Friday, August 04, 2006

Onions delay traffic

I seriously cannot make stuff like this up...



Madison, WI

Traffic in the Mad City was backed up for miles this morning after a semi bearing 80,000 pounds of onions rear-ended a Saturn at 7:10 a.m. on the Westbound Beltline (HWY 12/18) at the Todd Drive interesection. With the frontage road under construction this summer -- and therefore no alternate route around the accident -- hundreds of motorists were trapped on the Beltline between the pungeant odor of smashed onions in front of them, and Fish Hatchery Road behind.

Police have closed entrance to the Beltline highway at the two roads prior to the scene and are urging people to find an alternate route to work this morning. Given that the city is built on a narrow isthmus between two rather large lakes, with two smaller ones in the vicinity as well, there aren't a lot of "alternatives" to be found. The driver of the Saturn is said to have suffered only minimal injuries, despite his car being turned into a convertible.

Three cars in front of the Saturn had stopped due to traffic. The Saturn was speeding -- ion a construction zone, I might add -- and failed to stop in time, causing the semi following too close behind him to ram into him. Both the driver of the Saturn and semi were ticketed. Thankfully, road crews were able to get the Beltline open again before 10 a.m. and the commute home went much smoother.


3 comments:

Heather said...

Hehe...what can I say? Sometimes real life truly is stranger than fiction. And man did those onions reek.

Of course, I could have come up with something Babe-ish such as, "Semi full of onions leeks all over road."
:-D

Anonymous said...

Betcha everyone was tearing up. What a smelly mess, eh?

Coulda been worse...since you're the cheese capitol it could've been 80k of Limburger Cheese...

*holds nose*

Heather said...

If only you knew just how un-funny that was, Rae! About...oh, let's see -- a decade ago? Maybe a bit longer? There was a fire one HOT summer day at a warehouse here in town. Wanna know what was stored there? Butter. Lots and LOTS of butter. Perhaps the only thing that could top the odor of 80,000 pounds of onions is...an entire warehouse full of burned butter.
:-|