Something has changed about the way people are driving. I’m convinced of that. Maybe it’s another element of the Fourth Turning.
A little over a month ago, I was t-boned, as I wrote about. The person who hit me was a middle-aged woman who lives in the neighborhood. She seemed nice enough – – the sort of person who might be an elementary school librarian – – but was also pretty clueless. She caused me financial and emotional damage by way of her recklessness. I’m dealing with them both to this very moment.
This Sunday morning, only a little while earlier than I am typing these very words, I was a witness to the exact same accident. A perfectly innocent man was driving across an intersection (just like I had been) and was hit full speed by a clueless middle-aged woman (just like my situation).
He didn’t do anything wrong, and she blew right through the red light. I watched ever millisecond of it, and I saw it coming well in advance of the smash-up, and my sense is that she wasn’t trying to beat the light…………..but that she’s just a dipshit. Anyway, here’s the result:
What’s remarkable is how close these two accidents were to one another. My accident I’ve circled on the map below on the right side. The accident I just witnessed is the circle on the left side. These are just six blocks apart. And keep in mind, this is a quiet, peaceful, expensive neighborhood on a placid Sunday morning.
The situation is easy to describe. A white Honda was waiting at the stop light, and I was behind it. The light turned green. The Honda pulled out at a normal speed, and I started to follow. I could then clearly see a blue Subaru driving toward it (perpendicular), going at full speed, and I had enough time in my head to think, “That car is going to smash right into the other car,” and blammo, it happened. She hit the Honda hard and threw it into a utility pole. It was smashed up badly.
As I drive past, I could hear a woman crying, and I saw a portly Korean man at the steering wheel of the vehicle, looking at me. He probably thought I was just going to drive right by, but nope, there was no way in hell I was going to let this poor man lack a good witness. So even though I had my dogs with me, I found a nearby parking space and got out to talk to him.
As I approached, he seemed a little scared of me, not knowing what I was doing, but he was probably freaked out from what happened just moments before. English wasn’t his first language, but he said to me, “Did you see that? Can you please be my witness?” I assured him that, absolutely, that’s why I stopped.
Turns out he was an Uber driver, and the sobbing woman in the back was his passenger. I’m amazed they weren’t hurt, because Hondas aren’t exactly tanks, and it was hit really hard. I called 911 and got the police and ambulance out there. About a block away, the dipshit woman who hit him was smiling and talking on her phone. She looked to be about 60 or so, and, as I mentioned before, seemed like the sort who would be a schoolmarm back in the 19th century. These weren’t alpha-make jackoffs causing these crashes. In both instances, it was middle aged women who seemed totally clueless about what had just happened. I’m talking no clue. Zero.
I’ve been driving 40 years. It didn’t used to be like this. It’s not like I’m some country bumpkin who just moved to the big city. I’ve driven in this environment for those same 40 years, and something has seriously changed. One thing is for goddamned sure: if I see a middle aged woman behind the steering wheel, I’m getting the hell out of the way.
