May 28, 2011
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Oh, what a night!
I should have just gone to the Wendy's drive-thru and gone home right after, but I was so hungry that instead I went to Sunway to eat while half asleep, barely able to keep my eyes open, then on my way home got my first speeding ticket and saw a 2 car accident on the highway turn into a 4-car pile up.
The Ticket:
Was on Main Steet and made a left onto Northern Blvd. The town car in front of me was driving really slow, so I passed him and was on my way to my exit to go onto Grand Central (Triboro). Before I hit the ramp to exit I see a car in the shadows on the right. I slow down, but it's too late. The lights go off and I'm like.. "oh great." I pull over. Cop asks me for my license and says he pulled me over for speeding. I didn't feel like I was speeding so I asked him, "how fast was I going?" He says, "51." I'm like, "oh." and he goes back to his car with his partner. As I'm waiting for my ticket.. I see a woman walking on the highway by the divider. She's walking a little funny. No one else is in sight minus a car every once in a while. It is about 3am after all. A town car come by and I'm guessing sees her walking and slows down and eventually puts on his hazard lights. Me and the cops are parked o nthe right shoulder right before the ramp exit I was going to go on. The woman turns around and starts walking backwards away from the town car, across the highway and towards us. The cop car slowly pulls up besides me. The passenger cop hands me the ticket and my license back. The driver cop tells me "I'm sorry, but I have to give you a summons". And what to I say as I go to reach for my ticket and license? "Thank you." Who says "thank you" to being given a ticket? I can't help it. It's programmed into me. Someone gives you something, you say "thank you". Anyway... the woman starts talking to the cop, the cop tells her to walk to the side so she doesn't get hit by a car and to wait for him to finish talking to me. D I heard her say something about trying to get home. Not sure if there was something wrong with her, but the cops said to me something like the woman seemed like she needed help or wasn't right. Anyway, don't know what happened to her, but I was going 51mph in a 30mph zone I guess, but I didn't know that. The ramp I was going onto turned into 50 so.. ugh.. stupid.
The Accident:
So now I'm driving all cautiously, making sure I'm not more than 10 mph over the limits. Not more than 5 minutes after I cross the GWB I look ahead and see somethign weird going on the highway. Not as many lights in NJ, but I could see that one moment things looked normal and next that cars were stopping or slowing and that all of a sudden the car lights didn't seem like they were going the right direction anymore. I was probably about half a mile away at this point driving about 50-60 mph toward these cars. I'm in the left lane next to teh divider and slow down a little cause something's definitely wrong by now. I see a pick up truck parked on the right lane (barely a shoulder here) and an older sedan parked diagonally from the beginning of my lane into lane 2 and 1. The closer I get, the more I can see the debris from that diagonal car in my lane ahead of me. I put on my hazard lights trying to make sure I don't run over anything that might damage my car. I see the guy from the pick up truck start walking into the middle of the highway towards the diagonal car. By now I have passed the accident, but I'm keeping an eye on it with my rearview mirror. Seconds later after the car that was behind me was passing behind the diagonally stalled car... I see the car that was behind him not suddenly swerve right and into the stalled car. I see 2 lights turn into one as it shtatered into the back of the stalled car and then I see the car quickly move to the right, with another following behind it. My best guess of what happened is that the third car behind me wasn't paying attention to what happened and knocked the 2nd car behind me into the stalled car just barely missing the car that was right behind me. I don't know if I'm describing it well enough for you guys to visualize it, but it was prety crazy. It felt like something that took place within 5 minutes, but it all probably happened in less than 30 seconds. It was almost a pitch black show, but all you could see was the head and tail lights of all the cars and a vague silhouette of the cars from whatever lights were nearby.
Too tired to write more.. but that's basically it. Eventful, scary night. Gonna try to put together an animation video of what happened. lol.. maybe.
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