What do you do when you're driving through industrial East Oakland and nearly get sideswiped by a bus with one front wheel about to fall off and the open engine cover whacking parked cars?

Why, you do what I did and add to the safety by whipping out your camera and shooting some video of the action! Oakland's San Leandro Street is such a driving adventure that I've often felt it ought to be the inspiration for a driving video game, in which the player pilots an '83 Chevette with no license plates and three space-saver spares the length of the much-potholed street, dodging brakeless 18-wheelers, insensate drunks passed out on the gas pedals of rampaging Chrysler New Yorkers, Sterno bums shambling along pushing trains of lashed-together shopping carts, and so on. Unfortunately, the road surface was too bumpy for the camera to register the nerve-wrackingly loose front left wheel on the bus, but you can see the engine cover on the right side of the bus swinging, as the driver weaves randomly down the road.

Send an email to Murilee Martin, the author of this post, at murilee@jalopnik.com.