It’s times like this I wish I was still reporting traffic on the radio. I came across two stories in the local paper and thought to myself “only in California”. It’s literally like a script from a Naked Gun movie or a Wiley Coyote cartoon.

Police spotted two “perps” (OK, I put that in for dramatic flair…neither the newspaper nor the police referred to them as “perps”…I’m just giving it a little Hollywood spin!) driving a stolen truck on a San Bernardino highway. Apparently the “perps” also spotted the police and took off. And here’s where the story takes it’s Loony Tunes turn. It was a taco truck. Oh? Not enough for you? How about this…said stolen taco truck then sideswiped a school bus full of children. Where are Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves when you need them…“Stay on or get off…stay on or get off?!”

But wait! There’s more! The stolen taco truck then took down the lights at an intersection and finally smashed into…wait for it…(and here’s the Wiley Coyote part)…it smashed into a propane truck!

Honestly folks…you can’t make this stuff up. Cops and robbers, high drama, comedy and tacos! I can’t imagine what the inside of that truck must have looked like after all that. Incidentally no one was hurt in the melee.

Now let’s switch gears, literally. Hop in your car and go two miles an hour and take note of how fast (or slow actually) that is. Two miles and hour. Most people walk three miles an hour if that helps give you some perspective. So make a mental note of how fast two miles an hour is. Go ahead and give it a try…I’ll wait.

Oh, you’re back? Good. So two miles an hour is pretty slow right? Well let’s push the envelope now and go fifteen miles an hour. Go ahead…I’ll wait.

Quite a bit faster right? But by today’s standards, fifteen miles an hour won’t get you very far very fast. Plus you’ll have everybody else on the road shaking fists and honking horns.

Of course by now you should be asking yourself “why the exercise in speed”, albeit slow-speed. And that leads us to our next story from the traffic desk. And folks, it’s time to be afraid…be very afraid of self driving cars because one of these autonomous, bean-shaped auto-pods has gone rogue and crashed into…wait for it…a bus! “Stay on or get off…stay on or get off!?”

I want you to imagine the horrific scene: the Google car, traveling at a break-neck speed of two miles an hour when, according to Google in its report to the California DMV, the car was trying to get around some sandbags on a street in Mountain View when its left front struck the right side of the bus, which was traveling at a mind-numbing fifteen miles an hour. I can only imagine the terror of the Google car’s human test driver, who is suppose to take over when impending doom such as this seems eminent, as he/she had to watch in slow motion (literally) as the collision slowly, slooowwllly, ever so sloooooowwwwwwwwlllllllyyyyyyyy took place. Again, right out of a comedy. Can you see it…people walking by at three miles an hour watching the car hit the bus at two?

Yes friends, it was a good day to be a traffic reporter.