I rode the bike to work this morning, and got caught in some serious traffic about 15 miles South of the office. For several miles, I was riding between cars to get to the front, and the closer I got, the more people were starting to open their doors…people had been there a while.
And the closer I got to the head of the pack, the more the pile of cars started to look like a scene from The Happening: crooked, angled away from the median, and just looking more and more haphazard. Like, something had happened that scared all of these people into swerving to a stop.
Well, I finally got to the front, and saw a southbound 18-wheeler had jumped the divider, connected with a northbound box truck, and burst into flames. The whole thing was just a big smoky skeleton by the time I got there. Someone definitely died in there.
A few minutes after I stopped and took off my helmet, they opened up the nearby exit to allow cars to filter around the carnage. As I was exiting the highway, I saw an absolutely beautiful woman in full fireman’s gear (all I could see was her face), with an expression that said the emergency of the situation had just recently faded. She was five feet from me as I rode off the highway.
I wish to Christ I could take pictures with my eyeballs.
Tags: accidents, commuting, Photography