• j4k3@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Semi truck lost an entire wheel and tire in front of me at night on the 405 freeway ~2006 driving in the Alameda area south of LA. The wheel and tire managed to ramp up and over the center K-rail divider and into an oncoming car at full speed. I was in the fast lane. I thought I was far enough away as I saw the entire thing unfolding from the moment the wheel came loose. The car that hit the wheel was like something out of Hollywood special effects. The wheel smashed the front in with tremendous force and sent the car airborne with the trunk coming up over the hood in an end over flip. It did this as it ran up the K-rail from the opposing side and was timed so that it was almost entirely above the height of the K-rail with the brightest beam of headlights illuminating through my side window like someone briefly shining a flashlight directly inside. It felt like slow motion and surreal with stuff flying everywhere. The only thing that registered during and immediately after was that the car was coming over that rail and into me. I was super shaken up for a minute or two. Enough to pull off the road and contemplate life for a minute. It wasn’t until the next day that I saw something had hit the hood of my car and left a small dent and a few scratches, but I painted cars at the time, so no big deal.

    The guy that disabled me in 2014 made a u-turn on a hill, in a blind turn from an illegally double parked perspective, directly into a passing SUV with a bicycle just behind them. The passing SUV never reacted and with the turn of the road and SUV in front of me that I had just dropped behind in order to pass this double parked king-of-clowns too important for laws, I had no warning. I never imagined that “king-of-clowns” was an intellectual mastermind level in comparison to this Ace of Spades dumb enough to drive directly into a passing vehicle in a place where it is not even legal to make a left turn from a driveway. He got a DUI two days later, while I was in the ICU under critical watch, while driving his wife’s car.