FanPost

It Can All Change in a Matter of Seconds

Saturday afternoon, just before 3:00, my wife and I left the house to run a few errands. We live in a typical suburban development located a little over a mile from US Route 9, a highway that begins in Delaware and runs through New Jersey and New York, all the way north to the Canadian border. Route 9 varies in width from two to six lanes, depending on the location. The stretch near our home is four lanes wide (two in each direction) and is one of the main roads (along with the interstates) used to get around the various interconnected suburban areas nearby.

So anyway, before we ran our errands we had to make two stops: first to put gas in the car and then to pick up some cash at the bank. To get to the bank you drive north on Route 9 a mile or so and then, at the traffic light, you make a left onto Ushers Road heading west. When we got to that traffic light we found that we could not go left because there had been a traffic accident at the intersection; a driver traveling south on Route 9 (under the influence) veered out of his lane and plowed into a pickup truck that was waiting at the traffic light, heading east on Ushers Road. Both vehicles ended up in a ditch alongside the road. Two of the truck’s five passengers (who were visiting the area for a wedding) were killed, and the three others had to be taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. The driver, as often happens in such cases, did not sustain serious injury.

You might be wondering why I’m writing about this; I am too, sort of. I did not know any of the people involved, and plenty of other people around the country died yesterday in accidents or tornadoes or acts of violence or in other ways I can't imagine. I guess the fact that it happened in an area where my wife and I travel just about every week at some point gives it greater impact. It just makes you think about the seeming randomness of life and how, at any moment, one person’s bad decision in the early afternoon can change the lives of dozens of people (and perhaps even more) forever.

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