Traffic Troubles
So while I was coming home from work today, traffic exiting the expressway was nearly at a standstill. My first thought was that a motorist was having car trouble - their vehicle had stalled out or a tire had gone flat on the off-ramp. As it turns out, it seems that an automobile was having motorist trouble.
From what I was told, the driver suffered from MS (I presume he was referring to multiple sclerosis), and lost consciousness while driving. I don't know much about MS, but it wouldn't have occurred to me that you could drive with the condition. Perhaps this is because most of the times when we see people suffering from the condition, its for fund-raising purposes, and therefore there is an incentive to portray sufferers in a way designed to trigger pity and giving. I, for my part, was under the impression that people with MS couldn't even walk, let alone manage a vehicle under normal circumstances.
The pickup truck went down an incline into a small ravine (I'm not sure that's quite the right word for it). The driver and his wife were both injured, but were taken out of the vehicle by Woodinville, WA fire and rescue personnel and taken to the hospital without very much trouble. It seems like the most difficult part of it was pulling them back up to street level. I'm presuming that one or both of them were able to speak to rescue personnel, which is how people on the scene had the story of what happened.
If you look just below and to the right of the sandbags, you can see a tire mark where one of the truck's tires struck the curb. The truck then took out the sign for our apartment complex that the sandbags had anchored in place; it wound up on the other side of the exit. Just before the stop line, there is a mark in the pavement where the truck bottomed out. Just beyond that, it took a chunk out of the curb, and you can see two more tire marks. According to witnesses, the truck then went airborne, and effectively climbed the guardrail, taking out the stop sign in the process. The guardrail fared somewhat better, but it will likely need replacing.
It then shot through the gap in the small tree and the light post, and traveled down the incline, coming to rest at the bottom.
2 comments:
you wouldn't have to worry about these things if you could just get commuters on to some sort of super train. perhaps by luring them on with good coffee?
Yeah, but we'd have to go to Portland for the coffee.
But there seems to be resistance to trains around here, likely because of the screwing over that a number of people endured the last time it came up. In a nutshell, they were forced to sell under imminent domain, but when the project was canceled, it was ruled that for the city to sell the land back to the owners for what they'd been given for it would represent an illegal gift to them, as the land had increased in value. I think the next person who seriously suggests rail transport will be hung from the nearest flagpole.
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