Publick Servyce Announcement

First, I thought I'd post this alert for both of my Atlanta readers. But I realize what I'm about to say could apply to anyone who ever uses HOV lanes on interstates.

Wednesday night, Mr. Button and I went to the Atlanta airport (about an hour 15 minutes to two hours from my house, dependent on traffic and weather) to pick up our little Snap, who was flying in from a snowy visit to Durango, CO, via Denver. Her flight arrived at midnight. On I-85, north of Atlanta, it began to rain; there was almost no traffic. In fact, I'd never seen so little traffic going into Atlanta, so that was good. Since I had a passenger with me (i.e. Mr. B), I was able to zip into the HOV lane with confidence. We were tooling along at about 65 mph, admittedly a bit fast for the weather conditions. A truck going extremely fast changed into the HOV lane in front of me, and in a few seconds, put on his brakes and went into the lane from which he had come. I was just forming the thought "what an assh...." when I saw a wreck in the HOV lane ahead. Several piece of information came to me at once: a. I gotta stop b. soon c. very soon d. there is a car in the lane to my right. I hit the brakes and time went into that slow-motion suspension reserved specifically for pre-accidents. Thankfully, though, I was able to stop in time. The anti-lock brakes kicked in, which I've never felt, I don't think. Very bumpy and jerky, but whatever it took to stop was fine.

The problem was a slight curve coupled with the fact that the HOV lane is to the far left, affording little visibility ahead around the retaining wall that divides the north/south or east/west sides of an interstate in a city. The other big problem was that the wrecked car nearest me was demolished with its headlights out, facing me, and was black, so there was nothing to alert me to its presence from afar. Plus it was halfway in the next lane, meaning I had to have two lanes clear to get around. Its front tires were sitting horizontally, to show how bad the damage was. Two or three other cars were involved; they were stopped a bit further ahead . I came to a complete stop about 20 yards from the wreck, and saw in my rearview mirror part two of the potential threat: a car coming fast behind me, but it swerved into the other lane before hitting. When I was able to get around the mess, we noticed a group of 5-6 people standing behind the wrecked vehicle. I'm not sure where they were supposed to go, but I hope they ended up being all right because if anyone hit that first car, it would have slammed into them.

So my point here is this: this incident changed my thinking regarding HOV lanes tremendously. Coming home, I was in the lane again for a bit, but I couldn't get comfortable with the fact that the visibility around the curves was, essentially, zero. Anything could be right ahead, and I wouldn't have time to stop, no way. The farther to the right you are, the better the visibility. The thing is that I feel less comfortable having cars on both sides of me, and I'll never be able to stand driving in the far right (slowest) lane.

But maybe saying this will alert others to a danger of the HOV that I never before considered.