All of a sudden, about two or so cars ahead of me, twin sets of lights started drifting across the N2, starting from the left hand side of the road and cutting straight across our path. Now I’m not sure if someone hit something, or had a blowout, or what happened, but all I know is that in a surreal, slow motion kind of way (as it always is), two cars locked in a deadly embrace came racing across the road and smashed head first into the concrete barrier flipping the one car on its side and sending the other straight back up in the air only to come straight down on its roof. Both cars literally landed as I came driving past and I can only thank God that not one of them landed in the road because otherwise we would have had a much, much bigger disaster on our hands.
As it was, it was pretty much a miracle that they didn’t hit anyone as they crossed the busy highway, because believe it or not, at that time of the morning the N2 is already pretty busy. I don’t know what happened to the occupants of the cars and I didn’t really hear anything about the accident on the news, so I can only hope that everyone walked out of that accident alive.
A person sometimes forgets just how dangerous it is to sit behind the wheel of a car, and you should always remember that the minute you start up your engine, you are not only taking your life into your hands – you are taking those of the other motorists out there as well.
And it is a funny thing how we seem to take the privilege of driving so lightly. I myself have written off three cars already, two of which the accidents involved other cars and one of which left a lady fairly injured after she was tossed out of the bakkie she was travelling in (you really should wear your seatbelt – it has saved my life a couple of times, that’s for sure!), and still there are times that I catch myself driving and not fully concentrating on the road or distracted in my own mind for some or other reason.
This incident has served to once again remind me about how dangerous driving really is, but I wonder… just how long is this reminder going to stick in the forefront of my mind?