As we neared NanooseI was in the right hand lane going approximately 90 km/h. I saw someone in the oncoming lane flashing their headlights a lot, so I slowed down a little more. Then I saw it. There was a large Ram pickup coming towards us on our side of the divided highway. Crap. Adrenaline kicked in and I reacted. I hit the brakes and dove off the highway to the shoulder to give other drivers room to move over. Other drivers scrambled out of the way.
I was in shock.
As the driver of the truck passed us, he looked calm. He was going at least 70 km/h I would guess, and didn’t seem concerned at all. It was a little eery. I watched in the rear view mirror, and Sox turned in her seat to watch him.
I couldn’t understand why this guy hadn’t slowed, or put on his 4 way flashers, or had turned around during a break in traffic.
Way up the highway two cars, side by side came around the bend. They closed in on the truck, and I kept waiting for the red car to see the truck. The got closer and closer. Sox said something, but I was too intent on watching the road, and watching what this truck was doing.
The red car impacted the truck.
I stopped very quickly in total shock. I gave Sox my phone and told her to call 911 while I moved the truck to a safer location off the highway. Giving the info to 911 we decided that we should probably head up to the scene and wait for the police to show in case they needed our statement or something.
By this point the accident scene was probably a kilometer away, and since it was really sunny and warm we couldn’t leave Yoshi in the truck. Grabbing him and the first aid kit we started making our way back up the highway.
Halfway there we could see the flashing lights of a police car already on the scene, and we could see lots of other people helping out and directing traffic. We came across another car that had stopped and were getting ready to leave. Talking to them we decided we didn’t need to, and probably shouldn’t continue on.
Apparently the officer on the scene witnessed the accident and had told this couple they could leave. We did the same.
It was pretty freaky. What if we had been held up by a couple minutes? What if we hadn’t seen the truck coming at us? What if it had been us instead of the red car?