Adventures While Commuting...
Add to shopping list: flares and emergency warning triangle. Keep in car.
As I was driving home today, I came up over a hill on a 2-lane country road, and there was a small red car partially on the side of the road, facing traffic. The car had clearly been in an accident, as the right front was smashed in, and there was steam rising from the engine compartment. A young woman was just beginning to climb out of the car and look at the damage. As soon as I was a few yards beyond her, I put on my emergency lights and pulled way over, and went to see if she was okay and needed any help.
She was fine, but her car wasn't. She had hit a patch of ice, swerved off the road and hit a traffic sign (hard, evidently, as the traffic sign was bent completely over). The right front of her bumper was broken off, smashed and hanging off the car, the right front headlight and turn signal were smashed and broken, and her windshield had numerous cracks and one big "spider web" on the passenger side. She had already called her boy friend and was now calling 911 (who transfered her to the State Troopers).
The biggest immediate problem was that her car was partiallly in the lane out of site over a hill top on a road where people usually come flying over the hill. I was concerned about her being hit, but she didn't have any emergency marker stuff with her. Neither did I, hence my note at the beginning of this post. I used to, had been meaning to get some new stuff, but hadn't gotten around to it. Now I've got a reason. After I'd been there a few minutes, another call pulled over (I will say that initially lots of people slowed down or stopped and asked if she needed help) as I had done. This turned out to be a young guy who had witnessed the accident, but it took him a while to find a safe place to turn around and come back to help. He went over the hill to warn cars to slow down (he didn't have emergency warning markers either).
The next problem was her boyfriend. He kept trying to convince her (over several cell phone conversations) to just drive the car to auto body shop rather than wait for the police, since she was okay and no one else was involved. I thought that was a bad idea, as her windshield was very bad, her bumper didn't look like it was going to stay on, one head light and turn signal were out, and who knew what type of damage there may have been to something in the engine or steering. Fortunately, the dispatch folks at the State Troopers told her that she had to stay (since she had taken out a road sign) and a State Trooper showed up after about 15 minutes. I wasn't going to leave her until either her boyfriend showed up (he was supposedly on his way) or the police showed. It was 5:30pm, and starting to get dark, and didn't want to leave a young woman alone with a broken car on the side of the road out in the countryside. She gave me a hug when I left, and thanked me for staying with her.
As I was driving home today, I came up over a hill on a 2-lane country road, and there was a small red car partially on the side of the road, facing traffic. The car had clearly been in an accident, as the right front was smashed in, and there was steam rising from the engine compartment. A young woman was just beginning to climb out of the car and look at the damage. As soon as I was a few yards beyond her, I put on my emergency lights and pulled way over, and went to see if she was okay and needed any help.
She was fine, but her car wasn't. She had hit a patch of ice, swerved off the road and hit a traffic sign (hard, evidently, as the traffic sign was bent completely over). The right front of her bumper was broken off, smashed and hanging off the car, the right front headlight and turn signal were smashed and broken, and her windshield had numerous cracks and one big "spider web" on the passenger side. She had already called her boy friend and was now calling 911 (who transfered her to the State Troopers).
The biggest immediate problem was that her car was partiallly in the lane out of site over a hill top on a road where people usually come flying over the hill. I was concerned about her being hit, but she didn't have any emergency marker stuff with her. Neither did I, hence my note at the beginning of this post. I used to, had been meaning to get some new stuff, but hadn't gotten around to it. Now I've got a reason. After I'd been there a few minutes, another call pulled over (I will say that initially lots of people slowed down or stopped and asked if she needed help) as I had done. This turned out to be a young guy who had witnessed the accident, but it took him a while to find a safe place to turn around and come back to help. He went over the hill to warn cars to slow down (he didn't have emergency warning markers either).
The next problem was her boyfriend. He kept trying to convince her (over several cell phone conversations) to just drive the car to auto body shop rather than wait for the police, since she was okay and no one else was involved. I thought that was a bad idea, as her windshield was very bad, her bumper didn't look like it was going to stay on, one head light and turn signal were out, and who knew what type of damage there may have been to something in the engine or steering. Fortunately, the dispatch folks at the State Troopers told her that she had to stay (since she had taken out a road sign) and a State Trooper showed up after about 15 minutes. I wasn't going to leave her until either her boyfriend showed up (he was supposedly on his way) or the police showed. It was 5:30pm, and starting to get dark, and didn't want to leave a young woman alone with a broken car on the side of the road out in the countryside. She gave me a hug when I left, and thanked me for staying with her.
posted by Zookeeper | 8:30 PM
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