Life is imitating art in increasingly nutty ways. If, in a movie, we’d seen this same crash between a car and a bus that happened in Long Beach, California, we’d have thought, “No way. What are the chances?” A Dodge Charger driver showed us the chances are never zero.
The driver, speeding south on South Street toward California Avenue at around 3 o’clock on a Thursday afternoon, ignored a stop sign at the intersection. Southern California builds a lot of its main roads with surprisingly high crowns and low gutters on either side. The Charger was going fast enough that as it dipped through the California Avenue gutter and hit the crown, all four tires left the road — as in, a proper “Bullitt” jump without the need for San Francisco ramps or Hollywood tricks. Then, as the sedan was midair, it got hit by a Long Beach public transit bus heading east on California, the collision sending both into The Boujie Crab restaurant on the southeast corner of the intersection.