Traumatized

I wasn't even involved in the car accident, but I'm traumatized by it. It's been a good 6 hours and I'm still shaky, still keep seeing that car fly thru the intersection. I'd gone to get gas this morning since I was going to be the one driving on our second Sunday of the Luxury Home Tour. After I'd gotten gas I decided to drive around the long way to get home so I could have enough time to smoke a cigarette.

I was headed southbound and was stopped at a red light. To my left was a car in the turn lane to go left, there was another car in front of me and another in the lane to my right. The intersection was clear and we had both the green lights to proceed ahead and make left turns. A car traveling east on the cross street, which has a posted speed limit of 40, never even hit the brakes to stop at what was obviously a red light for them. Wasn't even a case of being at the intersection and the light changed yellow, lemme speed up to make it thru. It was full on red. That driver managed to take out the car to my right and the car in front of me. From how hard those two got hit, I have to assume at least one of them got slammed into the cars waiting for the light to turn green for the northbound lanes.

I remember seeing the car that caused the accident fly into the intersection from west towards the east underneath the green light we had to proceed south. Then all I saw was glass flying, the car that had been in front of me spinning around with no front end and then the traffic light on the southeast corner crashing into the street.

There were about 20 cars total at the intersection when this happened, and I think all of us, even the ones that weren't hit, were equally stunned by what we'd just witnessed. Time seemed to stand still for what seemed like 10 minutes. I managed to regain my wits and proceeded southbound where there is a fire station about a block away. The firefighters were all outside working on their equipment, but can't see the intersection because of a wooden fence between the fire station and the strip mall at the corner. I told them to get over there with at least 2 ambulances because people were hurt.

As I was pulling thru the intersection to get to the fire station, I did see the guy in the car behind me get out and run over to check on the occupants of the cars that'd been hit. At least someone did. That was originally my first thought, but I wouldn't be able to do anything, I don't know any first aid. Just figured it'd be quicker for me to drive a block up and get help than it would for someone to gain their wits and call 911.

I can't remember ever seeing an accident as it was happening before, other than the two I've been involved in which weren't that bad. I've come upon accidents that you can tell just happened because emergency personnel aren't there yet, but never saw the actual collision. I only hope no one was seriously injured or killed.

Not a good way to start the day. And to add to that accident, I saw several near misses while we were out. Cars doing that exact same thing, running the red light. People that do shit like this should have their licenses suspended, revoked if they kill someone. Though they should be in prison if they kill someone.

People really need to think about how they're driving and take it more seriously. I know accidents will happen, but most are caused by people not paying attention.