Chills1994 Posted May 6, 2005 Share Posted May 6, 2005 Hi everyone, First time poster here. Tonight on the way home from visiting my sister in the hospital, I almost got in an accident on the highway. I was in the left lane going at a pretty good clip, until I saw a white car whizz past me, swerving in and out of traffic. He lost control of his car and careened right in front of me. He hit the concrete and metal guardrail on the overpass. Luckily for me he bounced right off the wall as I drove over the parts that had made up the car's front. Foolish me for thinking I would be a good samaritan and actually see if he was hurt. Before I knew it, his car was going forward again, doing doughnuts and slamming from wall to wall. "Maybe this guy is unconcsious and has the *thumb rest [generic]* pounded to the floor?" Then I heard the sirens. Looked in the rear view mirror and saw the lights. Oh, Ahhhhh... This is a police chase. I was the only one left on the interstate. Just me and him. And the approaching police. By the time they stopped, his car had rolled down an embankment. I was too far away to see if he fled on foot. I called the local TV news in St. Louis to see if they had heard about it and if it will be on the 10 o'clock news. I'd really like to know why this guy was running from the police. I hate this guy for putting my life and at least a hundred others at risk. So the first time in a long while I had "my paradigm shifted". Not everything is as it appears. That speeding car zipping past you might just be running from the police. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiG Lady Posted May 6, 2005 Share Posted May 6, 2005 God, I woulda gone paralytic with the adrenaline dump...! More than my paradigm would've shifted, I assure you. Running over his parts... Jeez, you were involved! Were you on your way TO or FROM the shooting match...? (just kidding) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyG23 Posted May 6, 2005 Share Posted May 6, 2005 Chases look like great fun when you're watching them on TV, after your involved in one they lose all their alure. And yes, the adrenaline dump is something that has to be experienced to believe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carinab Posted May 6, 2005 Share Posted May 6, 2005 Welcome to the board! Did you experience time distortion - i.e. where everything seems to slow down - like slow motion? First time I had that happen was during a motorcycle wreck...had it a number of times on the range. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rifter Posted May 6, 2005 Share Posted May 6, 2005 My wife had that happen to her a few years ago... she wasy going down an off-ramp off the freeway, when a nut running from the police came flying up it. He just about took her out. :-( She got out of the way for the cops to go past, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eerw Posted May 6, 2005 Share Posted May 6, 2005 You really got to have your guard up.. had a car crash here in town on one of the main roads..woman got out to see if help was needed..she was taken hostage and police in pursuit ended up shooting the guy on the scene..she was lucky.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianH Posted May 6, 2005 Share Posted May 6, 2005 Was sitting in the break room the other day....had been hearing sirens for about five minutes....and they started getting closer. Suddenly here comes a fullsize Chevy ripping through the alley across the street, bounces across the street and tears through our parking lot! I think the police car on his ass lost an oil pan when he hit the pavement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chills1994 Posted May 6, 2005 Author Share Posted May 6, 2005 No, at the time this idiot swerved in front of me and crashed, I did not experience a slow motion, time expansion kinda thing. We've all seen movies where there is a part that has been sped up that seems cheesey, that is what it was like when he came speeding up behind me, in and out of traffic, until he yanked that steering wheel too hard. Playing it back in my mind, I do seem to experience a slo mo visulization of how the front of the car disintegrated into little pieces, and how they flew through the air or went bouncing down the highway at me. Oddly enough, no adrenaline pump, no heart skipping a beat. For a while it was just me and him on this overpass. I slowly drove forward weaving between the then empty lanes. I'd like to think that maybe I kept him from rocketing down the interstate again. And that's why he ended up going backwards down an embankment. But so much more I could have done, especially if Illinois had a shall issue CCW law. It was a while before the police caught up to him. But then again.... Didn't see a report about it on the 10 o'clock news last night, so I don't know if he fled on foot, was apprehended or what. Grabbing a brownie batter blizzard at a Dairy Queen on the way home did help calm my nerves, settle my anger. I'm a chocaholic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiG Lady Posted May 6, 2005 Share Posted May 6, 2005 ...And sometimes we have to watch out for more than PEOPLE on the freeways and such: I entered the Interstate-5 southbound one day (yes, headed to the shooting range) and saw a VER Y nervous-looking, unaccompanied large dog at the shoulder of the road. I thought, "That damn' dog is going to leap out into the roadway--I just need to get PAST him and outa here." I looked around me frantically to make sure the traffic wasn't about to get wiggly and neurotic and speeded up, changed lanes and hauled ass. Routinely, I checked my watch. On the five o'clock news that night, the lead story was--yep--the dog who leaped out onto the freeway at (whatever hour 15 seconds after I checked my watch that morning and dashed away from the scene), sending a small blue pickup off the road, causing multiple swerves of other vehicles, and basically closed about three of the four southbound lanes until the dog could be scraped off the road surface, the injured drivers treated (nothing TOO serious, apparently) and the debris swept away. I was right in seeing "the accident waiting to happen." All I could do, though, was get out of its way... before it happened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chills1994 Posted May 7, 2005 Author Share Posted May 7, 2005 Yep, SIG lady, I bet you and the majority of BE'ers are in the minority of drivers out there: the kind of people who can actually anticipate what is going to happen next out on the highway and sometimes actually courteous enough to do something about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
et45 Posted May 7, 2005 Share Posted May 7, 2005 I have been caught up in 2 chases,. The first was not too bad but the second one scared the hell out of me.I was on a two lane road at night and a car went around me really fast,I thought well he's in a hurry then 3 police cars pass me and I figure well this is a polce chase .I thought it was over when I see lights in my rear window and brakes locking up as another police car tries to catch up and damn near rear ends me on a blind curve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chills1994 Posted May 9, 2005 Author Share Posted May 9, 2005 No offense to police or feds or marshalls or whoever they were in my particular instance, but they were so far back I didn't have to worry about getting rear ended by them. I called around the next day and noboby knew anything about it. So things to make you go "mmmmm...." Maybe one day the technology will be on all cars where the police can cut in on the FM radio I had cranked up and tell you there is a chase in progress, move to the right hand lanes. Kind of like the emergency alert system on TV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiG Lady Posted May 9, 2005 Share Posted May 9, 2005 Oh, and--interestingly enough--there was a dog in the back of the pickup that hit the other dog and got shoved off the road in the process. From the looks of the in-vehicle dog on the news, he was one very nervous doggeroo... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clay1 Posted May 9, 2005 Share Posted May 9, 2005 Chills, this comment: "But so much more I could have done, especially if Illinois had a shall issue CCW law. It was a while before the police caught up to him. But then again...." is NOT going to help IL pass a CCW law. So what do you think you could have done legally in this case that would affected the outcome in any way? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ted Murphy Posted May 9, 2005 Share Posted May 9, 2005 I was nearly run off the road by a motorcycle a few years ago. As he squeezed between me an a semi I could feel the heat from the engine and the exhaust made me go deaf for a day or two. (windows were down) About 1/2 mile behind him was a state trooper, who saw the traffic ahead and backed off, which prevented a really bad accident. Biker went up the road about 1 mile and hit a telephone pole, killing himself instantly. I was so P.O.ed I actually cheered, but did feel bad about it later. Not that bad, but a little. Ted Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duane Thomas Posted May 11, 2005 Share Posted May 11, 2005 I was so P.O.ed I actually cheered, but did feel bad about it later. Not that bad, but a little. LOL. Literally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AGYoung Posted May 12, 2005 Share Posted May 12, 2005 "Maybe one day the technology will be on all cars where the police can cut in on the FM radio I had cranked up and tell you there is a chase in progress, move to the right hand lanes. Kind of like the emergency alert system on TV. " I've heard of a paging system that alerts subscribers of "car chases" to tune into the TV for the live feed. Caused so much trouble that the FAA prohibited choppers from getting close enough to do good pix. I can imagine how many rubberneckers would clog any road where the radio announced a pursuit in progress, even in a short range. Lights & siren don’t even get the jerks out of the way, I know from experience. Flashing high beams and a horn toot sometimes do a better job. A radio announcement wouldn’t do the trick either. IMHO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XRe Posted May 12, 2005 Share Posted May 12, 2005 I bet a .50 BMG machine gun on the hood would make a difference A lot of drivers are so oblivious to what's going on around them, you could probably light off a nuclear bomb next to them and they wouldn't notice it... My wife got caught up in a chase one night in Atlanta. She got passed on a one lane entrance ramp by the suspect car and a cop car - the suspect car then spun out in front of her, as large number of cops appeared in the rear view... She somehow managed to avoid an collision, *and* get to the side to allow the cops around her. They pulled the guy out at gunpoint and all that, of course. She just sort of inched around everyone and got out of there.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chills1994 Posted May 21, 2005 Author Share Posted May 21, 2005 Clay, If IL did have a shall issue CCW law, I would have felt more comfortable intervening a bit more than I did. There are about a 1,000 what-if's here. I could have turned around and kept this guy from backing down the embankment, at which point I'm sure he jumped out of his car, running. If I had a brush guard on my truck, I could have pinned him against the bridge's guard rail. Then again he could have stuck a Tec-9 out his window and tried to light me up. And then again, if I had been packing, I could have wound up being shot by whatever LEO's they were. Brad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
folsoml Posted May 21, 2005 Share Posted May 21, 2005 No offense to police or feds or marshalls or whoever they were in my particular instance, but they were so far back I didn't have to worry about getting rear ended by them. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The police very likely decided the chase was not worth the crime committed and stoped the pursuit, but were just following a safe distance in case just what happened happened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clay1 Posted May 21, 2005 Share Posted May 21, 2005 Chills, I understand about the 1000 what ifs. One of them could be that you get involved and get killed at worst, end up in jail and leave your family to fend for themselves is probable and at best spend lots of money on lawyers. It's not the movies and shooting at another man when you aren't directly threatened won't end up being COOL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
folsoml Posted May 21, 2005 Share Posted May 21, 2005 It's not the movies and shooting at another man when you aren't directly threatened won't end up being COOL. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Plus, you wouldn't believe the reasons people run from the police. This guy may have been running becasue he didn't have a driver's license. Or he could have been a kid who just snuck out with dad's car. People sometimes throw all logic out the window when those blue lights come on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexmoney Posted May 22, 2005 Share Posted May 22, 2005 Anybody wondering why I closed this...feel free to read the rules for the Hate Forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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