Like a Little Toy Car

I was doing 50 mph on the 101 when the little car sped past me. There was a slippery sheen of rainwater on the highway and I was keeping pace with two other cars next to me. The little car poked through us and raced on ahead.

I normally would be doing the same speed it was, but with this rain, I didn’t want to risk it. “That driver is nuts,” I told myself as it weaved through us.

“What a tiny car that is,” I thought—it looked smaller than a typical compact—when I saw it suddenly begin to spin around.

Round and round it went. It spun and slingshot off the highway, and like a little toy car, bounced off the right embankment and into the dark water.

I saw its headlights jiggle up and down and, as the car finally came to rest, turn off. It looked intact as it came to rest halfway in the water.

I stared at it for a few moments, in shock. Then I applied my brakes and veered off into the right shoulder. Another car ahead of me did the same, but continued driving towards the next exit. I looked up and saw that it was the 3Com Park exit.

Flipping on my hazard lights, I dug into my pants for my cell phone. Then I dialed 911.

Adrenalin pushed a flurry of words out of my mouth. “I’m on the 101 right now, heading towards San Francisco. I just saw a car spin off the road and into the water. I’m on the 101, right before the 3Com Park exit. A car just spun off the road. It’s halfway in the water, on the 101…”

“Okay. So you saw you saw a car slide off the road on the 101, northbound, right before the 3Com Park exit?”

“Yes, yes…”

“Okay. What is your name and home phone number?”

I gave her my information and she thanked me for the call. Then I shut my cell phone and looked behind me. I couldn’t see the car anywhere. “Why did its lights turn off?” I thought to myself.

My mouth was dry. I noticed that my heart was beating very quickly. It was too dark to see the car. “Should I get out and walk to the car, or make a u-turn and drive up to the car?” I wondered.

I had a feeling that I traveled quite a ways before regaining my senses and pulling over to the shoulder, so I decided to make a u-turn and come around to the car. I shifted back into drive and made for the next exit. “If I drive up to it, I could turn on my hazards and help the police find us,” I thought.

I took the next exit right after 3Com Park. In my adrenalin haze, I got lost in a maze of deserted streets surrounding tall hotels. Precious minutes were wasted trying to find my way out of that damn labyrinth.

My mouth was still dry. “I really really hope I don’t see a dead body,” I told myself as I drove around in the darkness. “The impact wasn’t too harsh, so the driver can’t be too badly hurt, though the whiplash is going to be bad.”

When I finally was able to double back and get onto the 101 northbound again, I slowed down and scanned the embankment. Ahead of me, I saw a slow moving police car with a searchlight.

I passed the police car and drove over to where I saw the little car crash. It was near the beginning of an exit, I remembered. I could still see the tiny car, halfway in the water, dark and dormant. I gulped and wondered how the driver was.

I sat in my car and watched the police car pull up. Two officers in raincoats got out and, with flashlights, made their way down to the car. “I guess I’ve done all I can,” I told myself, and shifted back into drive and returned to the highway.

The ride home was quick. At least, it seemed quick. I couldn’t get the image of that car, spinning around like a little toy and careening into the water. I wondered about the driver and whether or not I should have ran back there instead of doing that stupid long-winded u-turn.

After I got home, my cell phone rang.

“Hello, this is officer something-or-other. Did you just report a collision on the 101?”

“Yes! Yes, I did.”

“Can you tell me what you saw?”

I recounted the experience as closely as I could. I told him how it wasn’t a collision, that this tiny car was speeding, and that it lost control ahead of us. The officer asked me several times to verify the speed of the vehicle to the best of my estimation.

Then he asked me, “Did you see the driver of the car?”

“No, I didn’t. It was too dark. Why?”

“Well, we didn’t find anyone in the car.”

Chills bubbled up my spine. Spooky. “You didn’t see anyone?!”

“No, no one was inside. We looked around and couldn’t find anyone in the area.”

“Whoa. Um…” I tried to digest that spooky bit of information.

“What about the other two cars you saw?”

“Oh! Actually, I saw another car pull over ahead of me. He didn’t stop, but exited right away. Maybe he came around and picked up the driver of that car?”

“Possibly. Okay, can you give me your address and date of birth?”

“Sure.” I’m not quite sure why they wanted my date of birth, but I gave them all of that information.

“Great, thank you for calling this in. If you didn’t call it in, we would have never found this car.”

“Sure, no problem. I hope that driver is okay.”

The officer thanked me again and hung up. I crawled into bed and lay awake for an hour, waiting for the adrenalin to subside. The image appeared in my mind over and over again, like an instant replay. I wondered what I would have seen if I had just run back to the car, and what I would have done. Different scenarios played over and over again in my head, each with varying outcomes.

The instant replay and varying scenarios continued into I finally passed into sleep.