Originally published at: Incredible video of car flying and flipping down San Francisco stairway | Boing Boing
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Yeah, the people who immediately ran up to rescue these guys… I would take a few moments to assess the situation before I jumped in to help. This wasn’t a normal driving accident and carjackers aren’t normal drivers.
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For hasty folks who don’t properly appreciate a protracted tranquil prelude to contrast the shock of the event itself drag your slider out to about 1min20sec (“Don’t tell me where to drag my slider!”)
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Granted, …if you know.
I’d rather rush to help people in trouble, even if they are wrong 'uns, because you don’t know. I don’t want to be that guy who says, “oh no, there’s something wrong with that, I’m not going near it” and someone dies or ends up paraplegic in consequence. Yes, something is obviously wrong, but people need help. It might have been that the driver had had a heart attack and lost control. You don’t know.
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I know that auto thefts have been up in some cities like SF lately, and I also know that used car prices are sky high, but how easy is it for thieves to sell stolen cars these days, what with the various connected features that probably make transferring “ownership” a tricky proposition?
Are they mostly just being scrapped for parts? Used as transportation in the commission of other crimes?
In California carjackers can get 9 years in prison, or more if a weapon is involved (as was apparently the case here) so those guys must have really wanted that car.
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“There was another guy and there was another guy still stuck in the car and they were, like, 'Just leave him! Leave him!”
Imagine being that guy. I mean, when I was a kid there was a time where I was the last one to be picked when teams were being made during PE, but that guy. Yeah, he’s not having a good day.
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Many cars are stolen for joyrides – I got a call from NYPD when I was living in Brooklyn, my car had been involved in an accident. Fortunately, nobody was hurt and I had already reported it stolen, but someone apparently thought an old 200SX made for a nice joyride to take on a cross-borough run at very high speed until they rear-ended someone on the Long Island Expressway and abandoned it. The cops thought I was lucky it hadn’t been parted out or just shipped overseas – the more usual fate of stolen cars after the thieves are done having fun.
As for transferring ownership, car fences ususally just stuff the cars into a shipping container and send them to places which just don’t care. If its for domestic use, VINs are now on many components, but can usually be obscured, changed, or removed fairly trivially, or are sold to shops which don’t check to see if that part was stolen. The hardest part, it seems, is knowing who can take that car off your hands and make it disappear, not getting it somewhere where it can be sold, one way or another.
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Not unheard of for upside-down cars to suddenly catch fire. The bystanders acted bravely, without a moment’s hesitation, and with complete empathy. Seems they did exactly the right thing for the occupant(s) in that moment, possibly reducing further risk to anyone else involved in the extraction.
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I live several blocks from this intersection. These stairs are steep and their landing provides a spectacular view of the city. How sad that the tree got slammed and snapped, as well as the railing was destroyed!
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Sad for the tree, but if the car had landed on its roof from that height without the fall being cushioned by the tree first the occupants likely wouldn’t have been walking away after that. They need to be caught and face accountability but I’m glad they aren’t dead.
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Flashback! I loved my '77 200SX. I hope you were able to fix and continue to enjoy your car.
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I concur. They did walk away. I hope they are held accountable for reckless driving and for the damages.
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And car theft/car jacking, if it is determined that the car was stolen.
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But this vehicle was apparently taken at gunpoint in a carjacking. That’s the kind of big-kid felony that few would risk just for a brief joyride, much worse than simple theft.
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How many people were in that car - seemed like perhaps five, to me. Two ran off fairly early and then three walked away at the end. Five very lucky people!
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You would have to lack sympathy to not go to the aid of people in an accident. And not stand there videoing it for socials.
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You can’t tell what caused or who were in the car from the video. There are 101 reasons to have a weird accident, from a drunk driver, to panicking and hit the wrong pedal, to someone texting and driving.
No honor among thieves.
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OH man, I had an old 70 something Ford Maverick. I put a note in the glove box that if you stole this, come to my house and get the radio.
But for reals, I had my 86 Caprice stolen and they found it a few months later all jacked up. My dad helped me replace the steering column and i used it for several more years (love that car, and it got vandalized multiple times when i moved to KC 
)
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jeez, those three women who were standing at the landing moments before, taking in the view, and then leisurely walking down that stairway where the car landed a few minutes later… holy pete.
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