The Elysian Fields

I neglected to mention that the driver in today's truck crash was not injured severely. He was walking around, and later had ice on his shoulder, but other than that he appeared okay.

What happened? Based on the horns I heard and evidence I saw, someone cut him off. He swerved to avoid them, bounced off the inner guardrail, hit the lane barrier and broke partially through, and then came to a rest in a semi-jack-knifed position. I heard him talking to some other truckers, and one of them had said he couldn't see what had happened, but it seemed to imply another vehicle's involvement.

While workers were attempting to remove concrete from the southbound lane - a lane blocked off by the first reporting state troopers - some idiot decided the one lane wasn't fast enough, and the workers had to get out of the way quickly. The car actually went into the fast lane after they passed the cruiser! One of the troopers jumped back into the cruiser and hunted them down, so I'm sure they went home with a nice, big ticket to make up for their lack of patience.

~ ~ ~

In other news, the forecast calls for rain, and the window of the car is jammed in the open position.

Ouch.

Yankees pitcher goes boom.

There's something that happens when you see someone lying in the road, blood and blankets blending with the hot asphalt.

Some stop to help, most stop to stare.

A motorcycle fallen, a biker and his passenger spread across the road. Ambulances coming, taking the long way around.

A traffic snarl for an hour.

Two lives hanging in the balance.

Critical.

Pointing, looking.

Most, at least, not smiling.

Entertainment takes many forms for some people.

There is no need for me to help - troopers are jumping over the Jersey barrier. A fire truck arrives. Spectators are in the way, as if they weren't before.

I drive on, still not knowing the story.

Just blood and blankets, and a life lying on the road.

The rest I find out later, after the fact, despite being only a dozen or so cars removed from the incident.

Two lives, on the road.

Critical.

No need to stop and stare, just to hope they pull through.

I narrowly avoided a mass-ticket-trap - I think only 2 out of the 4 officers were actively writing out tickets when I went by. How, you may wonder, did I avoid it? Was it due to the stealthy wink-wink of the VW in the opposing lane, with the conspiratorially friendly driver who flashed high beams repeatedly to all of us oncoming potential victims? Perhaps it was due to the fact that every year since I've been driving this route I know that the speed limit on this road is aggressively enforced - it may only be one day a year, but when the entire police force of at least one township appears for the festivities, you know they Mean Serious Business and are intending to Write Many Tickets.

For some reason, that threat works well, not that I don't restrict my speed to a reasonably safe level anyway, but on this particular road I am particularly mindful of exactly what particular part of the dial the needle points. I have only been passed twice on its narrow, no-passing-zone confines, but I have had many a red-faced driver pressed up against my bumper as we navigated that stretch of road - indeed, all the times I can think of complaining about being tailgated, Indian Trail Creek Head Thingie With Many Names I Can Never Remember Road Street or Whatever is the setting. It is narrow, has frequent obstacles, and a posted 40mph limit. 50 is comfortable, although there are stretches where one could go faster, one of which is where the speed trap lieth, for obvious reasons. Chief among those reasons is a large section off to the side of the road where 3 police cruisers and 1 police SUV might sit, just out of the way, with room for 4 or more victims to idle and fume whilst tickets are being authored.

Naturally, just downroad from that, I had Mr. I'm Important in his Mercedes or BMW or Lexus, who really took a greater interest in what my bumper looked like than I would have preferred. How quick they forget, especially when chatting on their Britney Spears headset-equipped cellphone. He came to my attention in one of four passing zones on the extended section of that road - as he zipped past a handful of other suckers motorists stuck behind little-ole'-10mph-over-the-speed-limit me.

Really burned him that I held to that 10 rule throughout the slower 35mph section, and I saw him veer toward the double-yellow on more than one occasion. However, in those last two passing zones (he probably passed 1-9 other cars in the very first section, just around the corner from the speed trap) he made no move to pass, so perhaps he was content. Maybe he just is that lobster-red color naturally. It really showed well against his white car. Perhaps if he had watched the news earlier in the day - or the night before - he would have learned of that tragic BMW-Mercedes-Lexus street race in East Greenbush, where one racer literally went out in flames. Perhaps he thinks his leadfoot fully encases him, so that he won't be harmed should someone else hit him (I am fairly confident that such folks never consider the possibility that they might be the ones to cause an accident, but I may be wrong.)

In our case, it all ended well: as soon as we hit two lanes, he veered around, passed me on the newly created right, got half a car length ahead, and turned into a driveway of a business - his, I would guess. He seemed so very self-important.