As serendipity would have it, I just did today.
Heading down I-25 to Denver. Some of you may know this "rush hour" drill for the interstate between outlying towns and the City. If you want to make time, you stay in the left lane because 1) if you go to the right lane, you'll never get back without squeezing in, and when you squeeze in, you'rean assh a jerk and make it worse for everyone who then have to brake when you do that; and 2) the cars coming off the on-ramps are gonna mess you up.
So I'm in the left lane, keeping a decent space between me and truck-and-trailer in front of me. The guy a couple cars behind me, in a gray sedan (henceforth known as "Gray Sedan"), shifts to the right lane to scoot past traffic.
We're coming up to an intersection where I know that there will be traffic coming down the ramp, competing with the right-lane traffic, including Gray Sedan.
The brake lights of the truck/trailer in front of me come on, and the whole rig starts bucking in a close-to-panic stop. It shifts over to the right. I start braking, not alarmed because I have space but concerned because you don't know how this will go, and I look for space on the left for an exit just in case there's a whole line of cars suddenly smooshing together.
I brake, pull a little to the left, checking out the space, we're coming out from the underpass, and suddenly Gray Sedan is in the turf off to the right of the highway, sliding sideways. Truck/trailer has brake lights on, slowing to stop. Gray Sedan has a nice new dent and scrapes in the side of the car as he continues skidding sideways, throwing up dirt and grass.
I think about stopping to help, but I'm past the scene now, and there's about 24 metric tons of vehicles still behind me at 65-75 miles per hour. So I keep on task in my lane of traffic, grab my phone from its clever mount on the dash, and call 911. I give them all the information I can (southbound I-25 at the Johnstown exit, accident occurring in southbound lanes, just south of the exit, my cell, my name, doesn't look like an injury, and so on).
That was the start of my morning.
Heading down I-25 to Denver. Some of you may know this "rush hour" drill for the interstate between outlying towns and the City. If you want to make time, you stay in the left lane because 1) if you go to the right lane, you'll never get back without squeezing in, and when you squeeze in, you're
So I'm in the left lane, keeping a decent space between me and truck-and-trailer in front of me. The guy a couple cars behind me, in a gray sedan (henceforth known as "Gray Sedan"), shifts to the right lane to scoot past traffic.
We're coming up to an intersection where I know that there will be traffic coming down the ramp, competing with the right-lane traffic, including Gray Sedan.
The brake lights of the truck/trailer in front of me come on, and the whole rig starts bucking in a close-to-panic stop. It shifts over to the right. I start braking, not alarmed because I have space but concerned because you don't know how this will go, and I look for space on the left for an exit just in case there's a whole line of cars suddenly smooshing together.
I brake, pull a little to the left, checking out the space, we're coming out from the underpass, and suddenly Gray Sedan is in the turf off to the right of the highway, sliding sideways. Truck/trailer has brake lights on, slowing to stop. Gray Sedan has a nice new dent and scrapes in the side of the car as he continues skidding sideways, throwing up dirt and grass.
I think about stopping to help, but I'm past the scene now, and there's about 24 metric tons of vehicles still behind me at 65-75 miles per hour. So I keep on task in my lane of traffic, grab my phone from its clever mount on the dash, and call 911. I give them all the information I can (southbound I-25 at the Johnstown exit, accident occurring in southbound lanes, just south of the exit, my cell, my name, doesn't look like an injury, and so on).
That was the start of my morning.
