Getting tired of coming across road accidents

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Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:45 am

I drive a lot in my job, about 1500 km per week (900 miles/wk). I'm getting kinda scared because of the number of accidents I come across, now I drive along thinking, "What if ... ?"

Over New Year holiday I took the family on a 2 1/2 week tour of New Zealand's South Island. There we were cruising along on the 4th day when I thought I saw a car "parked" on the side of the road kinda funny. So I dropped the anchors and backed up, and sure enough the driver had lost control, skidded across the road, and gone sideways through a line of 150 mm (6 inch) posts and into some trees. I sent my son down the road to slow traffic and rang the emergency number while my wife who has some medical knowledge looked at the driver. The Fire Service arrived and used the hydraulic jaws of life to cut the driver out of his car and the rescue helicopter came and took him to hospital. Well my wife got a phone call today from the driver's daughter, he'd died the next day, and she wanted to thank the people who helped her Dad.

Now that's not the only accident I've seen in the last two or three months. There's been a woman who went wide around a corner and went under the front of a truck going the other way (I was fifth in line to come across that one, fatal for the woman driver), there was a truck which rolled onto a car as it went around a curve (the car in front of me was pushed across the road when the truck slid into it so I was looking right at the tail lights of the car squashed under the truck about 3 metres away/10 ft, fatal for the car driver), a truck jack-knifed coming down the hills south of my home town right in front of me (he was coming down, I was going up, if he'd slid 10 or 15 more metres/30 or 45 ft the truck would have hit my car, no injuries), a car went straight ahead at a left hand bend and went straight into the side of the car in front of me (we drive on the left hand side, driver drunk but no-one injured).

So I thought I'd seen it all. But yesterday I was approaching a Tee intersection on the way home. My road ended at the intersection joining a main road. To my right (the way I wanted to turn) was a long long descent. I was maybe 100 metres/100 yards away from the intersection when I saw a large truck and trailer in the corner of my vision - a 26 wheeler. It was going like a bat outta hell - apparently it's brakes had failed. It was rapidly, and I mean rapidly, gaining on a small ute (pickup truck) which wasn't aware of what was going on behind it. The truck driver (and remember we drive on the left hand side of the road) swung left and passed the ute on the inside of the road, the truck and trailer went onto the road shoulder, the trailer tipped and hit the bank and righted. The ute wasn't touched. But then everything went sort of slow motion. This truck and trailer went passed my side road sort of exploding, there were parts of the trailer being flung off, the frame of the trailer was falling apart and the side curtains were being torn to shreads, the load of 200 litre (44 Imp Gal/55 US Gal) drums were being thrown up into the air about 6 or 7 metres (20 or 25 feet) and landing and bursting on the road like liquid bombs, and there was tire smoke everywhere as the trailer slewed from side to side. But it was all happening like in a cartoon, it seemed in slowmotion. By the time I'd stopped and got onto the emergency number on my mobile phone, the truck had disappeared. I thought it had gone off the road and down a steep bank. But when I ran over there was no wreckage, nothing except a couple of drums rolling down the slope. Eventually I saw the truck and what was left of the trailer, the driver had kept the truck on the road and driven into a ditch to stop the truck about 800 metres (half a mile) down the road. No-one was hurt, the road was closed because it was covered in cooking oil about 20 mm (3/4 inch) deep for about 400 metres (1/4 mile).

Needless to say, I drove very carefully today.

Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:13 am

NB
Yeah, I know how you feel. Hubby was a volunteer f/f in NZ and every time he went out and picked up bodies from accidents it not only affected him but also the family at home. Before we left NZ he was actually a grief councilor for the fire service. That bought with it a lot of pressure.
Both you and your wife did well helping and even though the outcome was not what one would hope for, the family would have felt better knowing that you cared enough to help.
Feel proud NB

Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:16 am

Yeah Bella, I'm real proud of my wife. She did a hard job really well.

Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:59 pm

I wish people would be more careful on the road. I used to drive one particularly bad stretch of interstate four times a week (minimum) for nearly five years. I saw many, many wrecks but the one that has always stuck in my mind was the house trailer being moved way too fast through a construction zone. The road was narrow and the oncoming traffic was divided only by a low concrete barricade with no shoulder room on either side of it. The corner of the trailer caught the edge of the concrete and the whole thing sort of slid sideways before rolling into the oncoming lane of traffic. Directly in front of me. I swerved and drove into the deep mud from the construction on the opposite side of the road to avoid crashing; the car in front of me was not so lucky and drove directly through the house trailer. Confused

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