Timing is Everything

Today's post has little to do with my job search - other than maybe serving as a reminder of the greater picture.

I had one of those "If I'd been here 5 minutes earlier....." moments while driving to work today.

There was a fairly severe 3-car accident on the exit ramp that I use each morning. This exit ramp ends at a stoplight where you can turn either left or right onto the secondary road. From what I could see, it appeared as though a minivan traveling north on the secondary road wanted to turn onto the ramp that would lead back onto the highway. This on-ramp begins immediately next to where the off ramp stops at the light. The minivan from the secondary road as well as a second car which had to be traveling on the secondary road as well had hit the first car waiting at that off-ramp light head on.

Either the minivan just mis-read which lane was actually the on-ramp or the second car somehow tried to occupy the same space as that minivan trying to get to the on-ramp forcing the van to shift over enough to aim right into the off-ramp. I have no way of knowing the specifics.

There was an ambulance and fire truck present, but based on the damage to the cars, any injuries were not likely to have been too severe, thankfully. Regardless, the scene shook me up. I'm often the first or second car in that line. It easily could have been me. And, this morning it very nearly was.

As S and I got ready to go our separate ways he mentioned something about having to move the dry cleaning out of my car into his so that he could drop it off on his way to work. I told him not to bother. When I get to work is more flexible, I have the shorter commute at the moment and the weather was bad, so who knew what kind of traffic he'd run into. The time it took me to drop the clothes off and get back to my normal morning was probably somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes. Just enough time to ensure that I was not at the front of that line when that accident occurred.

And yes, I realize that if I'd gotten on the highway when I normally do, instead of 5-10 minutes later then I would have traveled with a whole different set of cars in a completely different traffic pattern and who knows if that accident would have happened at all. But it still makes me sit back and think, just a tiny bit.