This morning, on my drive into work, I encountered two potential Darwin Award winners…
I was driving around a blind curve on a two lane back road, as I approached the apex of the turn, I saw two vehicles stopped dead in the lane of travel, the frontmost vehicle was a Honda Accord, the rearmost vehicle, a Dodge Avenger, the two drivers were standing in between the two vehicles, looking at their bumpers, I’d assume the Avenger played a small game of Bumper-Tag with the Accord, and the drivers were standing at the nose of the Avenger exchanging paperwork…
let me just clarify things a bit…
both vehicles were stopped dead in the middle of the lane, not pulled off to the side of the road, they just simply stopped the vehicles where they were
Both drivers were standing between the Accord and Avenger, and absorbed in the paperwork exhange they were doing
Oh, did I forget to mention that NEITHER ONE OF THE VEHICLES HAD HAZARD FLASHERS ON!!
They were lucky that I was traveling the speed limit and had ample time and space to maneuver around them, I shudder to think what could have happened if another vehicle came around the corner at a high rate of speed and struck the Avenger, the two drivers would become the meat in a Automotive Sandwich…
If I was you I would have slowed (if it was safe) and YELLED at those idiots. Because if someone was to hit them, yeah it’d be bad for the victims but then someone else has to have their blood on their hands. I know someone that got into a car accident where someone in the other car died. The driver I knew was 100% not at fault, the other car did something extremely stupid and it was their fault. But the driver still had to live with that and it tore him up even though he couldn’t have avoided it.
That gives me the creeps just thinking about it - I never, NEVER get myself between two vehicles like that if I can help it. I don’t even like to walk too closely to any car bumpers (because of rollback).
I did two u-turns once to go back and dress down a kid who had nearly gotten himself killed. He appeared “out of nowhere” by riding his bike on the wrong side of the road and turning the corner into the oncoming right-hand turn lane. The car in front of me came to a smoking, fishtailing stop. The kid didn’t seem to react.
Which reminds me that I was told in 9th grade that a kid from 8th grade had cut the corner going home the first day of school and had met the front end of a car. I never saw him again. Kids said he was killed.
A couple of weeks back, I was coming home after dark. A subdivision-y street with some gentle curves, headlights on low. I was hugging the inside (right side) of the curve, and suddenly realized that a jogger was coming at me.
Dressed in dark pants and a dark top.
Even though I was only going about 20, I had to jerk the wheel to miss him.
We had a decent storm Wednesday. Snow flew fast and furiously, leading to whiteout conditions(using def 2) at times. The roads were slick too, so people were sliding all over. Did this mean that everyone had their headlights on so others could see them as best as they could? No, of course not! Idiots.
The faster, “back way” to get to my house from the north is a two-lane country highway. The speed limit is 55, the narrow shoulders are very soft, and it is pitch black at night.
The last time I took that way home, it was midnight. I came upon a bicycle rider wearing dark clothing and no reflective gear at all. Even though he must have known I was coming (I had my high beams on), he was lazily swerving back and forth across the entire lane. I barely saw him in time to avoid hitting him.
It scared me so badly that I haven’t taken that road at night in six months.