Current mood:

dodged a bullet

Driving with Caution 1, bad traffic accident 0

Coming home at 3am on a friday night, I was driving cautiously as usual (in the Dallas metroplex, people are pretty reckless drivers in general). So I'm sitting at a red light, and as it goes to turn green, and the perpendicular street light goes to yellow, a guy hits his brakes really hard and barely stops.

At this point, I'm glad I wait a few seconds as usual after a light turns green, usually to make sure the traffic coming the other direction actually stops.

A half second, maybe one fourth second later, a second car rear-ends the first doing at least 40-50 mph. Kind of like watching a game of pool - the cue ball hits another ball, the cue ball stops dead and the other one goes flying.

Except it was a car that went flying. Through the intersection (it was a big one) and turning into the lane I would have been going through had I gone through the intersection and hitting the corner.

It was kind of cool - the guys taillight went out - there were sparks! His bumper fell off, the back collapsed sort of like an empty soda can and he really went flying. The guy in the car that hit him was getting out of his car as I drove by, but I called 911 anyway, just in case someone was injured.

Pretty sobering, really.

Not that I was always a cautious driver. When I was a bit younger, I was pulled over for doing about 125 in a 55 mph zone. In my defense, it was 3am in the middle of nowhere on a country highway. I wondered who could be keeping up with me when I saw headlights in my rear view mirror. Then the flashing lights turned on and I realized it was a state trooper. After that ticket, I just started driving more cautiously. Mostly because I had found the limit - sometimes kids try to push the limits to find out where they are? Yeah. I did that and found it, luckily not injuring myself in the process (any screw up at 125 mph is usually your last).

Caution pays, as it turns out...