The following takes place between 1:55 pm and 2:00 pm on March 28, 2004:
I pulled off the highway, making my first stop for gas some 30 plus miles inside the western border of Pennsylvania. Found myself out driving on a beautifully sunny day, and took the few minutes I was gonna spend outside of my car to enjoy it. It had been a great weekend in Ohio visiting Joanna, but I was looking forward to the trip home and the time with my thoughts.
I had just pulled away from the to the edge of the state road on my way back to the on-ramp of Interstate 80. I looked left and saw two motorcycles in the distance. Looking right I saw a car. Still looking right I saw the blur of one bike pass me. I slowly began to pull out, my head snapping back left at the same moment and that’s when I saw him. I head the screech of two tires, saw the twisting of the handlebar and the subsequent laying down of the motorcycle by its rider.
End dramatic flashback
And that, ladies and gentleman is how I almost killed one of the nicest people I ever met.
Well, my first impression of Raymond wasn’t really nice, but more of the “God damn you! I just skidded some 50′ over the pavement because of you!” attitude that I was expecting. Subsequent communications over e-mail and phone to has out all the details of insurance and reparations showed me that he was a decent man. He’s even offered to have me stop by and say hello in person next time I’m passing through his area.
Of course, at the time of the accident we were both shaken pretty badly — he physically, and myself psychologically. This is the first accident I’ve ever been in where someone was hurt, and that’s both as a driver and a passenger. To see Raymond lay down that bike was one of the most frightening moments in my life. Those moments as he drew closer and closer to the front of my car were in the slowest of slow-motion experiences, and I was waiting for the thud into the front end of my car and the cracking and mangling of bone, plastic and steel.
Thankfully for both of our interests, Ray’s slide stopped directly in front of my car. His bike decided to go another 150 feet or so. He popped back up quite quickly, but obviously was shaken. Within minutes there was at least a dozen people crowded around in various states of help — some calling 911, one properly trained person checking Ray for a concussion, some directing traffic so as not to hit any of the people of vehicles milling about.
The first aid department and the fire chief were on scene quickly after that to check over everyone. Surprisingly the police never got the call and as such never hit the scene. Not like they were needed, but It was certainly strange to me. One extremely nice couple who were riding their own bike by the scene were the first ones to stop by and help out. They check on his bike, took the job of getting information exchanged for Ray when the paramedics were checking him over, calming my shattered nerves — they did a great deal to help both of us out.
Soon the crowd began to dissipate, the first aid squad finished their reports and drove away, leaving just myself, Raymond and the husband/wife bike team there to hash out final details. I used my handy dandy camera to snap away shots of the damage as a precaution and headed out nearly an hour after all the hullabaloo had started. In that hour I figure I aged about some 387 days, give or take a few hours. I tried to put all the emotions out of my system as quickly as I could — I still had some 300 miles to go before I would even see the border of New Jersey and I had to be sharp for that, lest I have another accident on the ride home.
This was all preventable on quite a few levels, but I’d like to think that the moment my travels through western Penn were doomed was when I jinx myself by telling Joanna about the massive amount of points about to come off my record for past speeding tickets and my first accident in the Red Baron.
DAMN YOU FATE!!! (Shakes fist violently at the clouds) ^_^
Tags: Personal