Monday, March 03, 2014

Near Death Experience No.2

Contrary to popular rumour, your life does not flash before your eyes. All you get is the sheer naked terror of "Here it comes", and then the end. Or maybe I wasn't near enough to death to get the full 12-inch remix.

But that was close enough for one day.

~~~~WAVY LINES~~~~

Standard drive home from work, with the addition of a joker in a blue van weaving in and out of traffic across the motorway junction and down the A33 out of Reading.

Like any no-indicator traffic-weaver, he wasn't actually getting any further in front of anybody, just inconveniencing the maximum number of people who had to brake and take evasive action to cater for his shitty driving.

Then, as we threw his vehicle in front of me without so much as a by-your-leave, and as he did so, an unsecured scaffolding pole slipped off the roof and hurtled toward me.

A scaffolding pole.

Six feet of metal, arcing through the air in slow motion, directly toward my head as I wondered what the bloody hell I could do at 60mph on a dual carriageway.

It bounced once, and I threw two wheels onto the central reservation and waited for the worst.

"Here it comes."

There it goes.

It bounced back up at an angle, missed me by inches and ended up who-knows-where.

Blue van man had no idea what he had done, but it didn't stop me giving him a mouthful at the next roundabout.

Then I fled home, lucky to be alive.

~~~~WAVY LINES~~~~

All I had to show for it was a tiny, tiny chip on the passenger's side windscreen where the bouncing pole had thrown up a stone.

Oh, and a squeaky bum, but I have one of those anyway.

So, if you work in the construction trade somewhere in Berks/North Hampshire, and drive a blue Movano with last three on the index of GRU, this is my message to you:

"You're a disgrace, and you shouldn't be allowed out of doors without a grown-up."

Still not dead.

5 comments:

Bank of Evil said...

Were there any yellow minions in the GRU vehicle?

AmyP said...

I had something similar happen to me once, too. Actually, twice. One of them had his music going so loud he never knew what he had done. It is indeed really scary. Let's hope that is your quota for your lifetime. You will get over it but will have another story to tell.

Lucky you tho for living where you do. You can "tell each other off" with some degree of safety. Where I live, if you offend someone or tell them off, it's quite possible they will pull out a gun and shoot you dead. Just one example: google "Florida movie theater shooting". I live in one of the states where you can carry a concealed gun. Makes it interesting when combined with the country's binge drinking problem.

TRT said...

The "Tubular Bells" music you can hear was not the scaffolding pole hitting the tarmac, but incidental music from The Omen.

Anonymous said...

So. One less Pole in the building trade now?

Penguin's Waddle said...

That's a stupendously witty and sharp comment from Anonymous. Why didn't I think of that??

Well done you :-)