Last night while driving home I witnessed and almost became part of an accident. I managed to react in time to not be a part of the crunching, but two other people got to make acquaintances on the shoulder of the Kennedy in 10 degree temps.
The story goes like this... after the toll both there are about 15 lanes that squish into 3. Sometimes there's not a while lot of traffic in the 15 lanes, but everything comes to a quick stop at the squeeze. This is where the trouble starts.
So I'm driving (duh) and about 2-3 cars ahead of me I see a dark Land Rover pull a quick lane change - the kind you see in TV shows where they test how quickly an SUV can make a lane change without tipping over. I swear that the SUV was on 2 wheels for a moment, if just barely. THAT fast.
First thought through my head: "What the... Oh, crap."
Next thing I know I see the white mini-van do a nose-dive as the driver slams down on the brakes. The stunt driver in the Land Rover revealed a completely stopped Explorer directly in front of him. Unfortunately, the 30-50 feet the mini-van had wasn't enough to stop in time, so his front end mashed into the back end of the Explorer at about 20-25MPH. I managed to have enough buffer space in front of me and had already been on my breaks when the Land Rover pulled his maneuver that I was able to hit my brakes and pull to the side to avoid making the ordeal a threesome.
I pulled off with them to the side of the highway to make sure everyone was okay who was involved and to give them my contact info in case insurance or the state police needed a witness (I witnessed an accident before and did the same thing, and it came in handy for one guy so I don't mind doing it). The Explorer had a solo driver, but the mini-van had about 6-7 occupants in it. Everyone was fine.
The funny part - when everyone had pulled off to the side, the passengers of the van decided to walk to the exit and go to a Bennigans on the corner.
The funnier part - the driver, after getting out to inspect the damage, decided to follow them. He stopped, though, once the Explorer driver caught up with him on the exit ramp about 200 yards away.
The whole ordeal kinda wigged me out, though. Last night put a whole new perspective on driving in Chicago traffic for me... but at least my premiums aren't going up. :-)
Posted by Austin at January 23, 2003 08:14 AMGoodness! Slow and steady, mister. Slow and steady.
Posted by: Janine on January 23, 2003 08:49 AMI know. Yesterday I wasn't in a hurry to get home, and I definitely wasn't in a hurry after that.
Posted by: Austin on January 23, 2003 02:13 PM