once. Their lives had flashed before their eyes, and then and there, they had accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Saviour.

No one would have commented on the style, accuracy, or punctuation of the article, because this only happens with readers of the New York Times. Everybody else either ignores the typos, or doesn't see them.

After everyone else had commented, someone would assert that bus accidents of this nature were further evidence of the Illuminati conspiracy, or else caused by UFOs. The government would deny this, but that only proved the writer's point.

A follow-up article would explicitly deny the internet rumour that a certain famous actress had been on the bus in question...

And what's more, the carnage could all have been avoided if Barack Obama had shown us his birth certificate sooner.

Amen.

In New Jersey, comments would contain assumptions about the speed of the bus, the speed of every other vehicle on major highways in NJ, that the driver was texting while driving and, if the driver was female, that she was applying mascara while driving. 8.5% of the comments would be in ALL CAPS.

Well, in the spirit of the comments, I can reveal that the difference between a coach and a bus is that a coach is a comfortable, single decker affair, where the seats are high up because there us plenty of room for luggage in a special luggage compartment underneath. There might be a toilet. There might be air con. They are for long distance travel. This is an extremely important distinction, and clearly the most important issue with Dmirti's post.

Hi Dmitri, I do like your journal titles...

Ah, so coach=Greyhound-type

Coach has a different meaning in the sporting context too. We British call the guy who picks the football team a 'manager', not a coach. Here, the coach is the guy who wears a tracksuit and organises training sessions.

See? This is all really enlightening.

Oh, no. This just in: there WAS somebody famous on that, er, coach...

Members of a US band called Baroness.

Yahoo.uk refers to this band as 'a punk band'. Comments on this update are swift to point out that Baroness are 'stoner rock/sludge'...very important, that...

A coach with only four wheels

I believe most coaches here have twin wheels on the rear axle

so this whole thing was probably made up



PS: Nice subject to start a th*rsday with, Dmitri

The comments sections on a lot of the newspapers over here are almost always better than the articles.

I'm beginning to notice that, Pastey. They make good reading.

Some of them truly are brilliant.

Of course, the Beeb would never sink to that level

https://i.chzbgr.com/completestore/12/8/14/C5EnVb1jB0i2NkcOP0uLNg2.jpg

That is a brilliant advert!

I just sent it to Chris for his ConferencePear blog.