It started as just another commute to work. A tanker truck had rolled over at my exit for work and traffic was backing up onto the freeway. As I sat in my car, I noticed motion in my rear view mirror. A large SUV was coming up behind me too fast to be able to stop. Worse, the driver was looking down and to his right as if texting or dialing his mobile phone. I looked in my side view mirror to see if there was any chance I could change lanes and prevent being rear ended. Unfortunately, the traffic in the adjoining lanes was flying by quickly and I was at a dead stop.
I learned something about my self that morning: I don’t want to see death approaching. I’d rather look away, which is exactly what I did, sure I was about to die.
My beloved 1998 Lexus ES300 was totaled, but I was unscathed. In fact, all the car’s doors could still be opened and closed and the only indication, inside the car, that there had been an accident was the coin holder had burst open and the coins were thrown around the interior. As you can see from the photo above, the trunk was crushed almost even with the rear window! The sound of the impact was loud enough that the police working the truck accident (below us, we were on an overpass) all looked up and motioned they’d send someone up to us shortly.
I’m 5’6″ tall and typically avoid confrontation, but when the SUV driver came up and said, “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t stop in time.” I blew up.
“Of course you couldn’t! You weren’t watching the road. You were texting!” (that’s pretty wound up for me…) Little did I know, at the time, but the municipal charge of “Failure to Control Speed” would not make it to court for another 1 year and 8 months. The wheels of justice turn slowly.
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