Adventures in driving
Dec. 20th, 2005 09:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
muck_a_luckVery upsetting drive home tonight.
We witnessed a nasty little accident.
There is an intersection where people have to turn left across traffic to get onto the toll road. Unfortunately they have to turn left across THREE LANES of traffic.
This is an intersection that tends to get gridlocked at rush hour. I am very careful not to gridlock the intersection. So I get to it, and the light is green, but the traffic is pretty backed up, so I pause to be sure I will have space to make it all the way across.
The lane next to mine is much the same, but not everybody worries about gridlock.
There is a guy in a light truck trying to turn left across the three lanes of traffic. When I pause, he takes the opportunity to try to turn.
Except that all I did was *pause*, it quickly became clear that I could go, so I did. So he stopped, but I saw him so I stopped, and now we have what I will call in a very un-PC manner a Mexican standoff. We stutter for a minute, confusing the car in the lane next to me and tricking that person into stopping too, though they really didn't need to. So now both of us have stopped. The guy in the truck is feeling pressure to do something, so seeing the two lanes stopped, he makes his move to just go ahead and turn.
Totally forgetting the third lane of traffic. Which was not backed up in the least. And a car comes *flying* through the intersection in the clear section and just *rams* him. The two vehicles crumpled. The truck gets shoved forward by the oncoming car's forward momentum, but doesn't totally lose its own forward momentum, so it sort of carries the car with it, and they go skidding off to the side and kid of down the ram.
So, so frightening.
Luckily, I'm pretty sure the guy in the truck was alone, and his passenger side took the hit. A really, really bad hit, but hopefully he was somewhat protected from the impact. The car hit him going about 35 miles per hour, I would guess, maybe 40. But he wasn't a tree or a wall, and I imagine the car's driver had an air bag, so hopefully, that minimized the injury to that driver, too.
I know the guy turning left made a bad judgment. He will definitely get the blame for the accident. But I wish people would be more careful. In traffic that heavy, at an intersection like that, why would you go barrelling through, especially at night, when you can't see well? I know the person had an open lane and the signal and the right of way, but their car is still a mess and I bet they had a trip to the hospital. Being right doesn't mean you're doing the safest thing. I think it would have behooved that person to slow down at a clearly screwed up intersection just to be sure they knew what the hell was going on.
So then we got home, and more joy.
My parking space is a head-in space on the main drive into our complex. This is an annoying road/parking lot. The spaces are tight and angled the wrong way, so it is difficult to park for the people with spaces there, and people drive along as if they were on a road, rather than moving through a parking lot. I think we need a couple more speed bumps to remind people what they are doing. Anyway, to get the angle to park in my space, I have to swing way the heck out, basically moving to the other lane, then swing in.
I was all the way in the other lane, when I saw that the person with the space next to me was unloading her groceries from the passenger seat and totally blocking my space.
No problem. I do the same thing. So I'm calmly waiting for her.
Well, here comes a car, leaving the complex. I am very much in his lane. Totally blocking the way. Obviously, I don't belong there, but everybody deals with the parking on this drive every day. We know what it's like. And this person is coming on full tilt. No sign they are going to stop. I seriously thought for a couple of seconds that the person was just going to ram me. They slammed on their breaks at the very last minute, leaving me just enough space to maneuver out of their way.
What the hell?! I was totally in the way. I acknowledge that. But I had my headlights and turn light on. I was right THERE! Did they think I was somehow going to dematerialize so they could speed by?! Insane people!
Can we all just take a chill pill in traffic people? Why does every excursion need to be a duel with life and death?
We witnessed a nasty little accident.
There is an intersection where people have to turn left across traffic to get onto the toll road. Unfortunately they have to turn left across THREE LANES of traffic.
This is an intersection that tends to get gridlocked at rush hour. I am very careful not to gridlock the intersection. So I get to it, and the light is green, but the traffic is pretty backed up, so I pause to be sure I will have space to make it all the way across.
The lane next to mine is much the same, but not everybody worries about gridlock.
There is a guy in a light truck trying to turn left across the three lanes of traffic. When I pause, he takes the opportunity to try to turn.
Except that all I did was *pause*, it quickly became clear that I could go, so I did. So he stopped, but I saw him so I stopped, and now we have what I will call in a very un-PC manner a Mexican standoff. We stutter for a minute, confusing the car in the lane next to me and tricking that person into stopping too, though they really didn't need to. So now both of us have stopped. The guy in the truck is feeling pressure to do something, so seeing the two lanes stopped, he makes his move to just go ahead and turn.
Totally forgetting the third lane of traffic. Which was not backed up in the least. And a car comes *flying* through the intersection in the clear section and just *rams* him. The two vehicles crumpled. The truck gets shoved forward by the oncoming car's forward momentum, but doesn't totally lose its own forward momentum, so it sort of carries the car with it, and they go skidding off to the side and kid of down the ram.
So, so frightening.
Luckily, I'm pretty sure the guy in the truck was alone, and his passenger side took the hit. A really, really bad hit, but hopefully he was somewhat protected from the impact. The car hit him going about 35 miles per hour, I would guess, maybe 40. But he wasn't a tree or a wall, and I imagine the car's driver had an air bag, so hopefully, that minimized the injury to that driver, too.
I know the guy turning left made a bad judgment. He will definitely get the blame for the accident. But I wish people would be more careful. In traffic that heavy, at an intersection like that, why would you go barrelling through, especially at night, when you can't see well? I know the person had an open lane and the signal and the right of way, but their car is still a mess and I bet they had a trip to the hospital. Being right doesn't mean you're doing the safest thing. I think it would have behooved that person to slow down at a clearly screwed up intersection just to be sure they knew what the hell was going on.
So then we got home, and more joy.
My parking space is a head-in space on the main drive into our complex. This is an annoying road/parking lot. The spaces are tight and angled the wrong way, so it is difficult to park for the people with spaces there, and people drive along as if they were on a road, rather than moving through a parking lot. I think we need a couple more speed bumps to remind people what they are doing. Anyway, to get the angle to park in my space, I have to swing way the heck out, basically moving to the other lane, then swing in.
I was all the way in the other lane, when I saw that the person with the space next to me was unloading her groceries from the passenger seat and totally blocking my space.
No problem. I do the same thing. So I'm calmly waiting for her.
Well, here comes a car, leaving the complex. I am very much in his lane. Totally blocking the way. Obviously, I don't belong there, but everybody deals with the parking on this drive every day. We know what it's like. And this person is coming on full tilt. No sign they are going to stop. I seriously thought for a couple of seconds that the person was just going to ram me. They slammed on their breaks at the very last minute, leaving me just enough space to maneuver out of their way.
What the hell?! I was totally in the way. I acknowledge that. But I had my headlights and turn light on. I was right THERE! Did they think I was somehow going to dematerialize so they could speed by?! Insane people!
Can we all just take a chill pill in traffic people? Why does every excursion need to be a duel with life and death?
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 02:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-21 04:58 am (UTC)