Scariest Drive Home From Davis, Ever!

Scariest drive home from Davis, ever!

I was driving east on I-80, from DMTC rehearsal in Davis, towards Sacramento. The highway construction people were closing the right lane and laying down traffic-guiding flares there (this was on the uphill segment leading to the crest of the bridge crossing the Sacramento River). A big rig moved slowly in the center lane, with me behind him, moving at 55 mph, or so.

A car speeding at about 90 mph raced past me on the right and tried to lane-change himself between the truck, and myself. He lost control, and fishtailed facing left, in an amazing skid across the entire freeway, ripping years of rubber right off the tires in furious smoke. The screech of the skid echoed off the guardrails. It was something out of Hollywood! I thought for sure I was going to T-Bone the driver's side, and kill him (but do me no favors either)! My mouth was agape, looking through his side windows a very short distance ahead, while still traveling at highway speed, thinking "he's gonna flip; he's gotta flip!, why doesn't he flip?"

His car didn't flip, though - it had a low center of gravity - and the tires took the entire, brutal punishment. Instead, he fishtailed again, facing right this time, exposing his passenger side to another possible T-Bone ramming from my vehicle. I finally stopped dead on the freeway, with the car full of acrid smoke and the screech echoing from above the Sacramento River across the entire city, but he sped away, despite the presence of the cop just over the crest of the bridge, trying once again to get around that damned truck! WTF?

My composure was - to say the least - rattled.

The ironic thing is the cop was just out-of-sight, so as far as California Highway Patrol is concerned, it never happened. The driver may have big tire issues, though, as a keepsake.

I need to go back there during the daytime, with a camera. I bet the skid marks on the roadway are legendary. The homeless folks living under the bridge are probably still talking about the screech.

(Alas, it's probably a bad idea. Pedestrians on freeway bridges are generally known as roadkill....)

UPDATE:

I never saw this movie, but Gabe says my experience sounds something like this: