Near Miss
Comments (1) On the way home from work the other night I had a near miss.
The evening was dark and wet, as you’d expect from a cold November night. For the majority of the journey things had been fairly uneventful. The moment happened just after the halfway point. After passing a fairly busy junction on the motorway, I noticed that the traffic was beginning to slow. I was travelling in the outside-lane of the carriageway and I decided it would be prudent to move to the inside-lane as that tends to be the place that idiot drivers avoid.
It turns out that it was a fantastic decision!
About five or ten seconds after moving from the outside lane, and with all the traffic in front of me practically stopped with warning lights flashing, I looked across to the outside lane as something caught my eye.
It was a car who appeared to be travelling way too fast, and I thought to myself, “he’s not going to stop in time, he’s not going to stop…”. He – I say he, it could have been a she – just carried on, and then there was that moment when they’ve realised that they are running out of road!
The car, which may have been a Ford Focus, or similar, dipped violently at the front as the driver hit the brakes hoping that they were brakes that are fitted to F1 cars. It was to no avail, as the car skidded straight into the back of the poor car who had the misfortune to be at the back of the queue.
The stationary car, which I think was a Nissan Micra, was hit with an almighty force, and it was sent off at speed through the traffic in front, playing pinball with four or five other cars. Bits of cars were flying off in all directions. It eventually rolled to a stop on the hard shoulder.
Who knows what might have happened ten seconds earlier when I was in the outside lane!
I made my way past the scene of the accident, there would have been little that I could have done, and having more cars parked up on the hard shoulder than was necessary would have been more dangerous. From what I saw in my rear-view mirror there were already the other four or five cars involved pulling over.
Driving past the scene yesterday, there was no sign that anything had happened. I can only presume that no-one was seriously hurt in the accident because there were no signs up asking for any witnesses to come forward.
It just makes you realise that you have to have your wits about when driving on the motorways. I think I was lucky this time!
Themocracy