580 Ride

This morning was a bad day on 580 West, not quite as bad for me as it was for others.

Today was the crack down on drivers using their cell phones. I saw not one, not two, not three, but six CHP cruisers with people pulled over during my morning commute. Hands free people, not a new law.

So, while as bad as it might have been for those being pulled over, some drivers had it much worse. I was driving in the lane next to the passing lane and I came around a corner and traffic stopped, really stopped. Luckily, because I have recently been to bad girl driving school, I had been paying attention to not just the car directly in front of me, but the one in front of it as well, so I noticed brake lights going on.

In the high speed lane next to me about two cars ahead, was a white pickup truck. The white pickup stopped, the red pickup behind him slammed on its brakes and pulled to the left where it was able to get past the white truck without making contact with the truck or the jersey barrier. It got by the white truck and I'm not sure it ever stopped at all. The BMW behind the red truck was not quite so agile. I heard the brakes screaching and could see and smell them smoking, I was yelling inside my car, crap, crap, crap this is going to be ugly. And I was sure hoping that I was not going to be personally involved in this crash. Because it certainly became a crash. The BMW smashed into the back of the white pickup truck, really hard. The bumper on the truck crunched like an accordian and the tailgate snapped on one side and dropped part way off. Bags of stuff dropped off onto the highway and broke open on the roadway.

I stopped, looking in my rear view mirror, hoping that the person behind me was paying attention, he was cause he stopped as well. I sat for a few seconds letting the two cars behind the BMW move out into my lane.

I looked at the BMW and watched the driver get out (I was relieved) and had time to notice that it did not deploy the air bags and I thought that's weird. Then I saw the driver of the white pickup get out and I was able to drive off thanking my lucky stars.

Then further down the road a big rig had hit the jersey barrier and spilled diesel fuel all over the road. That tied things up.

Then there was the worst of the worse. I got behind a white van, the kind with no windows on the sides, but windows in the back and I could see that it was full of Mexican pastries. Now how horrible is that. Here I am trying to lose weight I have to follow a van full of Mexican pastries. I was kind of hoping it would stop suddenly and be hit and the rear doors would swing open and all those pastries would go flying all over the highway. And then I would run over every single one of them!!!