Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Dodging a bullet twice in 10 minutes!

No, not me, but some very, VERY lucky driver who probably needs to review Rules of the Road again!

As I was going down a very flat, straight (some slight hills) 2-lane highway, a Chevy HHR passed me as I obviously wasn't going fast enough (60 mph in a 60 mph zone.)  There was a car in front of me, also going about the same speed.  There were also cars coming the other way.  The first car, in the on-coming lane, had to hit the shoulder as the HHR pulled back in to their proper lane.  Obviously they thought they were faster than oncoming traffic.  This time they made it.

Then, a few miles down the road I saw that same car pull off the road in a hurry!  I thought they had "almost" missed their turn off as there was a driveway up there.  Nope, they were in the ditch, and it was a healthy deep ditch.  I stopped to see if I could help, but they kept gunning the motor and muscled their way out onto the road.  At one time they did slide back on a bit of a severe angle, and I thought for sure they were going to tip over.  Those HHRs must have a very low center of gravity.

When they finally did get on the road, I thought I heard the familiar flup, flup, flup of a flat tire (or tires) as they drove a few yards, in the opposite direction they were originally headed, and turned into a driveway.  I can only assume they had a blowout?  And if this was the case, weren't they lucky to not have the blow-out when they were speeding down the highway, and quickly pulling in front of the car in front of me, when they were passing in close proximity to oncoming traffic!!!

The first pic shows the skid marks as I passed them.  I didn't take the pics right away, and so the black is not as "vivid" as when it was brand new.   The first pic is how the skid marks look going in the direction of the car's original route.


The bottom picture shows what it looked like on the way back from my trip.  You can see a mail box, on the left side, down a few hundred feet.  When I passed by, the HHR was at the house at the end of the driveway which belongs to the mailbox.  Guess their hurry to get out of town got them about 10 miles down the road, and totally disabled.  

Last week I almost had a run-in with a person obviously texting, on this same road, and swerving all over, speeding and slowing down.    I used to think that people had accidents on curvy, hilly roads, but it would seem, the straighter and flatter, people take more chances. 

Time for a glass of wine...at home...

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