Going to Houston again tomorrow. Its always a crap shoot how it will go on the I-10 hwy. Many times, Im surrounded by talented, alert and considerate drivers, and many times, quite the opposite. In the fall of 2001, I had gone there for a funeral, and was coming back during one of those several-inch-an-hour rain storms that we sometimes get. The maximum safe speed that I could pull off without hydroplaning on relatively new tires was 50 mph. Passing a long truck doing 45, I soon had a car wedged up my rear, and as soon as I could safely reclaim the right lane, the car tore past, apparently oblivious of the road conditions. She didnt make it out of sight before she lost control, spinning round and round, sailing off of the road at around 70 mph, narrowly missing a culvert, and coming to a rest almost to the widely-separated feeder road. I stopped to assist, pulling well off the hwy, and fortunately, she was unharmed, and her car relatively undamaged. While an elderly local motorist with a truck and a chain lectured her on safe driving, I noticed the chaos beginning on the hwy. Apparently, the train of thought goes something like this: Oh, my; they lost control and spun out! Maybe they were going too fast and hydroplaned! Maybe Im going too fast! And then they stomp hard on the brakes. No less than 6 or 7 more cars lost control and began spinning out all around us, some flying off the road to the left, some to the right. Miraculously, none hit my car, but a few bounced off of each other. And then, flying through the middle of the spinning cars, a late model Toyota 4-Runner, doing what appeared to be 75-80 mph. In that weird sort of slow-motion that seems to kick in when stuff gets crazy, I watched it spin lazily around as it crossed the center median (the low barrier that now exists was not there then), flying sideways through the grass, bouncing but not rolling over as it would hit bumps. It only did one 180 before it planted its rear bumper perfectly on the front bumper of an 18-wheeler headed in the opposite direction. I watched a ripple/shockwave run the length of its aluminum trailer, and it maybe lost 5 mph off of its speed, and I watched the 4-Runner essentially become a Festiva, losing about 5-6 feet of its length, as it burst into flames, the truck braking to a halt with about 8 feet of flaming Toyota remains wedged in its grill. It was instantly apparent that anyone in the Toyota was instantly killed, and I felt a psychic shock wave blow through my soul at the moment of impact as their souls fled, and I fell to my knees. Dear God...those people just died... I was stricken. Oh, wow, thats too bad. Hey, can we get that chain hooked up to my car and pull me out? The 21-year-old college student was largely indifferent to the mayhem that she had precipitated. There was no point in crossing the hwy to rescue or gape at the obviously deceased young couple that had been in the Toyota, though some did. One fool, having dared the cross-traffic for his looky-loo, accosted me while I was waiting to give my eyewitness report to the police. Hey dude! Man, you should go over there and check that out! Body parts everywhere, blood and brains splattered all over the interior! Couldnt hardly tell where one person ended and another began! I was in no mood. Get far away from me, and do it quickly. Appearing hurt, he wandered off to regale some other motorist with his tale of gore. In short, its not a road race out there. Drive considerately and safely, let other people get what they want while you get what you want. Ive got far more important things that I want to do to end up as a statistic because of some inconsiderate, ignorant, selfish fools lack of driving talent.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 02:25:05 +0000
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