well, i was driving back from the store and there’s a long road that is 45 mph , but i ALWAYS go 60 on it because the hills give you that tingly feeling in your stomach when you go over them fast. At the end of the road I turn left onto another road and then I near my destination.
Well about 5 days ago i decided to slow down just a bit at the end of the road, to about 50 just because i thought there might be a cop or something, then as I was about 150 feet away from the light where I turn left and I see a green arrow, damn I thought I shouldn’t have slowed down, then after it was green for 1 second a HUGE pickup truck comes flying through the intersection blatantly running the red going about 40-50mph. If I wouldn’t have slowed down I would have pulled right out in the intersection and have been nailed in the side, there’s no doubt about it, it’s a bit of a blind curb, so neither me nor him could see one another until it was too late.
At the speed he/she was going and the the size of their truck vs the size of my pea-shooter car, I can only hope I would have made it out in one piece. It’s really amazing to think that just a few seconds or milliseconds can determine the outcome of our life.
Once when I was in college I came back to my hometown for an orthodontist appointment. I was driving my mom’s car to the doctor’s office, toodling along and not paying much attention. The loooong street I was on had a long large building on the right, and a railroad track (with warning lights) immediately beyond it. Yup, I totally flaked and didn’t see the lights. As I crossed the tracks, I happened to look to my right and noticed the train RIGHT THERE. GAAAAHHHHH!
It passed safely (?) right behind me. Granted, this was in the city, so it wasn’t going very fast, but if I’d been going a little slower I’d have had some ‘splainin’ to do from my hospital bed, after I came out of the coma.
I have never told my mom about this – she’d do worse to me than the train!
If you think about it a lot of accidents that involve two or more cars are like this. A second or two either way (faster or slower) and the accident likely would be avoided (there’s not much you can do about the nimrod that rear-ends though).
My wife lost her uncle and two of her cousins on Christmas Eve many years back. Some kids pulling a prank put a big milk pail in the road. A van coming the other way swerved to avoid the milk pail and the van rolled over on top of her uncle’s car killing him and two little girls. The aunt was in the hospital for weeks but fully recovered and one other cousin made it out almost completely unscathed (in the physical sense). Had they been two seconds farther along or behind where they were they’d all be alive today. (The kids who put the milk pail out were caught and sent to juvee.)
Just goes to show that the dividing line between life and death isn’t all that big. Glad to hear all is well in this case.
