Smart Smijten

A Dutch term for tipping Smart cars into canals.

Autoblog recently issued Smart car owners in the Netherlands a warning:

Don’t park your itty-bitty city cars near easily-accessible bodies of water. If you thought the car’s errant transmission and its rough-and-tumble shifts were your biggest concern, you’ve likely never heard of the latest craze sweeping Amsterdam: “Smart Smijten.”

Smart smijten – or Smart tipping – involves upending eco-friendlySmart Fortwos into the Dutch capital’s canals – a feat, Autoblog explained, which is achieved with some ease:

Since drivers of the diminutive little urban runabouts often choose to back into parking spots side-by-side in order to save on congestion, it’s reportedly quite easy for drunken revelers to lift the front of the Fortwo and tip it tail-first right into a canal.

DutchAmsterdam called the craze “an urban version of cow tipping.”

(Small cars have long been susceptible to japery. Students at the University of British Columbia have been placing the shells of VW Beetles in unorthodox locales since the 1980s. And, in 1958, an Austin Seven was relocated to the roof of Cambridge University’s Senate House by a group of engineering students.)

Schott Op-Chart: Twittergraphy |

There is nothing new about new technology imposing restrictions on communication. Clickhere for an exploration of how Twitter users might employ the special codes devised for 19-century telegrams.