Step 17 - It was an Accident

How To Double Your Way To A Million In 28 StepsThe Official Blog for the "My One Million Friends" Website
Yesterday I was involved in an automobile accident. I say, involved, because I wasn't part of the actual damage and destruction that is usually associated with accidents. But I was there, and, in some sense, may have been part of the cause for the actual outcome. Not the sole source, but one possible one.

I had just gotten my haircut and was heading home. Going up a street, out of town, I started to approach a telephone truck on the other side of the road. The guy was working in the bucket at the top of the telephone pole. Coming from the other way was a green pickup truck.

I noticed that it wasn't traveling at a very fast rate of speed, slower in fact then most people travel on that road. In fact everything looked quite normal. The road was wet but the weather had been mild all day so it didn't seem like there was any real threat. Due to the fact that the telephone truck was halfway out in the road I was watching what was happening with a bit more alertness. You never know what might happen when things are out of the ordinary on the road, even as simple as a utility truck doing work nearby.

But everything looked pretty tame as I proceeded by the telephone truck. The green pickup was a good distance down the road so what happened next was totally unexpected and a bit weird.

Suddenly, the Pickup fishtailed violently to the right then fishtailed back to the left. I could hear squealing tires as the rubber scrapped on the wet tar and probably also from the brakes as well. The truck kept fishtailing as it got closer to me. The truck was out of control and it didn't look good. I tried to pull over further to the right hand side of the road but trees came up to edge of the road and there was no place for me to go.

For a moment it looked like the pickup might have gotten things under control, the fishtailing had subsided. The pickup obviously was trying to stay on their side so as not to crash into me, at least that is what I was hoping at the time. For a moment, everything looked like it would be alright. Of course right in front of them was the telephone truck and with all that was going on it didn't look like they would be able to maneuver the pickup on to the other side of the road to avoid it. I wasn't too far past the telephone truck, as it was, so there just wasn't enough time or room for them to avoid the telephone truck.

As they came up along side of me, the pickup started to pull off the side of the road. Whether this was intentional or not was difficult to tell at the time, but later looking at the tire tracks it was more obvious. They hit dirt on the tar and this didn't help them with maneuvering. The pickup suddenly went over the side of the road into a ditch. The edge dropped off about five feet rather abruptly so the truck went down quick and then in slow motion started to roll. Fortunately, they weren't moving too fast and the pickup ended on its side. I think it would have gone further but there was something like a rollbar in the bed that stopped it. They stopped about a foot from hitting a fifteen inch diameter tree which was right at the cab level.

I stopped and backed my car into a driveway and ran over. The telephone guy was bringing down his bucket and a neighbor came out of no where and got to the pickup before me. At first I thought he was pulling a child out but it turned out to be two women. They were OK just shaken up.

Someone had called the police and one of the women called the truck's owner. During her conversation she handed the phone to me to talk to the guy. I tried to give him an assessment of everything.

Even the women in the truck couldn't figure out why the truck went out of control. The driver said she did everything she could to get the truck under control, like pumping the brakes. But nothing helped. I suspect that the brakes locked up on the first attempt sending them into a fishtail. Then the pumping of the brakes and turning of the wheel to get the thing under control caused them to gyrate back and forth. The woman driving mentioned some things the owner said about the brakes that sounded like there could be problems with them.

When the owner arrived he didn't seem too upset, but said that he had hoped that the truck landed on its right side. It had actually landed on its left. The reason he preferred the right was a former girl friend had wrecked that side previously. I think he needs to not let his girl friends drive his truck any more, there are no more sides to destroy.

Anyways the police came, took statements and they told me I could leave. I appreciate that the pickup didn't come over to my side and that no one was hurt. I was a sitting duck basically.

Last night I kept dreaming of Automobile accidents with beer bottles getting killed.

Present Stake: $331.79

Motto: It is only "one" found penny.

Regards,

Xinfinitum


This Doubling Dollars Blog is based upon the Doubling Plan "How to Double Your Way to a £Million in 28 Steps". It is an attempt to "Double Your Way to a Million" by going from one penny to one million dollars, starting from nothing. At the beginning you start by finding a penny and then double your pennies to $1,000,000.
How to Double Your Way to a Million in 28 Steps
D.T.A.M.P. - Double To A Million Plan
"For The Next Chronological Post Click Here"