My first thought was, “Man….that guy is taking that off ramp a little too fast.”

My second thought was, “There’s no off ramp there….”

My third thought was, “That’s just like an action movie!!”

That’s a lot of thoughts in a few seconds.

I have a fast and freaking amazing brain to think so many thoughts that quickly.

I was watching a wreck unfold behind me on my way to work yesterday.  There was a box truck that caught my attention when I gave my rear view mirror a quick glance.  It was driving too fast…and it was going too fast in too many different directions.

A car or truck, because of how it’s designed, should have a pretty linear form of travel.  It should go forwards…or it should go backwards.  It shouldn’t be able to go sideways…or at a weird diagonal.

This truck could.

It could also go a little ways on its side…until friction stopped it…but I’ll get to that part in a second.

It took me a second on first glance to tell that the truck wasn’t on the highway at all.  It had gone off on the soft grass of the shoulder and that’s where the weird sliding and angles came in.  When the driver tried to correct his truck’s trajectory, he pulled it too far back up onto the road…at too fast a speed…and ended up on his side blocking both lanes of traffic headed towards Hendersonville.

Ending up on your side at speed is never a gentle thing. It looked like this driver and his truck really got slammed when he eventually crashed his rig.

I told my wife that it looked like one of the big trucks the Mexican guys use to get to the fields.

I hope not…a lot of people got hurt …got hurt bad….if that was the case.

It’s hard to really get a feel for everything when you’re rubbernecking in your rear view mirror. I don’t know anything about what happened after the truck flipped over.

You can’t ponder much at 65…or 66, maybe…mph.

It’s not safe to think about much more than your driving.

But, other than worrying about everybody making it out OK, the main thought that floated through my head was…

If ever get to watch an accident go down, my favorite place to do it would have to be my rear view mirror.

“But for the Grace of God…”

I’ve had a few accidents…and I’d really rather not have any more.  They aren’t any fun…they’re scary…they’re inconvenient.

When you can describe an accident as inconvenient, you know it was probably pretty minor.  I’ve been blessed so far with only inconveniences.

That’s a good thing.

It’s also a lot easier to figure out what happened when you only see someone else’s problems or accidents as you’re speeding away from the situation.

I don’t have any understanding of what went on in that truck yesterday.

Maybe the guys sausage fell out of his biscuit and when he grabbed for it.. and spilled his hot coffee in the process…and he wrecked his rig.

I don’t really know.

I’m not a detective.

But I do know that from where I sat….looking in my rear view mirror, driving 65 mph down the highway away from the carnage, I could say with all certainty…

“That’s not the way I would have done it.”

That’s the beauty of my rear view mirror.

image from here.