It’s extremely easy. All it takes is a few seconds of looking around at the wrong time or simply not paying attention. It’s so easy my wife was almost involved in a very bad wreck yesterday.
Katie was driving home on I-55 near Senatobia. She had just picked up our two children who had been staying with their grandparents. As she came over a hill, driving nearly 70 mph, she had to slam on her brakes to avoid hitting a car that was stopped on the interstate. The car was stopped due to construction work, but because there was a hill blocking her view Katie had no idea of this.
Luckily she was able to avoid hitting the car in front of her. She told me that only moments earlier she had been looking in her rear view mirror to check on our baby boy, and if she would have been doing it five seconds later there would have been no way she could have avoided a horrible accident.
Katie was also lucky that the 18 wheeler that was behind her was able to swerve off the road to avoid rear ending her. This truck was also caught off guard and could have seriously injured or killed my family. I’m very grateful today that the driver of this truck was paying attention and alert. If not for this I could be sitting here right now in complete sorrow and shock. I thank God that I am not.
You never know what will happen on any given day or at any given time. But when you’re on the road please pay attention. Don’t text people. Don’t zone out. Don’t drive when exhausted or intoxicated. Yesterday my wife and the driver of the semi truck behind her were alert and attentitive. If either one would not have been things would be very different for me right now.
P.S. The reason why I practice law, and do the work I do, is to help people who arent’ as lucky as I am this morning. Somewhere there is a person who had a completely different outcome than me on this occasion. That is the person who needs help. I can’t fully understand the pain and hurt that they are going through. No one really can. But we simply listen and do the best we can.
