October 22, 2008 | Drunk Stories, weird news

With gridlock more and more common in major urban centers, city planners have hung their hats on light rail as the way to get around, with dedicated lanes for trolleys so that passengers can be shuttled across the city unencumbered, at speeds that would rival It’s a Small World After All, Disneyland.

It’s never recommended though, especially if you’re half in the bag, to consider train tracks as a traffic-free shortcut home either on foot or behind the wheel.

In our book, The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death and Other True Tales of Drunken Debauchery, a particularly controversial chapter was Contents May Shift in Transit: Drunk and on the Move, where we detailed some of the world’s most absurdly idiotic drinking and driving cases, including ice cream truck joyriding, some bozo with a pig in the backseat (of the animal variety), snowplows, a guy who mistakenly called the cops instead of roadside assistance when he got a flat, and now a gassed train tracks DUI.

Let’s just say that after chronicling these tales, not to mention wasted riding mower riders, a guy blotto doing 182 mph in an Italian convertible (a speed that would test the adhesive properties of any toupee) and blasted drivers who were legally blind, er drunk, it would take something fairly substantial to warrant entry into a second edition but we think we’ve got a standout now.

In the existential comedy Groundhog Day, Bill Murray wakes up to live the same day over and over again. This might not have a been a problem if it was New York City, or somewhere comparable where a life of hedonistic pursuits would take a while to grow old (and where a subsequent reexamination of life and priorities would come at a point that would’ve by then taxed the patience of any theater-going audience) but soon became a sticking point as it was rural Pennsylvania.

Murray’s character grows increasing weary of small town existence after bedding all the eligible women and tries various ways of offing himself that include electrocution (seen here), driving off cliffs and yes, driving on train tracks to prevent waking up to the same day over and over again, to the music of Sonny and Cher no less (a one-time exposure is bad enough) and a not exactly Pulitzer courting news assignment involving the woodchuck Punxsutawney Phil.

In Ashland, MA, witnesses reported huge sparks shooting from a nearby train track that couldn’t be explained away as another day in the underfunded life of Amtrak and officials arrived to find a car had driven onto the tracks by some drunk with a Bill Murray-esque death wish. The wastral, in the dedicated lane for trains, was shoved out of the way by an oncoming one into some nearby water. Police and fire officials used a thermal imaging camera to find the driver and credit quick-thinking conductors for slamming on the brakes, preventing a fatality as well as inclusion in our inferior competitor, The Darwin Awards.