A man, who took his car to a dealership in Milton, Ont., because his backup camera was failing intermittently, saw that his vehicle was being driven at 90 mph, and was 55 miles away in Woodstock late at night when he checked a monitoring app on his mobile phone. He thought the car had been stolen, but found that it had been driven by a service technician to “diagnose the problem.”
YOU LOOK VERY FAMILIAR, MA’AM: A woman was paid to take about 150 written driver’s tests for other people over a two-year period in Swansea and Carmarthen in Wales and Birmingham and London in England, and was arrested after people in the testing centers became suspicious and tipped off the cops.
COMIN’ THROUGH! COMIN’ THROUGH! An intoxicated man roared through a Walmart in Melbourne, Fla., in a motorized scooter, crashing into shelves and nearly hitting other customers. His open backpack was in the scooter basket, where an opened bottle of Smirnoff vodka could be seen. Police said the man had “glassy eyes” and smelled of alcohol. He was so drunk that he had to be taken to a police car on a stretcher.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ‘WE’ CALLED THE COPS!? One of the thieves who stole a car in Eugene, Ore., accidentally butt-dialed the police emergency number, leading to their arrests. The Cole County sheriff said, “We appreciate the suspects calling 911 and allowing us to solve this crime in a timely manner.”
OH, SORRY, MY BAD: An angry scorned woman, apparently seeking revenge on her ex-boyfriend, tried to set fire to a house in Salisbury, N.C., that she thought was his, but was owned by someone else. The homeowner grabbed a rifle and confronted her, but she drove off and was arrested later.
YOU’LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE, COPPER!: Police, who responded to a burglar alarm at a store in Norfolk, England, found that the culprit was a squirrel that had snuck in to steal nuts and bird food. The animal immediately fled the scene of the crime.
NO, MA’AM, THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS RETROACTIVE: After one of her family members rear-ended another driver in her Jeep in Jefferson County, Pa., a woman hastily took out an auto insurance policy because her policy had lapsed.
WE DON’T GET MAD, WE GET STABBY: A mother, father, brother and sister all stabbed each other during a fight at their home in Harris County, Texas. The brother came home drunk and armed with a handgun, and got into a physical altercation with his sister. He was disarmed during the struggle, and the mother and father stepped in, attempting to “break things up.” But each family member grabbed a knife as the fight went on, and the stabbings began. The brother was determined to be the main perpetrator and was arrested on three charges of aggravated assault.
YOU’VE COME TO THE RIGHT PLACE, SIR: An out-of-control vehicle plowed into an auto collision repair building in Seattle.
Based in New York, Stephen Freeman is a Senior Editor at Trending Insurance News. Previously he has worked for Forbes and The Huffington Post. Steven is a graduate of Risk Management at the University of New York.