Eideard

It was over thirty years ago that Volkswagen first started offering “pop tops” on its camper vans. In the years since, the soft-sided interior height-extenders have become a common sight on VW vans parked in campgrounds all over the world. Now, Welsh company Overlander Motorhomes is offering what it sees as the logical compliment to the pop top – it’s the DoubleBack, a sliding insulated pod that extends the interior length of Volkwagen’s T5 Transporter van.

The company starts with a stock 2.0TDI 140PS Long Wheelbase T5 van, then adds its patented DoubleBack pod package. When on the road, the pod stays tucked up inside the back of the vehicle. Once the driver stops and decides they’d like to settle down someplace, however, it electrically extends out of the rear in under 45 seconds, adding approximately two meters (6.5 feet) of useable interior space. Two legs also fold out from the bottom of the pod, which allow it to support up 600 kilograms (1,323 lbs), and to self-level on uneven terrain.

T5 Transporters receiving the DoubleBack treatment also include an elevating roof, a fold-out double bed in the pod itself, a kitchenette, and other home-on-the-road features.

Slideout is part of the language of grayheads. I’ve forwarded the article to my father-in-law who’s somewhere in Southern California with his 5th-wheeler as I post this. Yup – 2 slideouts. No slidebacks.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Four people were pulled out alive Monday from the rubble of the Turkey earthquake after one managed to call for help with his mobile phone…

Dozens of people were trapped in mounds of concrete, twisted steel and construction debris after hundreds of buildings in two cities and mud-brick homes in nearby villages pancaked or partially collapsed in Sunday’s earthquake.

Worst-hit was Ercis – an eastern city of 75,000 close to the Iranian border that lies in one of Turkey’s most earthquake-prone zones – where about 80 multistory buildings collapsed.

Yalcin Akay was dug out from a collapsed six-story building with a leg injury after he called a police emergency line on his phone and described his location, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported. Three others, including two children, were also rescued from the same building in Ercis 20 hours after the quake struck, officials said…

As over 200 aftershocks rocked the area, rescuers searched mounds of debris for the missing and tearful families members waited anxiously nearby. Cranes and other heavy equipment lifted slabs of concrete, allowing residents to dig for the missing with shovels. Generator-powered floodlights ran all night so the rescues could continue.

Aid groups scrambled to set up tents, field hospitals and kitchens to help the thousands left homeless or too afraid to re-enter their homes. Many exhausted residents spent the night outside, lighting fires to keep warm…

The bustling, larger city of Van, about 55 miles (90 kilometres) south of Ercis, also sustained substantial damage, but Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin said search efforts there were winding down. Mr Sahin expected the death toll in Ercis to rise, but not as much as initially feared. He told reporters rescue teams were searching for survivors in the ruins of 47 buildings where dozens could be trapped, including a cafe…

More than 2,000 teams with a dozen sniffer dogs were involved in search-and-rescue and aid efforts.

Several countries offered assistance but Mr Erdogan said Turkey was able to cope for the time being. Azerbaijan, Iran and Bulgaria still sent aid, he said.

I decided a long time ago that life was tough enough without adding earthquakes to the potential of forces completely out of your control that could affect your life.

Yup – that’s the ATM intact – sitting in the debris

Suspected robbers in Germany appear to have miscalculated the quantity of explosives needed to blow their way into a rural bank.

The building housing the bank in the northern village of Malliss was largely destroyed by an overnight explosion.

The bank’s cash machine survived intact and the suspected thieves are not thought to have made away with any money, Germany’s Welt Online reported…

The presence of a delivery van near the site of the explosion indicated that the suspected thieves may have intended to drive off with the cash dispenser, local media reported.

The explosion also set the stolen van on fire – so, they escaped on foot.

In all, not a stunning or successful exploit.

Two of the French tourists and Port Authority coppers
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Operators of an unauthorized New York airport van service that took five French tourists on a high speed chase in an attempt to evade police have been charged with unlawful imprisonment.

Tuesday, the operators of the van service — Khaalif Preacher, 27, and Ian L. McFarlane, 57 — were approached by police for “hustling” travelers outside the Air France terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport, prosecutors said.

Preacher, the van’s driver, and McFarlane drove off, ignoring pleas by the tourists to be let out, prosecutors said. Police followed the van “in a marked vehicle with their lights flashing and sirens blaring,” prosecutors said.

The van swerved through traffic, sped though stop signs and red lights, and traveled at speeds of 60 miles per hour on crowded residential streets, prosecutors said.

The men were also charged with assault, reckless endangerment, and resisting arrest. If convicted, they face up to seven years in prison.

This is a double-har!

The tourists for probably trying to save a buck from the exorbitant prices charged by airport hacks in metro NYC. The hustlers for trying to get away from radio-equipped coppers and beaucoup cars to block them sooner or later.

Mr. Ward

A coroner has found that an Aboriginal man was “cooked to death” after he spent four hours in the back of a security van in searing heat with no air conditioning as it drove across the goldfields of south-west Australia.

The 46-year-old Aboriginal elder suffered third degree burns after collapsing in the heat and falling to the floor of the van while it travelled 250 miles from Laverton to Kalgoorlie in 117ºF heat.

Ward, whose first name cannot be used because of an Aboriginal cultural prohibition that forbids relatives from naming their dead, had been arrested a day earlier in January 2008 for drink driving.

He was given one pint of water before boarding the van but the coroner found he died before he could finish drinking it…

The West Australian coroner, Alistair Hope, found that Ward was effectively “cooked” to death and heavily criticised the state prisons department, the private security firm that operated the van and the two guards who escorted Ward.

“It is a disgrace that a prisoner in the 21st century, particularly a prisoner who has not been convicted of any crime, was transported for a long distance in high temperatures,” Hope said. The security guards, who did not check to see if he needed a toilet break, food or water, had breached their duty of care.

Little need to point out the racist traditions in Australia and the likelihood of the role that played in the mistreatment of this prisoner – leading to his death.

Next up? Whitewashing the penalties accorded the security guards.

A Polish driver who was too sure of his GPS road navigation device ended up neck-deep in a lake after ignoring road signs warning of a dead-end ahead, said Polish police.

“The man took a road that was closed a year ago when the area was flooded to make an artificial lake serving as a water reservoir — he ignored three road signs warning of a dead-end,” Piotr Smolen, police spokesman in Glubczyce, southern Poland, told AFP.

“It was still night time and he didn’t notice the road led into the lake. His GPS told him to drive straight ahead and he did,” Smolen said, adding the driver had not been under the influence of alcohol.

The road ran straight downhill into the lake. The Mercedes mini-van was nearly entirely submerged and was unable to back out on its own after being inundated with water.

The driver placed the first call to emergency services while still inside the sinking van.

At least he wasn’t distracted by the GPS talking to him. Or reality.