Wednesday 4 January 2012

R.T.A.

So, having ridden to work I pack my bicycle away, collect the company van and head off to a contract clean.
The Chichester by-pass, and in particular the round-about where the Bognor Road joins it, is an accident waiting to happen.
I avoid it like the plague and drive along the quiet roads that run, more or less, parallel with it.  This detour adds about 2 miles to the overall journey but is actually quicker.
I'm 3 cars back from the 'T' junction where I turn right toward the village of Tangmere.
A blue car begins to turn right from the main road on to the road I'm on.
A silver car appears from the Tangmere direction (my right) and impacts the blue car heavily.
The blue car hits the front of a black car stood at the junction waiting to turn left.
Everything stands still.
When I recover from the momentary shock I find myself thinking "that was not supposed to happen".

It's one of those situations where seconds become hours.
The driver of the car in front of me gets out of his car and heads toward the pile of wreckage.
The driver of the car behind me gets out of his car and heads toward the pile of wreckage.
I'm not sure what I should do.
I'm usually good in a crisis, I have some basic first aid skills, am unmoved by the sight of blood and guts and can make a pretty good cup of tea but can't for the life of me think what to do in this situation.
I decide to try and remember as much as I can about what just happened then get out of my vehicle and walk toward the incident filming the scene on my mobile phone:

The man holding the back of his head is the driver of the silver car.
I don't think he should be moving around until he's received medical attention.
I realise that I may seem callous in the extreme wandering around filming so I return to my vehicle and leave.

My admiration goes out to the man in the baseball cap who had the presence of mind to use his mobile phone to call for assistance.

I've spent the rest of the day trying to remember exactly what happened with out trying to interpret it, just remembering the facts.
I'm going to have a cup of tea now as I've stopped shaking enough to drink it without spilling it.
I suspect the police may want to have a word with me at some point.

1 comments:

Wartime Housewife said...

How ghastly. I hope the bloke in the car was alright. I also hope you have stopped shaking and have revived. The problem is, one becomes so suspicious these days, because some people immediately clutch their necks just to be on the safe side in case there's any compo going.