Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Hvem Kjører Bil Nummer Tolv?

There’s only one freshman left in the “Meet the Freshman” interview series – Synnøve Bruland.  Unfortunately, I haven’t managed to get together with her for an interview yet, and I’m currently traveling out of state for about a week.  So in order to satisfy your intense curiosity about Synnøve and your thirst for frequent, consistent blog posts even while I'm traveling in the desert, I’ve dug through the archives and have found an old interview Synnøve did in 2012.

First, some background:  Here on the UAA Ski Team, we occasionally have situations when the coaches aren’t available to drive the vans to practice or races.  For example, the coach may need to miss a practice or perhaps the athletes need to drive from the team house to the race venue, but the coaches are already onsite testing skis so aren't available to drive. For this reason, the athletic department gives permission for some athletes to drive team vehicles.  To get on the approved list, however, the athlete must first go through a rigorous screening process.  Driving records are perused, references are tracked down and interviewed.  The physical, emotional and psychological makeup of each prospective driver is assessed. Phone lines are tapped, e-mails are hacked. CIA, FBI, NSA, BSS and KGB data is gathered and sent to NASA for verification, analysis and processing.  In addition, old archived news reports are analyzed to find out if there could be anything in the prospective driver-athlete’s past which may preclude them from being the courteous, proficient, defensive driver that their teammates need to get them to practices and races in a safe and timely manner.  Usually, these investigations go just fine.  But occasionally they do not. 
Take, for instance, the case of Synnøve.
After hours and hours of intensive, exhaustive internet research, poring over the records of news agencies, television networks and printed media, my minions brought me this little gem from Norway:


According to a followup news article here, it all worked out OK in the end because the Volkswagen in question had "superinsurance".  But the video leaves me with one question:  Why was the warning ribbon strung across the street halfway down the hill where it was too late to stop anyone from attempting to drive down it?  I bet Synnøve was wondering that, too.

1 comment: