Posted on 08/23/2013 8:48:35 AM PDT by BenLurkin
LA CRESCENTA (CBSLA.com) — A motorcyclist was hurt Wednesday night after getting caught in clear duct tape that had been stretched across the road in La Cañada Flintridge.
The incident happened just before 11 p.m. on Oak Grove Drive near Foothill Boulevard.
Deputies with the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station said the tape was placed about four feet in the air. The motorcyclist was rushed to the hospital with injuries.
Authorities said the incident is part of prank, which has been showcased in numerous YouTube videos.
In some videos, cars turn around when they see the tape, while others drive through it.
Some pranksters lay the tape on the road, forcing drivers to stop when it gets tangled in their tires.
“People look on YouTube, I know a lot of kids who watch YouTube videos and imitate it. Teenagers and kids they do things like that, but I think that goes too far. Way too far,” said resident Beatrix Schwartz.
Ryan Monroe rides his bike in the area and now worries about this type of prank.
“It could have been me. If it was night, all I have is a flimsy little bike light, so not so good,” he said.
Dessi Sieburth, 10, doesn’t find the joke funny.
“(They prank people) because they don’t know what else to do. Because they just sit inside all day, so they don’t know what to do, so that’s the only thing that comes to their mind,” he said.
Gone were TV shows and movies written around messages of duty, loyalty, courage and character.
Instead, the last two generations of kids have received a steady diet of Adam Sandler, MTV Jackass and numerous other films and TV shows with one singular message: Being out of control is fun and cool.
They didn’t even get the basics of the prank right... the whole point is for the motorist to see the tape before they get to it... so you can’t use clear tape. That just changes it from a prank to a tripwire. Morons!
Back in the 80’s in New Jersey, some kid was harrassing a neighborhood by riding his dirtbike down a set of train tracks after dark.
Someone got the bright idea to string piano wire across the tracks.
Don’t know if their intent was to snag the bike or not, either way the result was thus:
Nobody came forward to admit to being the piano wire idiot after the head stopped rolling on the ground.
A World War II veteran told me that they used to string piano wire across the road at neck height to snag German motorcycle riders.
I think I know where they got the idea.
This is really a major problem; one which is touched upon but rarely explored.
Causing traffic accidents? [shrug] I was bored.
Beating WWII vets to death? [shrug] I was bored.
Dropping out of High School? [shrug] I was bored.
We have created a society in which many people have absolutely no stake, no control, no interest. They wallow in the trivial (Kardashians) and it never occurs to them to get up, get out, get involved. Help the needy. Plant a garden. Read Plato. Nope. That stuff is boring. Why not just sit on the couch and watch ESPN -- and if that gets dull, you can always go outside and beat someone to death.
We are in trouble.
I wonder how long it will be before the clear tape becomes wire...
What ever happened to posting one guy on one side of the road and another on the other side, then acting like two mime’s stretching a rope across the road as a car approaches?
More simple times, when I was a kid. Much more simple.
The punishment should be the pranksters being used in place of crash dummies in the routine automobile safety tests.
When I got to Vietnam you would see many of the jeeps that operated in cities like Saigon or Nha Trang had a hachet piece of metal sticking up from the front bumper.
Duck tape kills?
Ban Duck Tape!
Problem solved.
Ban clear duct tape now! Obviously we need to close loop holes in hardware store purchases.
Little rascals?
Similar stories abound in the heartland about farmers who are tired of snowmobilers tresspassing in winter. Except they generally have a greater supply of barbed wire than piano wire...
Another really funny prank is to remove the warning signs of a “Bridge is out!”, when the bridge actually is washed away due to a flood. That was a favorite hoot of mine. /s
I’m thinking “I was bored” is the new black thug “Ima kill me a white boi.”
Our problem isn’t a steady diet of this human or that human, except as the medium.
Our problem is a steady diet of devil while we’re starving for God.
Yup, starving.
And it’s a spiritual starvation. Not even the bible itself or the ministrations of any official church leadership (as good as it might manage to get) is the ultimate feeding at the table of God. The ultimate is found in direct PERSONAL worship and praise and exaltation of God by whatever means God has put within our reach.
It shouldn’t be any surprise that the charismatic denominations and the prosperity televangelists have gotten so popular. They are closer approaches to heaven than the musty, polite church services we know, in spite of their excesses and theological miscues. Folks, the spirituality that is most beneficial on earth is a direct sample of what will prevail in the heaven of eternity. All share in God’s joy, sharing that joy with one another in a community with no barriers.
What we’re seeing is a cheap imitation that the devil has ginned up. Lots of evil glee. But no glorification of God.
Our choice whether to back Satan or God. But I think I know which one is bigger and more powerful and it isn’t the devil. Lets all go for the winner again. Don’t let the loser take us over any more.
That’s what we did in the early 70’s - we’d see a car coming and 2 kids would PRETEND to stretch a rope across a 15 or 20 mph residential street and the third would signal the car to slow down. We’d PRETEND to let the rope down and then signal the car to proceed. Most drivers laughed, no one ever yelled, and no drivers were EVER injured, unlike this prank.
It’s okay. The kids were just ‘bored’ and these days that’s a valid excuse for murder.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.