Friday 24th October 2003

Grown Man loses Teddy Bears

Highways Agency mounts search for bouncing bears

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The Highways Agency was the bearer of good news for Worcestershire man David Perry when it reunited him with his childhood teddy bears.

'Masher' and 'Bruno' escaped from Mr Perry's roof rack as he drove from Beeston, near Nottingham, to his home in Redditch last Monday afternoon. When he realised they were missing he called the Highways Agency Information Line to ask if they had been found.

Operator Martin Berry, who took the call, said:

"We contacted our agents at the M1 depot in Sandiacre and they kept an eye out for the bears during their routine patrols. Fortunately Masher and Bruno had bounced off the carriageway and on to the verge so, although they were a bit shook up, they were not posing a danger to other vehicles.

The bears were found on the A52 near M1 J25 in Nottinghamshire by Dave Robinson and Derek Langley, members of AMScott's incident support crew. Fears that they'd suffered horrific head injuries were unfounded.

[james]

How completely stupid. If you called the Highways Agency to report a real problem, would they be so keen to act? Probably not.

[jeremyc]

More importantly, WTF was David Perry doing with his childhood teddy bears strapped (or not) to his roofrack?

[anonymous-user]

And was he later visited by a friendly policeman to charge him with travelling with an unsecured load, by his own admission.

[shadowninja]

"Urbearn surfing", obviously.

[RichardR]

Lucky he didn't have his window open otherwise his dummy might have fallen out.