Watching This Snowy Slow-Motion Accident in Montreal Is Oddly Soothing

A reminder of the gentle futility that is life.

byWill Sabel Courtney|
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It’s snowing in Montreal today. This likely doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone reading this; it is December, after all, and Quebec’s largest city is known to be a fairly inclement place. But for whatever reason, today’s morning snowfall there caused a bit of a traffic kerfuffle, when one vehicle after another wound up sliding down a hill in Montreal and into each other in a slow-motion ballet of destruction.

Much of the destruction occurred on Beaver Street in downtown Montreal, according to the CBC. A video that appears to have originated on the Facebook account of one Willem Shepherd but has since been distributed across multiple social media platforms captured much of the damage brought on by the mischievous wintry mix.

In the clip—which, obviously, we’ve embedded below for your viewing pleasure— a bus plows slowly into a group of cars at the bottom of the hill. Not long afterwards, a pickup truck plows into the back of the bus, hitting hard enough to visible rattle the ladder in the bed...followed by yet another city bus, this one filled with people, according to the CBC. Even municipal employees who ought to know better than to embark down such a dangerous road—a police officer, the driver of a snowplow—wind up with their vehicles slip-sliding down into the tangled mess of crashed vehicles. (Thankfully, no one appears to have been injured in the incident.)

Still, as much as we feel for the owners of these vehicles...it’s weirdly relaxing, watching those cars slide slowly yet inexorably down the hill to their fate. There’s something rather Zen about it. Perhaps it symbolizes the human experience itself, in a way: a gradual, uncontrollable descent to an inevitable fate. You can fight it tooth and nail, or you can sit back and enjoy the ride...but you wind up in the same place just as quickly either way.

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