[ST] Danziger force field is alive and well...

["Marc Danziger" <marc@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

...and now works on cars!!

Heading up the 405 for a lunch meeting, wondering what I was going to do since I was so early, I managed to find out...

...Car A changes lanes into Car B, which swerves and is clipped by Car C, who zooms across three lanes of freeway until it hits the jersey barrier, whereupon a wheel flies off, hops over the barrier, and is hit head-on by Car D. Everyone clear?

This all happens, of course, at a part of the freeway (just north of the El Segundo Blvd. exit for the LA folks) that swerves to the left, meaning that cars coming up the HOV lane...Car C is stopped 1/2 in the HOV lane...the average speed when I was going up was about 80...have about three seconds to see the stopped car and come to a halt.

So another motorcyclist (on a Nighthawk) stops alongside the car, I pull in front and stop, hop over the center divider (there is about 5' of shoulder on the other side) and check on the driver. This is made convenient by the fact that the car is wedged tightly against the center divider.

She has a bruise coming up on her cheek, and I can't find anything else wrong with her, but the process is made more complex by the fact that she is crying, screaming, and carrying on like her legs have been amputated.

Cars are coming up to the scene and screeching to a halt, so at this point, I ask the other rider (also named Marc or Mark) to try and wave the cars off...whereupon he hops back over the barrier and stands in the _middle_of_the_lane_, waving cars off...waaay big balls...not much sense...

I get her calmed down and checked out, she shows no signs of any meaningful injury, and as another car screeches to a halt in front of Mark, made the call to get her out of the damn car; so I pulled her out the window and sat her on the barrier in front of me. I figured that if I saw a car headed our way, I'd just pull her over to the other side and let her car get hit again.

Interesting accident scene management problem, no?

One CHP shows up, runs a break in traffic, parks his car across the #3 & 4 lanes, gets on the PA and tells us to get the hell off the road and over to the side, where Cars A and B are stopped (Car D stopped, backed up to the wide shoulder by the HOV lane, and the driver announced that he was OK, had no license, and wasn't sticking around). 

Did I mention that she has fibromyalga and can't walk without a cane?

Mark and I get her into an armchair carry and start carrying her across the road, whereupon one of the cars decides to make a break for freedom...the CHP officer is out of his car at this point, and flings something hard -- THUNK!! -- at the car as it goes by.

We get her to the shoulder, sit her down, and the officer tells us to get our bikes out of there NOW. 

We do, the paramedics and ambulances show up (and immediately assume that Mark and I are the accident victims...we're both waving them off as they are grabbing us to get us to sit down). Mark saw the whole thing, he can stick around, I leave a card since I'm now _late_ for lunch, and head up the road.

And of course, on the way back, _another_ 4 car fender-bender in front of me.

Who knew I had that much power over vehicles?? Muaaahaha...


MarcD, another evil, neon-clad speed-demon Los Angeles biker...who will be staying home for the next 24 hours...


     *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
      The ST/RS Mailing list is sponsored by Jack Lilley Ltd.
          http://www.TriumphNet.com/st/lilley for more info
   http://www.TriumphNet.com/st for ST, RS and Mailing List info

=-=-=-= Next Message =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=