Keep On Truckin'

On this blog, I have shared a few stories of times when I have narrowly escaped death...or severe injury at the least. There were the times my mother saved me, first from drowning at the beach and then from the evil clutches of a grasping escalator, the time I almost drove off a very high bridge due to a...umm...steering malfunction, and the time I easily could have fallen to my death from the top of Cassell Coliseum. While these were all dangerous, deadly, harrowing experiences, I believe the story I am about to relate is the closest I have ever come to death.

Many years ago, I worked in Fairfax at USAir (that's what it was called before all this USAirways nonsense...they only changed the name because they were going to merge with British Airways and then the merger fell through...Oops! too late to change the name back). The office, which was also their data center, was located at the end of Pender Drive. You wouldn't have known this by looking at the building, as their name was nowhere to be seen. I was told this was because they were afraid that people on I-66 would shoot at the windows if they knew the building belonged to USAir...I guess people weren't happy with them back then...but I digress. The start of my journey home each evening was to go down Pender, take a left on Waples Mill Road and take it across Route 50 over to Route 29. I did this every evening, and all was well until one fateful night.

In those days, I was driving a 1977 Toyota Celica (photo on the right)...a car that was over 10 years old, not especially fast, and not exactly replete with safety features (though I did love it nonetheless). On this particular evening, I turned onto Waples Mill and then had to stop at the traffic light at the intersection with Route 50. As luck would have it, I was the first in line at the light. I didn't know it at the time, but my office mate was in the car right behind me. As always, I was anxious to get home, so I watched the light closely as I waited, to be sure I saw when it changed to green. Well...the light changed, I started to go through the intersection, and, when I had almost cleared the first lane of Route 50, something caught my eye. That "something" was a very large, very fast moving tractor trailer traveling west on 50. Apparently, the driver had decided that he really didn't want to stop, so he was just blowing right through the red light. This truck was going at least 60 miles an hour and he never even touched the brakes. He ended up crossing the intersection behind me, missing my car by about a foot. I really think that if any of the variables were changed, even slightly, he would have slammed into me, T-boning my car and killing me.

I think it was about 10 minutes later that the shaking kicked in. I had to pull over for a few minutes to collect my thoughts and gather my wits. I was okay after that, just couldn't believe what a close call it had been. Of course, the next day at work, my office mate gave me some crap about it and told everyone how it was a miracle that I was alive. I tend to agree...every day of life is a miracle and I need to make the most of it.

One thing I have wondered for all these years...what exactly went through that truck driver's mind when he realized I was crossing in front of him?