Drunk Driving

It seems like our street is giving us entertainment by the day but not the kind that you want to rejoice over. I have been trying to run on a regular basis for health and good spirits. Usually I do it at 6 in the morning. There is a long street behind our house, past the military base, that does not have a lot of cross streets, thus I do not have to deal with a lot of traffic. This Sunday morning it was drizzling a bit but the temperature was perfect.

I had finished and was walking back to my apartment and had reached within two blocks of home when I heard a sound of metal grating behind me. The streets were pretty void of traffic on Palm Sunday morning but there must have been one car traveling and he must have been going fast by the sound of the screaching metal. Two blocks back I watched as the car was skidding along the edge of the asphalt, scraping on the cement curb. It jumped the curb without flipping over but in horror I watched as it headed right for one of the huge lamp posts in the median. It nailed the lamp post putting what looked like a two foot dent in the front of the car, the back flew up and around as the top of the lamp post flew off, falling on the car and the pole laid flat on the ground.



Nothing moved except my thoughts.

I wan't the only one witnessing it. "They're drunk," stated the man who passed me on the sidewalk.

"Plastered drunk," the man up the street agreed in a voice with a hint of disdain in it.

I considered running to see if the people were alright but I am embarrassed to say that I did not really want to and actally kept walking, hoping that someone else would help, knowing I do not handle such situations well. I actually didn't need to because within 1 minute the car was surrounded by 20 people and the police were called. In reality, I am embarassed to say, but what I thought was,"Shoot, the street was just getting nice and now we have one less light on this street because of a careless drunk person." That was a terrible judgement, I know, because I do not even know if he really was drunk, but at that time in the morning and that kind of driving, there is not much else it could be.

I do not know what happened to the person or people in the accident. The car was gone by afternoon. I hope the city fixes the pole, I doubt they had insurance.