Sunday, October 4th, 2015. It was just my luck to be there to spot the idiocy of two drivers.
I had parked my car overnight on a main street that crossed over an avenue, only to awake to find my car sandwiched between streets that had been closed off on account of a cycle race the length of the avenue, which had been made into a loop for the cyclists. No problem for me. All I had to do was make a U turn and drive away from the avenue. Just as I was making my U turn I spotted in my mirror a car carefully threading its way through the barriers and coming my way.
"Where the hell does he think he's going?" The marshall at that end came running after him but her colleague on my end picked up on what was happening. There was no way he was getting through that end. I stopped to watch. Evidently he was telling her that he had to get across the avenue, and she was actually having an argument with this genius to tell him that was not going to happening while the race was taking place. He was evidently insisting, so she called a policeman to convince the moron that he was making a total nuisance of himself.
I left. Such stupidity was making me very uncomfortable thinking that I might one day meet the man coming toward me.
Within forrty-five minutes, perhaps I met his brother. I was moving along a two-lane autovia at 120 kph. I was in the process of overtaking a slower moving car when my brain struggled to process what my eyes were seeing. Coming towards me in my lane, headed for a head-on crash was a car heased the wong way. But, there was not supposed to be a car coming towards me. This put me in a very difficult position. I was alongside the car I was overtaking, there was another car behind him, and now, what to do? Fortunately, the car alongside me had the presence of mind to speed up which allowed me to duck into his place, which must have shocked the hell out of the driver behind me, but the crash had been averted. It was a close thing!
He would have had to repeat that same good luck many times over if he was to make it safely off the wrong-way lane. We call this type of driver a kamikazi with a very serious death wish.
I have tried to see in my mind's eye how on earth he got on the wrong-way lane in the first place. I suppose if there was a place where there were two back-to-back C loops, one for OFF, and one for ON the main road, it is possible that a confused driver might cross over the ON ramp to the OFF if there was absolutely no other traffic around to give a clue. You would have to be very determined to make this kind of mistake.
From my viewpoint, the first thought I had was it must have been my fault. I must have missed the fact that the one-way road I was on had become two-way. Of particular danger was that the man had put himself in the left lane, or overtaking "fast lane" so the chance that a head-on collision will take place is that much greater, and someone will die.
The implications of this type of error are far reaching. I can only hope that the police take this seriously. If ever I should make such an error I think it would be in my interests to be tested and thoroughly examined to determine whether I should continue to have the privilege of driving. It is simply not enough to apologize and to be able to carry on as though nothing happened.
When the day comes that the steering wheel is taken out of the hands of humans this type of thing is just one of the human errors that will be eliminated, provided that the technology is sound.
copyright (c) 2015 Eugene Carmichael
