Saw a Car Accident, Guy Deserved It
Oct. 17th, 2022 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerI saw a car accident on Saturday when we were coming home from errands. Nobody was hurt... but the driver of one of the vehicles totally deserved what happened to his car.
We were stopped at a traffic light, waiting to make a right turn. We were the 3rd or 4th vehicle in line. At the front of the line, at the red light, was a delivery truck. The truck was angled sort of like the driver was trying to make a right turn, but the driver seemed not to be taking advantage of opportunities to (safely, legally) turn right on red.
Coming up to this intersection the shoulder is almost fully paved. It's striped off as the shoulder, though. It momentarily occurred to me, "I could use the shoulder to slip around that indecisive truck driver," but better judgment quickly prevailed. It would be an unsafe move and illegal.
A driver in a red sedan rolled up behind me. I could tell from seeing his eyes and head movement in my rearview mirror that he was sizing up the situation similar to how I did and looking at the shoulder lane. He started to steer into the shoulder.
"Look at this clown, trying to go around the line of us waiting to turn right," I remarked to my passenger.
The sedan got up right next to the truck at the front of the line but couldn't quite get past. The truck was angled as if to turn right, and at the intersection the shoulder narrowed.
The light turned green. "I wonder if the truck's going to hit that car...." I said aloud. And just then— CRACK! The truck clipped the front left corner of the car.
The truck driver didn't realize at first there had been a collision. The car was in his blindspot, and it was the cargo box part of the truck that was striking the car. The trucker pulled forward a bit further through his right-turn motion, inflicting a flat tire on the sedan.
By that point the trucker realized something bad had happened... I think the sedan driver may have honked his horn a few times... and the two vehicles pulled out of the intersection and parked in the bicycle lane of the next street.
Hawk and I decided since we witnessed the accident— including the illegal maneuver of the sedan driver— we should let the truck driver know. We pulled off into the next driveway and parked in the empty lot of an office building. We both spoke to the truck driver, letting him know what we saw.
The driver was already on the phone with his manager, whose instructions seemed to be "Exchange insurance information, don't wait for police." Nobody was hurt, the truck had suffered only cosmetic damage (the at-fault driver's car would need a tow), so after giving the trucker our contact information we left.
It was oddly satisfying to see someone who pulled an asshole move in traffic suffer appropriate consequences for it.
We were stopped at a traffic light, waiting to make a right turn. We were the 3rd or 4th vehicle in line. At the front of the line, at the red light, was a delivery truck. The truck was angled sort of like the driver was trying to make a right turn, but the driver seemed not to be taking advantage of opportunities to (safely, legally) turn right on red.
Coming up to this intersection the shoulder is almost fully paved. It's striped off as the shoulder, though. It momentarily occurred to me, "I could use the shoulder to slip around that indecisive truck driver," but better judgment quickly prevailed. It would be an unsafe move and illegal.
A driver in a red sedan rolled up behind me. I could tell from seeing his eyes and head movement in my rearview mirror that he was sizing up the situation similar to how I did and looking at the shoulder lane. He started to steer into the shoulder.
"Look at this clown, trying to go around the line of us waiting to turn right," I remarked to my passenger.
The sedan got up right next to the truck at the front of the line but couldn't quite get past. The truck was angled as if to turn right, and at the intersection the shoulder narrowed.
The light turned green. "I wonder if the truck's going to hit that car...." I said aloud. And just then— CRACK! The truck clipped the front left corner of the car.
The truck driver didn't realize at first there had been a collision. The car was in his blindspot, and it was the cargo box part of the truck that was striking the car. The trucker pulled forward a bit further through his right-turn motion, inflicting a flat tire on the sedan.
By that point the trucker realized something bad had happened... I think the sedan driver may have honked his horn a few times... and the two vehicles pulled out of the intersection and parked in the bicycle lane of the next street.
Hawk and I decided since we witnessed the accident— including the illegal maneuver of the sedan driver— we should let the truck driver know. We pulled off into the next driveway and parked in the empty lot of an office building. We both spoke to the truck driver, letting him know what we saw.
The driver was already on the phone with his manager, whose instructions seemed to be "Exchange insurance information, don't wait for police." Nobody was hurt, the truck had suffered only cosmetic damage (the at-fault driver's car would need a tow), so after giving the trucker our contact information we left.
It was oddly satisfying to see someone who pulled an asshole move in traffic suffer appropriate consequences for it.
