Falling Down

There are few things in life as frustrating as driving in Los Angeles.

There are more cars on the road than there is room to drive them, every driver is in a rush, and because nobody is moving, everyone on the road is impatient and irritable.

On an irritation scale of 1-10, with one being "a vending machine ate my money" and ten being "I'm stuck in Los Angeles traffic," falling down the Grand Canyon ranks a solid six.

Every time I drive in L.A. I'm reminded of the Michael Douglas movie where he loses his mind in the middle of a crowded, slow-moving freeway and declares war on society.

I've spent an hour and a half before trying to get onto the freeway on-ramp. I've left for work fifteen miles away two hours early only to be castigated for being late. I once sat motionless on a busy street and looked into the car next to me only to see the driver casually reading a novel.

Driving in Los Angeles sucks, and I'm used to it. But nothing could have prepared me for what recently happened while driving through Burbank.

I am fresh off of visiting a frend and looking for a place to crash for the night. Annoyed at the slow-moving traffic, I pass a woman walking across the street. She is weaving her way through the crowded thoroughfare with casual disregard, used to the jam-packed traffic of Southern California.

It is a sight I have seen many times, and I think nothing of it.

Only seconds later, I glance in my rear view mirror just in time to see a horrific sight.

The woman collides with an automobile quickly backing out of a driveway with such force that she is flipped completely over the roof of the car.

Pulling an immediate u-turn in traffic, I reach for my cell phone and dial 911 for the second time in my life.

As I rush to the scene of the accident, I spot the man behind the wheel carrying the injured woman out of the street and onto the nearby sidewalk. I am too late to advise the terrified man from moving the poor woman, so I concentrate on keeping her mind active.

The woman seems relatively okay, but I know it is difficult to guage injuries after vehicular accidents. Fortunately, a police and medical crew happens to be just down the street and the emergency response shows up in record time.

The shocked woman asks me to call her boss for her. She was walking across the steet to return to work from her lunch break, and in the midst of being hit by a car, she still has the wherewithal to have someone call into work for her. It is not an easy call to make.

The paramedics wheel the woman into the ambulance, and a police officer asks me for my account of the accident. Things are handled quickly and efficiently. Just another in a long string of crashes on the streets of Los Angeles.

As I pull away from the scene, my eyes are on the road and my hands are at ten and two. It's easy to lose focus while driving in Los Angeles, but for this night I am as patient as an L.A. driver gets.