An Interesting experience I have had
By L.E. Benedict
It makes me wonder what it is that people are thinking of, sometimes. Maybe the guy over slept, and was trying to make up time on his commute to work. He may have been up late the night before, drinking with his buddies, or watching late night TV. I guess it really doesn’t matter anymore. It happened years ago, and the senseless death of a man is still the result.
I was living in San Diego, California at the time and was on my way to work. My commute was about a fifteen mile drive, from Alpine to Sorrento Valley. It was pretty early in the morning when I came upon the auto accident. The accident happened just before I got there, and there were not any emergency vehicles to be seen as yet. There was just one other car there, its driver looking pale standing next to his own car looking at the wreck that he had just witnessed.
The witness told me later, that the truck had passed him a ways back, at a higher rate of speed than what was safe for that road. Going down the hill, the truck pulled away from our witness, and tried to make the right hand turn at the stop sign. The right wheels went over the curb next to the stop sign, and the truck caught air, did a half turn in midair, and drove itself into the high curb, across the T intersection. The curbs are a bit higher in some places in that area, to help hold back the chance of mud slides. They are more of a short wall, then they are a curb.
The pickup truck just laid there upside down with its front end slammed into the high curb, the only other victim of its owner’s misjudgment behind the wheel. The smell of burnt rubber, and leaking gas was still in the air. I walked up on the passenger side of the truck, and made my way around the back, and started to walk to the witness standing there. His gaze was fixed on something in the driver’s side, and I presumed it was the driver of the truck. As I rounded the back of the truck, and followed the gaze of the witness I saw the distortion of a man, held tight in the deadly embrace of his own truck, the life squeezed out of him by the pressure of the steering wheel that was pushed into the victim’s chest.
It makes me wonder what it is that people are thinking of, sometimes. If he had gotten up a little earlier that morning, if he had not stayed up so late the night before, if he had just been late to work and taken the write up, I’d not have a paper to turn in this morning.