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Considering their involvement with airplanes and all, you might think that airport bums involved in accidental encounters with trees would generally be viewed as the aggressor parties, approaching said trees from above at high speed, while the hapless trees would remain passive victims, by their very nature quite literally rooted in the ground and unable to move out of the way.

That's what you might think.

In fact, however, in every recorded collision of a Brother with a tree, the tree was at fault. Here is but one example, as documented by the victim, IBAB Member #33507. This incident occurred at around noon on March 30, 2004, in north Phoenix, Arizona. Visual meteorological conditons prevailed, and no flight plan was filed because he was driving his car, for Pete's sake.

On the way to eat pizza yesterday with my beloved pals, a 30 foot tree fell on me while I was westbound on Thunderbird Road just past Central Avenue in Moon Valley. I thought it was a big branch that broke the windshield; it wasn't until I got out and looked at the car and the tree that I saw the extent of the damage. A guy in an eastbound truck saw the tree fall and called 911. He came over to me while he was talking to the 911 operator. He was amazed that I was alive. The cop who wrote up the report was also amazed that I was alive. The offending tree
The offended vehicle So far, my insurance company hasn't been too amazing. They immediately pointed out that they will not cover the deductible. The lady even pointed out that she thought a tree would take some amount of time to fall over, and hadn't I seen it? She was apparently suggesting that I should have avoided it. I told her I did not see it, and pointed out to her that it fell from behind me, as can be seen from the photo. I felt like saying "Lady, I'd like to put you in the falling tree simulator and see how you would have handled the situation."

The falling tree simulator. Please remember, you heard it here first.


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