Traffic Lights

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

There's an intersection near my house with traffic cameras that capture images of vehicles running past the yellow light. As I approached the intersection this morning, the crossing signal turned into a solid red hand. I decided to play it safe by not trying to beat the yellow light. Once I stopped behind the crosswalk line, the black SUV on the opposite side of the street began to make a left turn. My gaze continued to follow its turning radius when I noticed a turquoise SUV from the lane to my right attempt to cross the intersection to beat the yellow. It didn't even occur to me that the two vehicles would collide. There was no sound of screeching brakes or of a revving engine. The light turned red and the turquoise SUV simply slammed into the passenger side of the turning vehicle. The impact caused the black SUV to roll over onto the driver side. The turquoise SUV had smoke heavily pouring out of its windows. I looked at the other vehicles around the intersection and none of them were moving. One of them happened to be a police cruiser a mere ten feet from the crash. The two officers got out of their vehicle and walked towards the crash. Finally a vehicle began moving. It was the turquoise SUV slowly pulling over to the nearest curb. I noticed another moving vehicle. It was an ambulance that also happened to be near the scene. It parked at the same curb as the turquoise SUV. After what seemed like an eternity, the traffic light I was facing changed back to green. I blinked and hoped to myself that everyone involved would be fine before I continued driving to work.

Posted by Batalla at 7:42 PM 0 comments