So, here’s a little story for ya. I was coming home at about 9:00 on Monday night from a frisbee game. I was making the final left turn off a major road, with traffic piled up several cars deep opposite me, waiting at the red light.
My light turned green, and I proceeded to turn. Just then,
SkreeeeeeeeeeSMASH!!
A car had hit the back of the line of traffic waiting at the light at nearly 40 miles per hour. The truck it hit went careening into the next vehicle, etc., and the front car was flung far enough out into the intersection that I had to swerve quite suddenly to avoid it.
Whoa.
I got out of the intersection, and parked my car at a gas station off the road, and sprinted back across to see if everyone was OK.
The passenger door of the car that had initially hit the line of traffic (and which was now splayed crazily across both lanes) swung open, and a little girl, perhaps 7 or 8 years old, jumped out. She ran up to me, screaming. “I just want my mommy! I just want my mommy!”
About that time another witness to the accident came up behind me and started checking the child for injury.
I ran on to the cars. The three other drivers were already out of their cars, and checking on each other. OK. Good enough. Nobody had approached the original vehicle yet.
The entire front end was a horrible mess. The hood was standing straight up, both front tires were blown, and it was leaking antifreeze out all over the pavement.
I saw a man slumped in the front seat, the entire passenger cabin cloudy with smoke. I ran up to the driver’s window, which was smashed, and peered in. The guy looked unconscious, but I didn’t see any blood. I reached in and touched his arm. He shifted, and looked up at me blearily. I thought he was in shock, but then he breathed in my direction.
He was blind, stinking, knee-walking drunk.
Fortunately, no one was hurt in the accident, but it sure wasn’t for lack of trying. It’s unbelievable that he was driving in that state in the first place. Bad enough that he put the other drivers’ lives in danger. It’s INCONCEIVABLE that he would be driving drunk with his daughter in the car. Fortunately, the car had airbags, or else there’d have been brains splattered all over the ruins of the car’s hood: neither were wearing seat belts, of course. Pure luck that they weren’t hurt.
Words can’t describe the utter contempt, the complete jaw-grinding fury I felt while I stood there and kept the still-hammered asshole from fleeing the scene of the accident.
Oh yes, officer, I’ll be glad to be listed as an eyewitness.
