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Read Thread: What An Airbag...

What An Airbag...
Board: Letterbox Chatter
Jun 28, 2007 5:32pm
Thread (disabled) Board
or, Why You Should NOT Be Rubbernecking Instead of Fing Paying Attention to Where You're Fing Going!!

I have this uncanny knack for avoiding trouble on the roads and getting where I'm going in one piece fairly quickly. I also tend to believe that my truck can do half the thinking for me. I don't even think about it, really. I tried and nearly got into trouble.

But this isn't about me, so much. Today I was driving home from work, and less than 10 minutes after leaving I saw someone's airbag inflate. Literally. It happened in the blink of an eye, and if I hadn't known what was going to happen I wouldn't have looked in the right place at the right time. But I wasn't rubbernecking. I was paying attention to where I was going.

So there I was, cruising west on I-20 on the east side of Atlanta, approaching the I-285 interchange. Traffic was "clean" at the moment... nobody on either side of me, nobody immediately behind me, and only one car in front of me in close proximity. The 285 northbound ramp breaks right before I-20 goes under 285. There's a half mile between it and the 285 southbound ramp (which is the ramp I take). Traffic in the right lane has a tendency to slow to a crawl approaching the southbound ramp because the ramp itself is a nasty cloverleaf turn, and large trucks are limited to 15-20 mph.

Today, in between the two ramps, there was an accident. It had been there for a while... there were three or four cars that had been directly involved, none really seriously... a cop car... and a tow truck. I gave it half a glance as I cruised by at 70 mph. I could see the driver of the car (a light blue PT Cruiser) in front of me doing what y'all expect: rubbernecking. He put on his right turn signal and casually angled into the rightmost lane.... still rubbernecking. NOT paying attention to where he was going...

It was really too bad I couldn't warn him, but, really, it wouldn't have mattered. In a fraction of a second I checked my left mirror, swerved into the lane to my left, gave the gas pedal a push and watched the PT Cruiser's tires smoke up as the driver hit the brakes... and the stopped car in front of him. I glanced thru the driver's window and literally instantaneously, just at the moment of impact, where there was nothing, there was suddenly an airbag with a head mashed into it.

The trunk of the smallish red car disappeared and the front wedged itself under the footrail of the 52' trailer in front of it.

All I could do was shake my head, turn on my righthand signal, and slow down so I could sneak into the slow-moving river of tractor-trailers...

Needless to say, the rest of the way home, I kept a greater-than-normal distance between my front bumper and the one in front of me...
Re: What An Airbag...
Board: Letterbox Chatter
Reply to: #104697 by BrewHiker
Jun 29, 2007 4:50pm
Thread (disabled) Board
Why You Should NOT Be Rubbernecking Instead of Fing Paying Attention to Where You're Fing Going!!


On the positive side, at least he gets a front-row view of this particular accident. Maybe that'll cheer him up. =)

I've heard that accidents are VERY common near existing accidents because of rubbernecking. It definitely is worth the effort to make yourself very aware of your surroundings--especially when there's an accident nearby. *nodding*

-- Ryan