Stop at red lights, Damnit!Follow

I live in Toronto. I'm not sure if every other city is like this, but in Toronto, people run red lights all the time, often in heavy traffic.

Today, on my way to work, I had the misfortune of witnessing a very scary collision. A Green BMW 318Ti sped up going straight through the intersection when the light turned yellow. An old-model Acura Integra was waiting to make a left turn. There were trucks in the middle lanes blocking their view of each other. It was scary as hell because I had a view of both of them and I saw it coming. The BMW hit the Acura at full speed and it was a 70km/h zone.

I jumped out of my car, almost reflexively to go help. The BMW was smoking from it's hood, so I ran over to it. I couldn't see the other car. I found two girls in the BMW, the driver was shaken up and her passenger was injured. It stunk like airbag gas. I told them they had to get out because it wasn't safe, and helped the passenger to the curb. I called 911, and as I was talking to the operator I found the other car. It had been knocked off the road into the ditch. I stuck around and helped out when the emergency teams got there, and I gave my statement. The driver of the Acura was stuck in the ditch and they had to cut her car open. Both the driver of the Integra and the passenger of the BMW were taken away in stretchers, but God willing they will be okay.

I'm still really shaken up by the whole thing. It would all have been avoided if the girl driving the BWM would have been patient and waited the 60 seconds it would take for the light to turn green. The girl driving the BMW was the only one not seriously injured too, so I'm sure she'll be thinking about that decision for a long time.

The moral of the story... Stop at red lights, DAMNIT!


Edited, Thu Sep 30 18:25:39 2004 by kingjord

I wish I had premium to make a smiley rolling over laughing!

Since when have any automobiles succesfuly run on water!?

You are ******* hilarious!

Wait - So you guys were parked next to a car that was smoking, and sitting there talking, and not trying to get the driver out?





WTF?

I didn't clarify - but the light was very much red by the time the BMW entered the intersection.

Chicago is such a nice little town (city stfu).

I'm so scared to drive down into the city :(

I drove there once, and its just like trying to navigate through people in the halls of my HS which has a total of 5000 students attending the school :O !

People don't disregard the red lights, they just feel like stopping in the middle of intersections, or taking up two lanes, or driving on the sidewalk...

Yeah, but only as a hub between the coasts. No one ever leaves the airport and actually drives around.

Miami has the worst drivers I've seen yet.

A very large portion of the population are not English speakers, but I've yet to see a sign in any language other than English.

Around 80% of the time I go to Miami, I stay in the same hotel. It's right beside I95. All I have to do to hop on 95 is turn out of the parking lot, stop at a red light, turn left, and hang an immediate right onto the on-ramp. The red light I have to stop at has 4 lanes. They're clearly marked. The left two lanes turn left, the far right lane turns right, and the remaining center-right lane goes straight. None of the lanes have other options available. Yet every single time I go through this particular red light, I nearly get sideswiped by some idiot in the center-right lane making a left turn to get onto I95. In the past year, I've counted 11 near-wrecks, none of which would have been avoided if I weren't driving defensively.

Soprino, we might not have had water-fuelled cars yet, but it is being worked on.

Well...

Let's go back to horse riding then.

Christopher Reeve says "Just say Nay!"

Everyone has a different way of learning.

Driving in the U.S. is so civilized compared to Lima, Peru. There the lane dividers don't count for much, and whoever honks the loudest and curses the most has the right-of way.