Incredibly, American infotainment networks like TLC seem to have run out of domestic car-chase footage to recycle endlessly in between screenings of “Tornado Disaster”, “When Tornados Attack”, and “Trailer-Park Death Watch: Tornados in Our Midst”. How else can you explain the recent spate of traffic surveilance footage from the United Kingdom that has begun to creep onto the North American airwaves?

One problem with the increasing prevalence of British automotive hijinks is that such shows are seldom labelled appropriately. Furthermore, the narration on these shows is frequently overdubbed with American voices, so how are we to know if what we’re seeing is home-grown or a pallid facsimile from overseas?

Here is a simple test to determine whether the car-chase show you’re watching is a patriotic American product or a sad imitation from the home of Benny Hill:

The title of the show is:

a) The World’s Most Egregious Traffic Infractions
b) Mangled Metal 3: Highway Decapitations Caught on Tape

The show features:

a) Drivers who fail to wait their turn at roundabouts
b) Streakers who sprint drunkenly across 12 lanes of Interstate

The show presents a clip of the police encountering a non-standard vehicle on the roadway. It is:

a) An elderly man on a moped pulling a wooden cart filled with cabbage
b) A crack-head in an Abrams M1 Tank

Audio of a conversation between police officers during a high-speed chase includes:

a) A running count of each traffic infraction the suspect commits, including failure to signal whilst changing lanes.
b) Seven variations on the the word “motherf****r”

The majority of vehicles shown are:

a) Smallish cars featuring less sheet metal than a tin of pickled herring
b) Aircraft carrier-sized SUVs with names like the Chevy Devastator and the Lincoln Sociopath.

The narrator proclaims that a high-speed chase “ends as expected” when:

a) The suspect signals politely and safely pulls off the road
b) The suspect T-bones a bus at an intersection, claws his way out of the wreckage, and runs through a residential neighborhood until he is tackled by six policemen and is beaten to a pulpy mass with billy-clubs, shotgun stocks, dogs, etc.

The following action is described as “a dangerous maneuver”:

a) Brushing a traffic cone, making it teeter precariously before settling upright.
b) Ramming a police blockade while squeezing off a clip of rounds from an UZI.

If the show you’re watching mostly matches the “a” selections, you have my sympathy. Poor dope.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 3rd, 2008 at 9:20 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.