The Tour de France was marred by an accident today among the parade of vehicles that prelude the racers.

The carnage began when a giant tea kettle failed to note the slowing weird balloon car it was following and plowed into the rear of the ‘vehicle.’

The accident triggered a chain reaction sending some sort of motorized hat and a platform of dancing teens singing about banking into the fray. A wheeled spinning top and a historic Citroen carrying models in kitchen aprons completed the pileup.

Though no serious injuries were reported, the accident sent a tchotchke volume "of cataclysmic proportions" spilling into the roadway.

French haz-mat teams (Response Hazard Français) were immediately dispatched to the scene to contain the spill and begin the laborious clean up of thousands of pointless novelties—crappy keychains, magnets, and other "bizarre twisty thingys."

"We couldn’t figure out what those damn things were," explains RHF captain Christophe L’Amont. "But needless to say, no-one wanted to touch them. I’m glad we had the tongs."

Witnesses describe a scene of chaos and panic. "When the first dumb little novelty pen landed at my feet, I feared the worst and screamed ‘Omigod! No!’ when my daughter reached to pick it up," describes visiting American, Steve Burress.

"I quickly swept her up and climbed to higher ground to escape the toxic flood. She was sad at first for not getting the pen, but she’ll thank me later for sparing her the grief of realizing it’s worthless crap."

The French emergency response teams made short order of the spill clean up to ensure that the race was not delayed. "We got to use some special equipment we’ve picked up in anticipation of just such a mishap," explains L’Amont. "Looks like the snow shovels and Hefty trash bags were pretty good investments after all."

"It was absolute merde that no-one in their right mind would assign any value to whatsoever. Some marketing geniuses dream those up—just so that it can all now choke our landfills."

Due to the volume, however, "we couldn’t get it all," continues L’Amont. "We just did what we could to keep the race schedule. We’ll have to go back afterwards to truly assess the environmental impact and the long-term effects of the disaster. It’s imperative to understand the ramifications of such an event and properly educate the public.

"In terms of importance, it’s probably a close second to global warming."