Venting - bad day

[Lippyp]

So yesterday my wife says to me “I’ve got to go to London Thursday and Friday for a meeting (she works for IBM), as your truck's off the road (waiting for some parts to arrive so that the work it needs to pass the annual MoT (Government safety test) can be done) if you drop me at the motorway (freeway) service area I’ll go down with a colleague and you can have my car for the two days (2001 Jeep Cherokee/Liberty). This is a day after some thieving B*****D prised the Jeeps drivers door mirror glass out of the frame damaging the electric adjustment motor slightly, gonna cost about $70 just for the glass and the electric adjustment probably won’t work properly, but the only alternative is a whole new mirror assembly so god knows what that would cost. God knows what they wanted with the mirror.

So we set off at 7am to meet her friend at 8.30 (traffic is bad in the morning), arrive on time, she leaves in her friends Beemer, I get back on the road to go down five miles to the next junction (intersection) to turn around and come home. Traffic slows down, and stops, it turns out that they have closed the road in both directions at the next junction after a serious accident. Large articulated truck (I think you call them a semi,) vs. van, both then go through the central barrier into the oncoming traffic (average speed 70-80 mph) and takes out five cars, one fatality, several serious injuries, air ambulance called etc. I am now sitting with three lanes of solid stationary traffic.

It then takes me six hours to get the remaining five miles to the junction to turn around, when I finally get there they have just re-opened the road. I have had nothing to eat all day, no coffee, have half a packet of mints and three pieces of gum in the car, I’m bored, I have my wives choice of CD’s, no reception on my cell phone, I hadn’t properly completed my mornings ablutions, so a bathroom would have been mighty handy (I did get out and water the grass, but that wasn’t quite enough if you know what I mean!) Glad I wasn’t in my truck as she would either have overheated or run out of fuel and if I’d turned the engine off I would almost certainly fallen prey to my less than youthful starter motor and it’s dislike of starting when hot, there are some benefits to modern vehicles.

We left home at 7am and arrived back after 4pm, my wife and her colleague also turned around and came back home as there was no way they could get to their meeting in time. What a total waste of a day! You have to feel terrible for the people involved in the accident though. The scary thing is if I’d said no my wife would probably have left home earlier and it could have been her under the truck, it’s so random, you could be the best driver in the world but when a truck suddenly appears out of nowhere coming straight at you at a closing speed of over 120 mph in rush hour traffic you have no chance at all. There but for the grace of God……..!

Sorry about the long post, needed to let off some steam.

[Randy70C-10]

Sorry dude, I've had crappy days, but not THAT crappy. Glad it wasn't you though.