It Could Have Been Me...

I don't know if it's the weather, or if people just don't pay attention anymore, but lately I've been passing a lot of accidents on the way to work. Specifically, on the 404. Yesterday, traffic slowed as I passed Highway 7, which is unusal because when you get that far north in the morning there's less traffic. I crawled past a couple of cars that were mysteriously dented (mysterious because they were both dented on the right side...and I didn't see any other cars on the shoulder).

Today, traffic slowed again, this time near Major Mackenzie. A pretty bad rear-end accident had just happened in the middle lane. I got to work a little late but it was okay. A couple of hours later, I found out that one of the guys in my department, Robert, had gotten into an accident. What happened? He was slowing down due to the traffic caused by the accident I passed, and he got rear-ended. Can you believe that? His bumper was in pretty bad shape, and after a lot of convincing from the rest of us, he took the rest of the day off to go to the doctor in case he has whiplash.

So, my first thought was, what the hell is going on? I know accidents happen every day, but to have another accident caused by an accident? Luckily Robert was slowing down properly and wasn't following the guy in front of him too closely, otherwise he would have plowed into the front car. That means the guy behind him was going pretty fast despite the fact that everyone in front of him was obviously slowing down.

But the really sobering thought for me is...that could so easily have been me. I could have been the one that guy slammed into. I mean, Robert gets to work the same time I do, so he couldn't have been that far behind me on the road at the time.

Lately in the news, they've been talking about how commuters are more likely to die from a heart attack due to the stress of sitting in rush hour traffic.

Right...because what we should be worrying about when we're on the road.

"Crash...on the last splash"