Accidents

[Debi]

Accidents happen no matter how hard we try to avoid them on the road. Have you ever been in a car accident? Did time slow while it was happening for you? Ever have what you might consider an angelic intervention during one? What was the worst one you've been involved in?

Scary truck crash vid

 

[WitchAndShaman]

I’ve posted on the PNF about another scary crash I only narrowly passed through. I won’t repeat that one.

However there was another more distant past near accident which I have no idea how I nor two other motorists survived. I was returning home from a nighttime college course on a road running though a shallow valley - the hills on either side were only about 50’ high. It was strangely very foggy that night too. The first mile of the road leading away from the college was one lane in either direction. Then at about the start of the second mile, the lane I was in swerves sharply to the right in order to widen making room for two lanes in both directions with a narrow grassy medium between. I knew the layout of this road we’ll having driven/ridden it hundreds of times over a decade.

I was traveling faster than was reasonably safe for the foggy condition but also well below the posted speed limit. As I reached the rightward swerve where the roads widen, my headlights lit up a car about 20’ ahead which was stopped and turned sideways fully blocking both lanes. I had only one real choice - I turned my steering wheel hard to the left propelling my small car into a 90 degree shift and I skidded right up to the other car, My car stopped within fewer than six inches of the other car. I could see there was also a young woman standing behind that car in the foggy darkness.

Without thinking a second time about my actions, I jumped out of my car, slammed the driver’s side door, and ran to check on that woman. I was only with her for maybe 15 seconds during which I quickly tried to figure out what happened to get her into that situation - I assumed she might not have expected nor seen the the rightward swerve in the fog. I could not get much from her as she was very shocked - her “accident” must have been just seconds before I came upon her. I didn’t get a chance to try a hurried four or fifth attempt to quiz her when another pair of headlights appeared in the fog coming right for us.

I grabbed the woman and threw here against the hillside to our right. As I turned back, the driver of the third car appeared to make the exact same maneuver I did and their car slid right up to within inches of my car and stopped.

My only thought was that now all three of us were in immediate danger. But the two of us who were outside our cars essentially couldn’t get into our cars to move them. So I ran to the driver of the third car and yelled for him to pull away immediately so that the other two of us could get into our cars. He did so pulling into the opposing traffic lane long enough to make a turn around the front end of our two cars. I yelled at the woman to immediately get into her car and pull forward and to the right out of the roadway as soon as I did the same. I jumped into my car, pulled into the oncoming lane and turned sharply around her car and then slowed. I hung behind just long enough to confirm that her car passed by on my left.

Editing my post to add a point relevant to the question Debi originally asked. I don’t think that I necessarily felt any time dilation during this incident but it was so surprising to me afterwards that from the moment that I saw her car in the roadway ahead of me until the point where the young woman drove past me was probably between one and two minutes total. That event was like 200% action from the very start. And, once it was over and I was driving away, the entire thing felt very ethereal to me - like I had dreamed the events instead of actually experienced them physically. I recall even just a few minutes later that I was struggling to convince myself that it had actually happened; the more times that I tried to recall the events, the more the details began to blur.

 

[Debi]

I've had several near misses that could only be divine intervention, because the law of physics got bent. One in Florida comes to mind. Three lane highway both ways with crossovers in between. Speed limit 45 but normally people run that about 55. Right down the center of Pinellas County. On my way home from work going North, an elderly couple decide to cross right over and try to pull into traffic....far left lane, here I come, and there they are. For some reason I stepped on the gas and managed to pull in front of the car to my right to miss them. I should not have been able to do that. I should have hit one or the other or both, but my foot went down instead of trying to brake, which I'm telling you would have put me dead center into the passenger side of the elderly couples car where the terrified woman was screaming had I chosen that option.

Time sloooowed on that one. I eventually had to pull over down the road just to stop shaking.

 

[WitchAndShaman]

I've had several near misses that could only be divine intervention, because the law of physics got bent. One in Florida comes to mind. Three lane highway both ways with crossovers in between. Speed limit 45 but normally people run that about 55. Right down the center of Pinellas County. On my way home from work going North, an elderly couple decide to cross right over and try to pull into traffic....far left lane, here I come, and there they are. For some reason I stepped on the gas and managed to pull in front of the car to my right to miss them. I should not have been able to do that. I should have hit one or the other or both, but my foot went down instead of trying to brake, which I'm telling you would have put me dead center into the passenger side of the elderly couples car where the terrified woman was screaming had I chosen that option.

Time sloooowed on that one. I eventually had to pull over down the road just to stop shaking.

My other PNF post on this subject Debi happened on I-4 here in Central Florida. I think that the extreme flatness of the terrain somehow influences physics in other mystical ways making these kind of near misses common.

 

[WitchAndShaman]

My other PNF post on this subject Debi happened on I-4 here in Central Florida. I think that the extreme flatness of the terrain somehow influences physics in other mystical ways making these kind of near misses common.

You know, Central Florida is not that far from the Devil’s Triangle. Maybe there is a geometrical-geographical tangent which reaches out from Bermuda into Florida’s highway system.

 

[Debi]

My other PNF post on this subject Debi happened on I-4 here in Central Florida. I think that the extreme flatness of the terrain somehow influences physics in other mystical ways making these kind of near misses common.

I-4 has some real mystical properties, Wands! Seriously, that road is scary at times. Never drove it without seeing accidents somewhere.

The time slowing thing still amazes me. In every near miss I've had, it has always slowed.

 

[Debi]

You know, Central Florida is not that far from the Devil’s Triangle. Maybe there is a geometrical-geographical tangent which reaches out from Bermuda into Florida’s highway system.

I just posted something recently about 1-4 and that one stretch that is supposed to be haunted. but your idea is not so far fetched.

 

[WitchAndShaman]

I just posted something recently about 1-4 and that one stretch that is supposed to be haunted. but your idea is not so far fetched.

Is that the stretch just NE of Sanford supposedly haunted by a couple of early American settlers or maybe they were from the turn of the 19th-20th century? That’s at the Saint John’s bridge.

 

[Debi]

AHA! Found the link!

Haunted Highway?

 

[WitchAndShaman]

AHA! Found the link!

Haunted Highway?

Yes, that’s the place I’m thinking of Debi. I drove through there last night at about 11:25PM. ‘Feels” more eerie at night too.

I saw some kind of TV episode on this about a year ago. Big surprise that I didn’t learn about this in my first 14 years living here.