Oncoming Traffic

The contest post from the other day came very close to being the last post by me to Rants from Cold Cold Canada or anywhere else for that matter last night.

I had decided that I would visit my parents in Orillia this weekend. SouthernKitten is visiting her parents, Mary is also visiting family, so the idea managed to get into my head that maybe I should visit mine. I hadn't been to Orillia since Canadian Thanksgiving, so it seemed like good timing.

It's a long drive, made longer when one stops and visits friends for hours at a time along the way. I try to make the most of it. I had my notebook hooked up in the car connected to my GPS and stereo, so I could see where I was on a bigger, better screen than my GPS has and listen to MP3s on the car stereo. It's really a very entertaining way to drive.

It was a pretty uneventful drive until I was just outside Orillia.

Traffic there was extremely light, with only the occasional car visible going either way along the divided highway I take into town. This was mostly due to the fact that it was very late at night. Because of my late departure time and time spent with friends, I had an estimated time of arrival at my parents' house sometime around quarter to two in the morning.

At around 1:30 AM, two pairs of headlights came into view in the southbound lanes (I was heading north). One pair had something funny about them, the driver was flashing their highbeams for some reason... That was odd.. Then I noticed that the second pair of headlights was NOT actually IN THE SOUTHBOUND LANE. He was driving south at 100 kph in the northbound lanes. I quickly made sure that I was in a different lane (I honestly don't remember at this point whether this involved changing lanes or not) and then the car whooshed by my left.

The combined closing speed would have been well over 200 kilometers per hour (Over 125 MPH). If we'd hit there's just no way I would have survived. All that would have been left of CanadaDave would have been a red ooze in the middle of a pile of twisted metal.

I immediately pulled over and called 911. After asking me where I'd seen him, the police advised me that they were aware of the car and were on the way. I saw a couple cruisers screaming down the southbound lanes a minute or two later.

I hope they caught managed to stop him without any casualties. Also, to the driver of the second car, the one flashing highbeams, Thank You. Your actions meant that I noticed something was wrong a second or two earlier and may well have been the difference between life and death.