Putting a dent in crime

Armed with only a brick and a rickshaw-load of courage, a 74-year-old retired literature teacher in China became a vigilante hero of traffic safety this summer.

Yan Zheng-ping began planning his crusade after several close calls with cars running a red light through a pedestrian crosswalk near his home.

What finally set him off, though, was a newspaper article reporting that six people had been killed in local crosswalks in just the past six months.

Fed up, Zheng-ping headed out to a nearby pedestrian crossing and began smacking cars with his brick if they ran the red light.

It wasn’t long before a crowd began to form, cheering each time he whacked a car and protecting him from the retaliation of angry drivers.

In a two-hour span that evening, Zheng-ping delivered corporal punishment to 14 vehicles.

While his crusade only lasted a week, Zheng-ping managed to bash 30 cars while avoiding arrest, and quickly became a local hero. Despite his admission to breaking the law, an Internet survey found that 78% of the community supported his actions.

Police never did arrest or even confront Zheng-ping, but they may want to before he starts using the brick to curb littering or public urination.

He likes that junk in the trunk

Some people say they love their car. They talk to it, wash it every other day, fret over every little spot and ding.

But few love their car the way Danny Brawner loved his. Tragically, that passion would ultimately tear the two apart.

The sad story began in an Albuquerque, N.M., grocery store parking lot this past summer where Brawner was sharing an intimate encounter with his car.

Brawner apparently gave the local gapers quite a show as he became passionate with the trunk of his car. He was also swinging his arms in the air and shouting, presumably, sweet nothings.

Unfortunately, the tender moment was witnessed by an off-duty police officer and his 10-year-old son, and some on-duty officers were quickly called to the scene.

Never known as a sensitive lover, Brawner rolled over and fell asleep on the ground next to the car when he was finished, which is where police found and arrested him.

Brawner faces indecent exposure charges and, if convicted, would actually be required under New Mexico law to register as a sex offender.

Those are the breaks

A Connecticut lawmaker who deals with traffic safety issues had a rather unique run-in with a truck this summer.

State Rep. Thomas Kehoe was out jogging in Glastonbury when he managed to run into the side of a truck at an intersection and break a rib.

How it actually happened is under dispute. Police say Kehoe ran into the side of a Ford F-350 pickup truck that had just started to move after the traffic signal turned green.

Kehoe, who happens to be the vice chair of the state’s Transportation Committee, said that he didn’t hit the truck, the truck hit him.

In the end, both parties were cited—the truck driver for failure to yield and Kehoe for “reckless” jogging.

Kehoe was heard to say afterward that if this type of incident ever happened to him again, he knows a guy in China.