NFR - Be Alert! ... a moral about driving

[Pete]

Winter driving, particularly across the Coast Range, can be trecherous. But an incident today brought home the lesson that you can't anticipate all the dangers, so BE SAFE! BE ALERT!

Returning to Portland today on dry pavement and bright skies at 3:30 PM on the Wilson River Highway I was following a Ford Pickup near milepost 17. Suddenly the pickup started swerving all over the road, smashing the side of a parked Datsun P/U and slamming the guard rails on both sides of the road several times! Plastic shards erupted into the air like fireworks! With the violent fishtailing I thought the truck was about to flip. It didn't and came to rest pressed into the guard rail about 200 yards from where it hit the Datsun. Apparently he had a blow out on his front right tire.

I pulled over immediately to make sure they guy was OK, as did a Reser's Semi and another car with an off duty State Police Detective. Remarkably, the driver was uninjured, but the truck was totalled. His seatbelt kept him from slamming all over the inside of the truck. But the poor guy was really shaken up. He'd borrowed the truck from a cousin to pick up some plants for his wife back home in Nehalem.

Of course, cell phones are useless on most of Highway 6, but the trucker was able to convey a message by CB to another trucker who relayed the message to police dispatch. The Reser's driver also had accident forms and flares, so by the time the State Police showed up, the area was marked and the forms were filled out.

It still took almost 2 hours to get everything taken care of at the scene before I drove the poor guy to his brother's house in Forest Grove.

Talk about bad luck and poor judgement. This guy lost his driver's license for DUII 14 months ago. He said he's been sober since then. (He passed the field sobriety tests.) He could have renewed his license last October, but he didn't because he couldn't afford SR-22 insurance. Now he's not likely to get a license any time in the foreseeable future, he owes his cousin the cost of a truck, he owes a couple bank fishermen something for the damage to their vehicle and he received citations for driving without a license, driving without insurance and wreckless driving.

Certainly I do not condone unlicensed or uninsured driving. It is completely unacceptable!

However, due to an unforeseen event, this guy will be paying the price for years to come.

The moral of this story ... finally ... is that it isn't enough to be aware of the obvious hazards of deer, elk, ice, rock slides and bad drivers ... please also be alert to the potential for other unexpected events that may seriously alter your life! You may have insurance, a driver's license and a well maintained car, but things can happen that may not turn out as well ... this guy may have been a schmoe and a loser, but he was uninjured! I'd prefer not to hear about any Ifishers with unfortunate experiences, OK?

[ 12-28-2001: Message edited by: Pete ]</p>

[Salmonator]

I read through a few times and can't see why he went out of control in the first place??

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

Pete

SR-22 filing (for Oregon)

(wife's an insurance agent)

*** Clerk

[Seefood Man]

Lets see--No licence, no insurance cause of an DUI
NO Pity here! There is a reason he should not have been driving. I can't tell you the number of times I had to tell parents, or tell kids that their loved ones "didn't make it" :depressed:
And not to mention,, two years ago someone hit my wife and she was injuried, the moron had no licence, no insurance all from past DUI's. I've would have made that guy walk home!!! Cause that is what he should have been doing in the begining