Today (well, yesterday now) was Krispy Kreme's 80th birthday. So I took something like my 4th lunch since I started this day job to basically spend an hour standing in line to get a dozen of their original plain glazed doughnuts for $0.80. After I bought an assorted dozen for regular price.
I have to wonder how much money they made/lost today. I'm sure that the overworked people behind the counter were the ones who really paid for it.
Anyway. I had a couple dozen doughnuts in the passenger seat when I headed home from the day job at 17:02. Leaving at that time of day was dumb,
but I was at a stopping point, and I didn't want to open
any new cans of worms.
Drivers were more aggressive that I'm used to today. Maybe it was just the time. At one point I had
to jog a smidge inside my lane to dodge someone who was weaving
around to pass me on the right, then immediately slam on my
brakes to avoid someone else who decided to cut me off on the
left.
That threw the assorted doughnuts out of the passenger seat
and into the floorboard.
It also kicked my adrenaline into gear, which left me extra
alert. I think that's why what happened next wasn't much worse.
The "highway" out to our house has a lot of curves and hills.
It's nothing like the sheer cliffs, sudden tunnels, and winding craziness
between Nederland and Boulder, but it seems to have a lot more wrecks. Maybe
the serenity lulls drivers into safety.
Or maybe it's just that this road has a lot more traffic.
It doesn't even have the lane switches (if you've never driven that road, it's a maddening combination of two or three lanes, with the three lane stretches set up at exactly the places to make it most difficult to pass someone whose care can't really handle the grade) to help
you stay awake. It's just a wide-open 4-lane stretch, with
nothing that resembles a median.
As soon as I told co-workers I was moving out here, they started
warning about the dangers of this road.
Apparently there's a major accident at least once a week.
Laura's just barely missed a couple. Our neighbors
across the street had their car totalled a week or so ago
when a driver who was supposedly behind them drifted
into their back tire (at least that's the version of
the story that I heard 3rd hand).
Today was my turn.
Traffic was flowing along pretty well, though it was
also pretty tightly packed. I was in the right lane.
A smallish Capital Metro bus was in the left lane
directly in front of me. I was making it a point to
give it plenty of room, in case that driver wanted
to get in front of me. There were a bunch of
drivers in a hurry who wanted to pass both of us.
We were all flowing along nicely at about 50 mph.
About a mile and a half before my turn off (which
is the part of my drive that scares me the most, because you have to stop for oncoming traffic right after you crest a hill),
I spotted a driver topping a hill (and a curve)
in the right lane coming the other way.
That's the way I remembered it the first time through, anyway. The lack of a real hill in the pictures that follow is a great example of the fun games our minds play on us when they reinvent the past. Then again, we went out later to get pictures of the skid marks, and it's a pretty serious hill from the other side.
Anyway, I didn't see what went wrong. According to the bus
driver, his wheels slipped onto the shoulder. I've driven past the skid marks a few times since it all happened, and I think they bear out this version of the story.
I just saw him suddenly veer over in front of the
bus.
I was positive that he was about to die. I was
pretty certain that my little clown car was
going to plow into his smoldering wreckage.
I slammed on my brakes, halfway expecting to
go into a skid, flip my car, and cause a huge
pile-up.
It's one of the only times I've ever really felt
ABS in action.
Somehow, the bus driver managed to slow down
enough the he really only clipped that car. It
scooted and spun around past him, bounced off
the guard rail (I think...that's the only explanation
I have for how everything, including the big
dent in the rail wound up...I had enough adrenaline going
in that instant that I don't really remember it), and
then drifted back.
I'd somehow managed to stop.
I slammed it into reverse and managed to back up
4 or 5 feet before what was left of his bumper
just sort of pecked mine on the cheek.
I'm firmly convinced that that bus driver
very narrowly managed to avoid killing the
guy who lost control.
I sent Laura a text about it at 17:52, just to let
her know that I was fine.
The guy who was in the car directly behind the
bus got out to
1. make sure everyone was OK
2. call the cops (he wound up calling someone who was
on vacation because main dispatch wasn't answering...I
love living in a small town)
3. decide he didn't have time to wait around for this
nonsense
4. just swerve around everything and abandon the scene once
the people with flashy lights started showing up
Everybody else pestered the bus driver to clear
the lane and get out of the way, but he wisely
refused to move until the cops got there.
I can't blame them. After all:
Blocked a surprising amount of traffic:
When the cops did arrive, their first concern was to clear a lane to try to keep someone else from plowing into the back of the pile and turning it into a real mess.
It took a while to convince them
that the at-fault car started out heading the other
direction. Even though you could see the skid
marks from his tires.
If I hadn't seen this happen, I'd think that bus had clipped the lancer's rear bumper. Or something along those lines. Especially if I were looking at the damage to the front of the bus.
That would be completely and totally wrong.
The guy driving that Lancer lost control and started its skid about where the truck is in this photo.The bus managed to slow down enough that it only lost its front right headlight, sending the Lancer into a spin. I'm pretty sure it bounced into that guard rail, then skittered backward into my car. (Well, it definitely did the last part...I got its paint on my bumper to prove that part).
It looks worse (well, ok, not much) when you can actually see it up close and personal. I think everything's probably OK, and a few minutes with a buffer can probably clean it right up, but you never know until you've had a professional check it out.
Have I mentioned that I was cruising along at 45-50 mph when this happened?!
The dude driving the Lancer made it a point to apologize, and I feel awful for him.
I'm pretty sure he's the only person who got hurt. I wish I'd gotten pictures. He was growing this big goose-egg on his forehead, and I have people I love who have been through something along these lines with traumatic brain injury and didn't realize it for a year or so.
He specifically mentioned that he thinks he probably needs stitches in his ear, but that isn't worth the price of an ambulance ride. I can't blame him for that, but I really hope he gets himself checked out..
I feel like every muscle in my body has been stretched out and wrung to dry, and all I did was stomp on the brakes.
When the EMTs asked me if I needed to go to the hospital, I'm pretty sure I would have answered "No," even if I'd needed a tourniquet. And I hadn't just suffered a nasty blow to the head.
The kind of blow that he took can change your life.
If you're ever involved in this sort of thing, please, please go see a doctor.
I just scheduled an appointment, for the sake of following my own advice. I think I clicked all the wrong buttons, so they'll probably think I'm suicidal when I get there. In 4 days. Maybe I didn't click anything seriously wrong after all.
When I got home, Mal calmly announced that I'd had an accident. I suspect Laura might have mentioned it...maybe she was preparing him for the possibility that my car had been smashed. (In case no one's ever mentioned this, he gets *really* attached to stuff).
He had what looked like a new bruise over his eye, so I asked if he'd had an accident too. He got indignant.
It turns out that was just paint, and he'd done it on purpose.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for leaving a comment! We love to hear from you!