Worst drive home ever!
 

Today I was nearly in two bad accidents... Both within 20 minutes of each other. I was on my way home from an appointment in Nashua.

1) I was waiting at a red light to turn left onto the Everett Turnpike. I was on Broad Street (which, as the name implies, is quite wide) and it was one of the setups where there are two lanes turning left at a light, then they merge once they get onto the highway entrance ramp. I was in the right-left turn lane, and to my left was a woman in a silver Mercedes C320. The light turned green and I put the car in gear and was about to go when I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye. I saw it was a car so I stopped. The woman in the Mercedes didn't see it, so the guy ran right through the red light and slammed her car really hard. I was like "OH $HIT!" so I pulled over and put my hazards on and got out to see if they were ok... Some other people stopped too. Thankfully, the woman in the Mercedes was fine. The guy who ran the red light and caused this whole mess was yelling at her for hitting him :tsk: , but some big huge guy that was driving behind her (he was driving a Ram) quieted the a-hole down. If I had been a matter of 4 or 5 feet farther out, it would have been me, not her... Is it going to be his fault for running the red, or her fault for hitting him? Anyway... So, I get back on the interstate...

2) I was going through downtown Manchester on I-293. I was in the left lane doing about 60-65. I'm guessing I was about 2.5 seconds behind the guy in front of me. A truck a few cars ahead of me was carrying some loose lumber. One of the pieces (damn big!) fell off... The cars in front of me hit their brakes really hard. I hit the brakes as hard as I could.. The tires were screeching and the ABS activated. I was worried that I'd get rear ended, but when I looked behind me I saw an E36 328i.. Thank God for BMW brakes!

Having something like this happen twice in like a 20 minute span kind of shook me up. I'm not easily shaken up when it comes to driving.. But this scared the $HIT out of me. If I hadn't noticed the other car coming, I would have been in a serious accident.. That Mercedes was totalled. And if I didn't have good brakes/a good following distance, I could have been in a pile up. I guess this serves as a reminder to back off, and always make sure there arent any people going through the intersection who think red means "go."

I was never so glad to get home!

1. Definately the guy who ran the light was at fault. However, there's a good lesson to be learned here. Something my father used to call being "dead right". I always use caution when the light turns green in my direction if I am the first into the intersection, taking a quick glance in both directions to make sure there isn't some numbnut running the red light. It's saved me more than once, and it's better to yield to the idiot then to be "dead right".

2. Yes, thank goodness for BMW brakes. Glad you were able to avoid what could have been a really bad situation.

I agree - running the red light is the one at fault. The number of people who run red lights here and down towards Boston is frightening. I always check both ways before proceding out first from a light.

It's amazing how many people do it. I don't notice it as much up here in Concord, but down in Nashua it's amazing. Every red light I see, I see someone run it. I was at Exit 6 when this happened and that's like the red-light running capital.

Glad that you got home OK. Falling things off the back of a truck is deadly and I escaped death once by inches. Thank god we drive BMW.

When somethinglike this happens, it makes me sooo glad to be driving such a safe car. I always want to drive BMWs!

We have Red-Light camera's down here in Atlanta. They will get you if you are trying to make it through a yellow light and it turns red.

Not here - remember this is the "Live Free or Die" state ;)

Haha I love our motto! The only state to mention death on the license plate... :D

Yeah some of my Canadian friends always get a good laugh about the 'death' plate. :D