neadods | That was more exciting than it needed to be

Before I forget, two reviews up at the newly reorganized Unreality SF:
Doctor Who: Dust Breeding and The Scarifyers: The Nazad Conspiracy.

Now. I want to deeply, DEEPLY thank everyone who wished me good/safe travel, because I needed that goodwill today. Most of the trip was so boring that I kept telling myself that it wasn't worth even logging into LJ today to tell. And then... Reading this will take longer than it took to happen, but for something so short, I'm still pretty shaken up. I hope that if I get it out of my head through my fingers, I can stop thinking about it.

Route 79 just north of Pittsburgh looks like a repainted Eisenhower highway; multiple lanes, but not very wide ones. Line of cement jersey barriers to the left a couple feet off the road (no shoulder); another line to the right with only an extra foot or so. Two lanes going through traveling at regular highway speeds (Posted: 55. Actual: 70). Another lane to the right as an on-ramp for people coming out of Pittsburgh that will merge into the now-middle lane in about 1/4 mile. Traffic had been light, but we were starting to bunch up as we picked up people from the city.

I'm in the far left lane. Ahead, I see a flash of red. It's hard to focus on because there are several cars between me and it, but it looks like a red pickup hauling something is two cars ahead on the middle. After a couple seconds of fishtailing, it shifts lanes to the left, coming in three cars ahead of me. As it crosses the line, I see a wildly waving two-wheel trailer with some large pipe-y thing, like part of a factory's air conditioning unit.

I think "That guy's not in control at all. Look, it's swinging back to the right again. He shouldn't be changing lanes!" The cars that had been behind him roar down the road as soon as the lane is passable again. Getting that idiot in my rear view mirror sounds like a good plan, so I look right, but there's someone right beside me and another one on his tail too close; I'll have to wait to be able to move even though the middle lane is clear in front of me. The rightmost lane is empty.

The road was so empty that I could see clearly, although for a nanosecond I didn't understand what I was seeing - which was the unconnected trailer hitch crossing all three lanes sideways. I'm taking my foot off the gas, thinking "good, nobody's over there, we can get past it slowly" as it runs into the jersey barriers just off the right lane...

...and it BOUNCES, spinning in complete circles now, moving towards the oncoming traffic, disappearing in front of the car in front of me, not bouncing back, and brake lights flare and I'm standing on the brake with both feet feeling the anti-lock brakes shuddering under my soles and the brake lights are getting closer and all I can think of is how many cars could pile up and my whole world is a plea to physics, "Let me stop in time, Stop In Time, STOPINTIMESTOPINTIMESTOPINTIME..."

I did.

The car behind me did.

Everybody did, in fact. There were no screeches, no whumps, no sounds of shattering. Suddenly the world was simply frozen, there was no other word for it. I looked to the right again and everyone in every lane had just stopped dead.

The car ahead of me put its turn signal on. The car beside it moved forward, at about 20 miles an hour, letting it move over at about 15 miles an hour, leaving me to contemplate the hitch end of a two-wheel trailer, still with a gigantic pipe strapped to it, about 20 feet away. I put my turn signal on. The car just behind me on the right didn't move, so I pulled out at about 10 miles an hour. I should have waved a thank-you, but nothing on this Earth could have pried my hands off the wheel. I had a white-knuckled grip until I picked up my turnpike ticket in Ohio.

At the first turnpike stop, I just got out and sat there for a very long time, pretending to read.

I don't even know what to call it. An accident? How can I call it an accident? Because everyone ELSE on the road was a good driver, there were no injuries to people, no dented cars. Even the trailer hitch didn't look too battered.

And what am I supposed to call myself but okay? I wasn't in an accident because it wasn't an accident. But... I've gone from the numb of "I have to make an unpleasant drive before a fun thing can happen" to the numb of "there is plate glass between me and the world."