I was late leaving the office; one of those very long days that are all too common anymore. I wasn’t really tired though, thanks to a little extra sleep last night. So the commute home was just a normal commute. Even though I was later, the traffic on 78 was still very heavy and stop/go in places. And it was dark. I was in the slow lane, the nearest car ahead of me was many car lengths away – and good thing. Suddenly that guy hit his brakes and swerved out to the shoulder. I immediately hit mine and started to do the same as I was suddenly looking at a black car in the middle lane driving backwards! It was the oddest thing. And I watched as a driver in the middle lane attempted to avoid him, but heard a crash that I could not look at because I needed to stay alert for what else might lie ahead that caused this. Weirdly, there was nothing ahead to explain the backwards moving car. I was left quite puzzled, but really grateful that in spite of just driving ‘in the zone’, I wasn’t tailgating and I wasn’t in the center lane. But for God’s favor, the wrong lane, being tired, a minute different… I could have been in an accident tonight. The near miss left me bothered but grateful. I think of all those times I zoom along in traffic like everyone else, sort of assuming everything is going OK…accidents happen in an instant, so unexpected. It’s hard to be so vigilant all the time, but it’s easy enough to focus on driving conservatively so you have time to react. Tonight my reactions were appropriate. For somebody else, they were not. I hope they were OK.
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July 2017
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