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Moscow: A meteor shower has caused explosions in the lower atmosphere above central Russia and the Urals region, blowing out windows and causing injuries.

‘‘There was a meteor shower, without fragments falling to the ground,’’ an emergencies ministry spokesman told the Interfax news agency.

Reuters reported that a powerful blast had rocked the Urals region with bright objects falling from the sky.

stitch626 wrote:Meteors tend to explode over Russia rather than hit them...

Tholian_Avenger wrote:What's with all the dash cams?

...but a massive clusterfuck of societal issues. First of all, their roads suck. The main road network alone ranges from badly maintained terror-gridlocks to horrifying dystopian deathtraps, and the government's devotion to fixing the issue is limited to a hearty laugh and a shrug. The police are prone to taking bribes, and car insurance companies are notoriously difficult to deal with, so tough luck if your vehicle sustains damage. What's more, criminals and scammers abuse the shit out of the situation, happily staging accidents for profit or even lying on the road in hopes of getting hit and being able to sue.

All of this has taken its toll on the drivers, to the point where they have precisely two available options: Either they embrace the insanity and become GTA characters every time they enter a vehicle ... or they drive like sane human beings and risk getting rammed into or, as often as not, getting cut off, dragged out of the vehicle and beaten by a 6-foot-7-inch tracksuit dude who embraces the Niko Bellic lifestyle.

The Solution:

None of those insane YouTube clips were filmed for shits and giggles. They're footage from dashboard cameras, the drivers' response to the unholy mess that is their country's road system.

The thing is, the parts of Russia that don't involve automotive activities are extremely enthusiastically governed. Their justice system is perfectly capable of delivering a heaping helping of sentences to any culprit. The problem is that deciding who said culprit actually is can be difficult when the evidence consists of smoking wreckage, a traffic cop with a suspiciously padded wallet and two guys pointing at each other.

The drivers have learned to combat this by equipping most every vehicle with dash cams, which provide perfectly good evidence for court and, given the unreliability of literally everything else on the road, have proven to be the only true way to protect themselves from the lawless wastelands of Russian asphalt.

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_20164_5- ... z2LQKhjChS