I witnessed a car accident on my way home this evening. I'm writing this down while the details are fresh in case someone needs the documentation for court or their insurance company. It was a bit before 10 o'clock. I was stopped in the west-bound turn lane on Braker getting ready to turn south on Lamar. I was the second car in line. There were two silver-colored cars stopped in the right-hand lane. The middle lane was empty. The light had been red for quite some time (at least 30 seconds...probably longer than that). It had been raining most of the day and the road was quite wet. Suddenly, I heard a car's tires skidding on the road to my right. The car (a green or turquoise Neon) was in the middle lane and skidded to the right, glancing off the second car stopped at the light and then hitting the first car pretty hard. It looked like the driver of the Neon didn't notice the red light in time. He was probably driving about 35 or 40 miles an hour...and when he hit the breaks, he just couldn't keep control of the car since the road was so wet. Within a couple of seconds of stopping, the driver of the Neon pulled around the first car and started to pull onto north-bound Lamar almost hitting another car that was turning north onto Lamar from east-bound Braker. Frankly, I thought the driver of the Neon was going to make a run for it. So, I quickly called 911. It turns out, the driver just pulled onto the shoulder on north-bound Lamar. My turn light was green so I went ahead and turned onto south-bound Lamar as I talked to the 911-dispatcher. I told the dispatcher where the accident had occurred, that I didn't think anyone was hurt, and that the cars seemed to be out of the way.
I turned around in a nearby parking lot and headed back to the scene of the accident so I could give the involved drivers my contact information. When I got there, it turned out there had been three young men in the Neon and they were all pretty nervous, cold (it was 42 degrees F outside and two of them were wearing shorts), and in a bit of a panic. They were all pretty young...about 20 years old, maybe a bit younger. They were all out of the car and I didn't see who had been driving. The woman in the frontmost car was quite upset and couldn't understand how they could've hit her since the light had been red so long. She didn't think they'd tried to stop at all. I assured her that they did try to stop and told them all that I had already called 911. It was at this point that I found out the second car back from the light had also been hit. Until that point, I'd thought the driver was just staying nearby since she'd witnessed the accident. It turns out the Neon didn't belong to any of the young men...it apparently belonged to the sister of one. His name might be Steven...I'm not sure that's his name but I'm going to use it from now on. None of the young men had a cell phone. Steven asked to borrow a phone. I offered him mine since he was clearly agitated. He tried calling his sister to find out if the car was insured. He said he hadn't been driving the car because he didn't have his license with him. His friend who had been driving made a comment along the lines of: "I don't know why that woman pulled her car in front of me like that!" I told him he was mistaken...that the woman was at a red light and had been stopped for quite some time before he hit her. His comment made me think that he'd been distracted and didn't notice the red light. There really is no other good explanation for his going into a skid the way he did. Steven could not get ahold of his sister so called her boyfriend...looking for her. He was very clearly upset and had no idea what he should do. A police car showed up about 5 minutes after I'd hung up with the dispatcher. At that point, the women from the silver cars were pulling their cars into the Albertson's parking lot. And, the driver of the Neon had apparently left his friends high and dry. Steven couldn't believe his friend had just walked away. He was shaking a lot...I think more from shock and worry than the cold. The policeman asked if he could move the car. He just kept talking on my cell phone...telling his sister's boyfriend what had happened and asking what he should do. I finally got my phone back from him and went to my car to get my jacket and write down my contact info for the two women. Two more police cars had shown up by the this time. By the way, there were no passengers in the two cars that had been hit. When I got back to the group, the driver of the Neon had reappeared. I guess he'd gone to the Albertson's to make a call or something. Steven was sitting in the Neon...still agonizing over his sister's damaged car. I gave my contact info to the woman in the car that suffered the most damage (the front car) and to one of the policemen. I also told him what had happened and came on home.
Whew. I think that about covers it. I hope I don't end up having to testify but do think I'm the only one who really had any sort of idea what actually happened.
Why'd I come up with the name "Steven"? As I was pulling into my garage, my cell phone rang and a woman asked if I'd just called. I said I hadn't but had been a witness to a car accident and that one of the people involved had used my phone. She asked if it had been a green car and I said yes. She asked if it was "Steven" who'd used my phone. I said I didn't know his name...that I'd just let him use my phone. I also told her nobody appeared to be hurt, told her the location of the accident, and that, sadly, it looked like her car had been damaged pretty badly. But, that I really didn't know more. She thanked me for the info and we rang off.
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