New York City Destroys Residents' Cars

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Brooklyn residents, already riled by the city’s slow response to the Blizzard from Hell, have new reason for outrage. A city Sanitation Department tractor, while trying to tow a snowplow out of the snow, systematically demolished three cars on Joralemon Street in the course of four minutes.

Residents yelled to stop, but it fell on deaf ears. Someone held a video camera out of the window. The slightly NSFW video (turn the audio down) landed on YouTube, and now the whole city is outraged.

As The Brooklyn Paper reports, the wife of the owner of one smashed car and mother of the owner of another demolished vehicle screamed: “Nobody leaves here until I get a police report!” But no cops showed.

NYC Department of Sanitation spokesperson Vito Turso calls the incident “unfortunate, but not unusual,” NBC New York reports.


Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

More by Bertel Schmitt

Comments
Join the conversation
6 of 72 comments
  • Mekanik Mekanik on Dec 29, 2010

    Wow, total lack of skill on the loader operators part.. As I have run both loader and the wrecker (for private firms) using the loader with bucket the proper method is to always scrape to pavement as you proceed bottom to top (so you don't loose traction) pile gets to big ..Stop! And stockpile in smaller piles. Looking at the video, operator (fool) planted it in 2'~3' (I been in 5', never got stuck like that!) had room to place bucket with edge to the ground, using reverse and rotate bucket at the same time pushing machine backward to the street center. Wrecker operator was obviously to lazy to park truck further down and use the Winch.

  • Golden2husky Golden2husky on Dec 29, 2010

    With all the City worker bashing going on, I'm surprised nobody brought up another possible scenario...Mayor Bloomberg has hired a man named Stpehen Goldsmith as his Deputy Mayor. This man is a hatchet wielder in the same mold as "Neutron" Jack Welch. Welch destroyed thousands of middle class families during his tenure at General Electric. Goldsmith wants to fire as many City workers as possible and replace them with private companies. No doubt some of the B&B are raising a glass of Dom P to that. Anyway, over 400 sanitation workers were fired in Goldsith's pledge to "Do More With Less". Many others were demoted and sent out into the street where they started their careers. New York City has had storms of this magnitude before, and the response was much better. Anybody care to connect the dots?...

    • See 1 previous
    • ThetaII ThetaII on Dec 30, 2010

      Someone, it appears, has indeed 'connected the dots': http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/sanit_filthy_snow_slow_mo_qH57MZwC53QKOJlekSSDJK

  • Jeff Waingrow Jeff Waingrow on Dec 30, 2010

    Dec. 30th postscript in NY Times: Very interesting article on front web page that, while raising many questions, seems to explain some of the failures that led to the big blizzard fumble. As might be expected, some difficulties stem from misteps long in the making while others appear to be simple cases of poor judgment. Bloomberg doesn't help matters with his imperious manner, but it seems he's been humbled big-time by this signal failure. Finally, the government vs. private enterprise debate comes up here in curious and counterintuitive ways.

  • Brandloyalty Brandloyalty on Dec 30, 2010

    I think the drivers of the tow truck and loader may have been in a sort of low-level panic frame of mind, where getting the loader unstuck asap overrode all other considerations. I know when I've gotten stuck in an awkward place, not all of my actions were entirely rational. This doesn't excuse them though. People shouldn't be operating such heavy equipment if they can't keep their wits about them. The thing that amazes me even more are the more nasty comments here, and even more so on YouTube. Amazing. How can society function rationally when people so easily go bananas.

Next