Friday, June 24, 2011

Traffic Might Just Have Saved My Life

Yesterday, we were stuck in traffic for about an hour before even getting to the real traffic jam. It took that long to travel the length of this on-ramp, and thirty minutes from where I was sitting in this photo to that underpass.

My first thought was, how can people sit in this kind of traffic to go to/from a job??? I would slit my wrists if I had to do this everyday. NO job is worth this aggravation. I couldn't raise anyone on the CB to give me any information; was it just regular workday traffic, construction, an accident?, so I just crept along with everyone else.

There is a weigh station on the other side of the underpass, and with the traffic, I was hoping it'd be closed. When I rounded the bend and saw that it was, I pulled into the right lane (which was open because it was the HOV lane) and bypassed everyone who was sitting at a dead stop. My clutch leg was killing me and there was no way I could do this for another hour. The weigh station is also a rest area, which was packed on the car side, but which had one spot left on the truck side. Ahhhh, perfect. It was dinner time and I figured we'd pull over, I'd cook dinner, and then we'd head out again.

We then heard on the CB that there was an accident and the state police had shut down the highway; it was likely going to stay that was for a few hours. Well, hell...I wasn't venturing out in that, so we decided after dinner to just hit the sack. We could get up early tomorrow and be on our way, with no traffic to deal with; for sure, they'd have it cleaned up by then.

Later in the night I found out that the road closure was due to an accident, someone going the wrong way on the interstate. The driver of the wrong way vehicle (54 years old) was dead, another (18 years old) seriously injured and taken to a nearby hospital. Eyewitnesses said the guy going the wrong way was traveling at a high rate of speed and crossed over some barriers, into the opposite lane of traffic. I don't have any sympathy for those who speed and drive recklessly, and don't really care much if they die in the process, as long as they don't kill anyone else. In this case though, I'd like to know more about what happened. It's unusual for a fifty-four year old to be speeding in that manner, I'm wondering if maybe there was a health issue involved; heart attack, stroke, etc.

There are just too many accidents out here caused by people who are reckless. They drive WAY too fast, weave in an out of traffic, tailgate, text, talk on their phones, cross three lanes of traffic to get off an exit ramp, cut people off. It's all very easy to see from the elevated seat of an 18-wheeler, and when I'm going fifty-eight miles an hour to be safe and save on fuel, these idiots are creating dangerous situations for not just me, but for everyone.

I certainly hope the eighteen-year-old is okay. You shouldn't have to worry about dying on your way home from work, on the way to pick up your girlfriend, or when heading out to the mall. As for the dead guy; I'm sorry that his family has to deal with that loss. Whether he was speeding, driving recklessly or just being an idiot, I'm sure someone loved him.

Me? I'm just glad I was stuck in traffic instead of on the other side of the barrier when a speeding car came careening over it. Someone's certainly watching out for me and my Eddie.




1 comment:

Gil said...

Glad you two are safe. So sad that guy had to die so young. You did a great job describing how too many jerks that are out there on the roads drive these days. We took a trip to the Hartford Thursday and idiots of all ages were racing on the streets passing cars on both sides on to have to lock up their brakes in a block or two for a light.