How not to turn into a parking lot

[Moogles]

So we were on the way to Canadian Tire yesterday (up to 100% of your purchase back in Canadian Tire money sale) when we noticed we needed gas. As hubby filled the car up, I noticed cars that seemed to be stopped at the entrance to Canadian Tire.

Then I see people running out of the store.

And sirens. 3 Firetrucks, a cop car AND the mobile command then 2 ambulances. Someone had tried to turn left (speeding) hoping to cut the person turning right off. Smacked into their car, spun it around and sending BOTH of them into the 2 cars waiting to turn out of the parking lot.

At least 2 of the cars are completely destroyed (being the 2 trying to turn into the parking lot).

If we hadn't needed gas, we would have been right in the middle of it.

[Shalom]

Sorry, but the title of this post brought up a very strange picture in my head. I could just see a fairy waving her magic wand at an asshat driver and turning him into a parking lot: poof.

(Old Brooklyn joke: Why is driving in New Lots like the Medusa? Because you cross over Pitkin and turn into Stone. Unfortunately the joke doesn't work anymore, now that Stone Avenue has been renamed Mother Gaston Boulevard...)

[Pagan]

Sorry, but the title of this post brought up a very strange picture in my head. I could just see a fairy waving her magic wand at an asshat driver and turning him into a parking lot: poof.

Kind of Monty Python-esque sounding!

[Pojodan]

Reminds me of my own brush with death about ten years ago.

Was driving along a highway in Idaho with my parents in our truck and suddenly the right front tire goes out, so my dad pulls over and we hop out to inspect the damage.

Tire's flat, but no visible holes, so we pull out the rapid refill can (Fills the tire and adds foam that fills in any small holes) and fill it with the intention to stop at the next tire store we come across.

As we'd pulled over I noticed a blue SUV passing us, namely because the road we were on was mostly deserted, so it was unusual that a car would be right behind us.

We get back going again and not 5 minutes later we come across a tractor sitting in the middle of the lane, which appeared to have come out of a side street and stopped there. Off to the left was a semi-truck, off in the bushes with the remains of a blue SUV smashed to its front grill. We stopped a moment, but there was nothing to do as the semi driver was fine, but whoever was in the SUV was now part of the semi's grill, and we didn't really want to get a closer look.

From the looks of it, the tractor had come out into the road unexpectedly and forced the blue SUV to swere, straight in front of the semi. Depending on speed, had our tire not gone flat, we may've been the ones swerving :/

[EricKei]

Reminds me of one, too...

Bro was driving, I was the passenger, on a nice loong road trip in an '85 poonMustang. We were outside of Atlanta on the highway, it was nice and hot in that "see heat radiating up from the road" way. He had to swerve at the last second to miss a nice big hunk of chrome something that had apparently fallen off of a truck, resulting in our spinning out in the median -- we would likely have flipped if the ground wasn't full of thick mud from an earlier rainstorm. We took pics of the lovely mud trail we gouged out, about 200 feet (he may have been driving slightly over the speed limit >_> ... just by a little bit). One of the shots had a car carrier truck in the background.

Long story short: Several cop cars and ambulances passed us by -- long before we had had a chance to calm our nerves and go for help. One of the ambulances stopped to check up on us, so we asked what was going on. It turns out that there had been a 12+ vehicle pileup not five minutes down the road, and that the big car carrier truck that we photographed was at the tail end of it. Had we not spun out, there was a chance that we would have been PART of that pileup o_O

[Difdi]

I was once riding as a passenger in a friend's van, crossing one of the two local floating highway bridges (outer lane, westbound on SR-520 if anybody knows Seattle).

Traffic is at the usual congestion levels, but moving fairly briskly, and I happened to be looking past my friend, out the driver's side window, when I saw the first two cars pile up. One guy hit his brakes in the outer eastbound lane, I didn't see why, and the guy behind him was apparently distracted. Just sailed in and ate bumper at 45mph, never even touched his brakes.

Immediately, other drivers started eyeballing the crash, as tends to happen. That's when the car alongside us in the inner westbound lane smashes into a rubbernecker. Almost simultaneously, two more cars, also rubbernecking, pile up in the inner eastbound lane. My friend and I exchange looks, and he all but floors the gas pedal, moving us QUICKLY into the large gap ahead of us, opened up by the car ahead of us not slowing down, and everyone around us staring at the crash.

I'm watching out the back window as the cars three and four cars (respectively) back have a meeting engagement, thus blocking all four lanes on the bridge. Some of the people behind the resulting clog didn't get home all night.

[PepperElf]

If we hadn't needed gas, we would have been right in the middle of it.

glad you were OK.

and that you needed gas!

[Moogles]

I say, our little one was in the backseat too. If anyone hits us with her in the car I may just end up being charged with homicide.

[Syriilord]

Kind of Monty Python-esque sounding!

She turned me into a parking lot.

A parking lot?

....I got better.