An Uber driver (45) tipped his car headfirst into the moat at the Berlinale cinema on Wednesday morning. According to a police spokeswoman, he called 911 at around 12:25 a.m. because he could not get out on his own.
The man was unharmed and sober. He wanted to pick up a passenger and drove onto the sidewalk in his Mercedes B-Class. He must have overlooked the moat.
The fire brigade could not help him pull the car out of the shallow water. The crane truck of a towing company did that. Luck for the unlucky fellow: the car was intact and he was then able to continue.
It’s not the first time a car has taken a dip in the shallow pool of water. In May 2009, two fell into the fountain at Marlene-Dietrich-Platz. First a Mercedes driver who had lost his bearings in heavy rain.
After him, a Ford Mustang lurched into the soup because he had driven over the sidewalk because of the fire brigade operation involved. In both of these cases, no one was injured.