Let me tell you about the accident I was almost in

[kevm14]

Let me set the scene:
Today was a weird day. I almost teleworked but there was an emergent thing yesterday that I needed to go in to work on. When I got to work, there was no power anywhere. I think it went out around 5:15am. By 7:30am no one knew what was going on and we were told the restoration time was unknown. So I went to get coffee because there was none in the coffee mess. Came back, still no power. Then they grant leave for the day. Score. Just got a walk in and power was restored around 10am, so I did a few things and then left around 11am.

Traffic on the way home was pretty thick. The bridge was down to one lane. Then more crap on 138. Rt 4 was pretty slow, as there was some pothole paving bullshit right at the merge onto 4. Shortly up 4, I noticed the southbound lanes were even thicker. Then I heard sirens. Some kind of short police convoy was driving between the lanes as people moved over. It seemed to be Newport police. There were even a few motorcycles and a Middletown cop at the end. Weird.

More traffic as I went down 4N. I came to the last intersection before my exit as it had slowed to stop and go by this point. The light was green but the intersection was still jammed so I sat at the line in the left lane. Southbound was also stop and go in both lanes. I decided to sit even as the car in front of me inched forward - shouldn't enter until you can clear the whole thing. Turns out that prevented me from being involved in what was about to happen.

All at once, at my 11, this late model Chevy Impala heading south (opposite direction) seemed to suddenly veer as if to take the turn in front of me. As they were doing it, it seemed like they were rear ended (maybe they were stopped and accelerated to avoid being rear ended, unsuccessfully). So the car like spun around right in front of me and came to rest no more than about 10 feet in front of me. Instantly as that happened, several cars rear ended each other in the southbound lane one after another, possibly what the Impala was trying to avoid.

I would have been sideswipped had I been sitting in the intersection like a douchebag so that's a good thing. But the funny thing to me was I have been watching a lot of police chase videos on Youtube. Accidents, PIT maneuvers and all that. It seems I have been desensitized because as this whole situation unfolded literally right in front of me, I recall feeling quite calm and just watched it happen. I mean it's not like I would have been able to do anything about it anyway. But I didn't tense up, freak out or even make any motions. I just sat there, stopped at a green light and watched a car slide right to a stop in front of me. Pretty crazy. There was a guy next to me also stopped who saw it happen. At first I shook my head because someone was clearly not paying attention. But then I heard him say "that was close" and it took a minute to realize what he meant. I didn't initially even really understand I was in danger.

I ended up driving around the whole mess and going home. I couldn't have gotten 20 seconds up the road before I saw an NK cop responding so no issues there. I was a witness I suppose. But I doubt anyone got seriously hurt - just banged up.

[kevm14]

Here is the intersection.
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.5608069 ... a=!3m1!1e3