I just saw something unusual.

I was driving down the southeast expressway from Boston. Just after the 128/3 split, an old Chevy station wagon 'forgot' to take the left hand bend and basically kept going straight, all the way from the left hand lane across 2 lanes and into the right hand barrier at about 50mph.

This is happening literally 20 yards ahead of me, so I stamp on my brakes and hit the flashers, thinking that this Chevy is going to be a real mess Real Soon Now (tm).

The car impacts at the front right corner and bounces out. As it bounces, it's spun so that the rear right corner gets a slice of the barrier action too. To my amazement, the second impact leaves the car facing the right way, and the driver regains control and pulls over.
So I pull over to check that everyone is ok. Fortunately no-one appears to be injured. The middle aged female driver was like, "I don't know what happened there...I lost control...I don't know why", while making gestures that seem to indicate that perhaps she had been trying to get something out of her purse from the passenger footwell at the time. She doesn't look really shocked or worried - her demeanour is as if she's just reversed into a concrete pillar in a car park.

So we check out the damage. Given the speed of the impact I was amazed - most of the side of the car was untouched. There's a crunch in both bumpers and a rear light is out. Front wheel is badly scuffed and the tire has a chunk out the sidewall. I'm thinking that the tire needs replacing pronto, and that the alignment probably needs checking. She's wondering whether it's safe to drive back to the North Shore as is. (~30 miles).

Crazy. I just wanted to bitch slap and shout at her. She had no understanding of just how lucky she was. She could have easily been spun into the path of a big truck.

Oh well. There's no educating some people I guess.