An incident by the traffic light.

The steering wheel slightly vibrates a bit, to let me know that I am driving a bit faster than usual. Realizing that, I put a little pressure on the brakes, to offset that realization. It is a busy night, the sky bleary with just enough brightness to highlight the outlines of the landscape; street lights bouncing off moving cars, throwing ominous dancing shadows. A good amount of car traffic, all lanes occupied by weary people driving back from work with an urgency, to their slice of heaven called home or a bar. The traffic keeps on moving at its pace, with a occasional stop at the traffic lights.

As I passed one of the traffic lights, I witness an incident from the corner of my eye, that unfolds into an accident within my field of vision. I was crossing an intersection with a static picture of few cars before me. But one car breaks that boring picture, to plough forward with sudden acceleration. It crosses the intersection before others and hits a bump in the middle of the intersection, way too fast.... The car loses traction and skids sideways to the next lane. But I assume, the human in that car, did not have a chance to react to that change, resulting in the following events. His foot still on the accelerator, the car veers  barreling towards the central median.

 If you had a chicken race between a concrete and an expensive car, the concrete is not going to budge and the car would lose. The car hits the median, with enough force to jump it and that propels it towards oncoming traffic with its boot first. The roof of the car hits the asphalt first, breaking the silence with its windscreen and keeps rolling with the momentum. It lands back on its four wheels, facing the median nose first, with its driver side looking at oncoming traffic. It feels like a screen grabbed, right out of an action flick.

The aftermath looks like a scorn, on a picturesque landscape. Broken glasses litterred everywhere, sparkled with the street lights. Smoke billowed from the hood of the car, had an eerie feeling to the scene. You could hear screeches, as traffic tries to stop from hitting the wrecked car.

I slowdown my car, just enough to avoid the car in front of me and the traffic moves on, unabated in my lane. My only thought at that time was, " I hope, that driver wore his seat belt!!". As I moved away from the scene with an etched reminder that I could see from my rear view mirror, I swore to never speed up, at that intersection.

-Alphonse