Monday, July 30, 2012

Road Debris

Now that I'm driving my Scion Rollerskate on my daily commute,  small road debris has moved way up the list of road hazards.


I joke about using up my good luck in dribs and drabs so I'll never win the lotto.    I was reminded this morning why I'm ok with that.


Left lane right next to the Jersey Barrier, no shoulder zipping along at 65+, heavy morning commuter traffic:  The pickup right in front of me hit his brakes  and crapped a nice big pile of tire debris, which I ran over in short order.  I believe the words that came to my mind were, "oh fuck", as my foot pressed down on the brake.    
So here we are, me with spidey senses on full alert trying to determine if I did in fact still have complete control of my car, and Mr. Pickup sliding sideways at about 60 mph and veering sharply off to the right lanes .  As the pickup rotated beyond the 90 degree mark, his forward slide immediately turned into a maneuver called  "rolling backwards" towards me and the jersey barrier.  I don't know what everyone else was planning on doing, but I decided I was getting the hell out of the way and stomped on the accelerator.
Mr. Pickup truck impacted the jersey barrier ass end first about a car length behind me and brought all three lanes to a screeching halt.
I think one other car manuevered around the right side of him before the barrier impact, I'm a little fuzzy on that though. I was a little busy.


Do you know, I think the guy in the pickup drove away from that accident?  The transtar traffic map never even picked up the event, and the traffic only backed up momentarily.
I'm pretty sure the back end of his truck looks like a monkey's butt though.


He and I are both very lucky that:
1) He did not skid to the left instead of the right
2) He did not roll his truck while sliding sideways down the freeway.
3)  I decided to GTFOTW instead of slam on the brakes.  


I do believe I'd have been squished against the jersey barrier otherwise.

4 comments:

  1. And then there is the sweaty palms thing afterwards.

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    Replies
    1. PH, funny thing is I didn't start feeling wiggy until I was at the office telling Belle about it.

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  2. Glad you lived to blog about it!

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