2002-11-16 - 11:52 a.m.

the Sound of Freeway Death

Last night was incredibly foggy. About as bad as I've seen Davis and San Francisco get. Originally I was going to drive down to House of Voodoo by myself, but meet NewWave and Redwood there. However, I couldn't get a hold of my brother to find out if we were going to the train club meeting this morning, and decided that I wanted to ride with both of them. NewWave is moving to a new job to Fresno in a few weeks, and I'm going to miss him joining us on our club trips.

House of Voodoo is one of my favorite Bay Area clubs. The people there generally are a bit friendlier than other clubs, and the Electro Lounge is pretty much Redwood's and mine to dominant. Everything went fine at the club.

However, on the way home it was still foggy. There was a point on I-80 when I saw what I thought was a big box rolling in between the lanes ahead of us. The visibility was pretty poor because of the fog, but I still remember casually telling NewWave (he was driving his truck) to watch out. A second later I saw that the box was a large yellow dog. =(

The dog looked lost, and the car in the lane next to us was directly at our side. I hesitated for mille-second, but considered screaming "Move out of this lane!" Why would I do that? I don't like it when a car is next to me, and exactly for this reason. The guy next to us could have moved into the empty lane to his left, and if we moved away from him, he could safely have moved into our lane.

But I didn't scream. I just watched and listened. Why? Well, when I used to backseat drive when Bane was driving (and Bane, though a friend, is the worst driver I've met), he would freak out. Once I told him to avoid a huge Texas sized gutter in College Station and he overreacted and blew out his tire when he jumped a curb. I don't like backseat driving. But I wonder if I could have saved that dog's life if I had screamed.

I saw the dog when there was time to react. I have better vision than most people. And my reaction speed is incredibly fast too. (My attention span is my weakness, but I happened to be looking forward last night.)

As we passed the dog I heard a THUD. The car next to us didn't move, though he did break when he saw the dog. But he still nailed the dog dead on. It was one of the most horrible sounds I?ve heard. It sounded much like a car door slamming shut.

I couldn't bring myself to look back, but I wondered if I could have or should have acted to save the dog?s life. I know it is just a dog, but that dog was loved by somebody. He/she had a family and they are now going to find that their puppy wandered onto I-80 and got run over by a car. And worse, I saw and heard it happen.

What do you do if you hit a dog? What do you do if you're in a truck next to the car that hits a dog? If we had moved and if the other guy was paying better attention could he have missed the dog? It did seem lost and confused. It didn?t run. Maybe it had already been doing this. But why there? Would another car eventually have hit the dog?

The worst part is to think what could any of us on the road have done if that was a human? I know I would have made NewWave stop. I kinda wanted to there too. But it would have endangered our lives too. It really was that hard to see. Foggy, 2 AM ... but it still bothers me.

LISTENING TO: Grendel End of Ages EP

-=-

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