Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation by Edward Humes Read Free Book Online Page A

sentence, two more car crashes occurred on America’s roads and streets. 3
    The day began with a wreck in New Hampshire so bad, it closed a frigid highway in both directions: a wooded stretch of Route 16 in the town of Milton, just short of the Maine state line. The road had to be scrubbed of cars and trucks so the first responders could descend on the twisted wreckage, trying to stanch the blood, then extract the occupants and attempt to resuscitate those who showed no signs of life but who might yet be saved. Next came the investigators, followed by the coroners, then the tow trucks and, finally, the cleanup crews to carry off the post-crash debris and the detour signs, letting the inexorable flow of traffic resume. Four hours later, a bit past midnight, no sign remained of the three women and the family dog who perished in a head-on collision. The crash occurred while it was still Thursday, but its aftermath spilled over into Friday the thirteenth.
    Most days in America begin with a lane or street or highway closed somewhere because of a fatal crash the night before.
    Victoria Rose had been driving south on the two-lane highway toward her home in Revere, Massachusetts, when her 2005 Jeep Liberty SUV drifted across the centerline and into northbound traffic. This would be the first of many such “over-the-line” wrecks this day, a common sort of accident. The fifty-seven-year-old died instantly when she collided head-on with a Subaru Outback station wagon that had been cruising quite legally and properly in the northbound lane. That driver, Allison Smith, an environmental expert with the nonprofit New England States Committee on Electricity, survived only long enough to be cut free from her mangled car and rushed to a local hospital, where the thirty-one-year-old died within minutes. One of her passengers,Vanessa Cox of Boston, athletic department administrator at Brandeis University, also died in the hospital emergency room. A third person in the Subaru, Lucy Pollard, a prep school teacher and Allison Smith’s wife, survived with serious injuries, as did a passenger in Rose’s Jeep. A small dog riding in that car had to be euthanized at the scene.
    Wandering over lane lines, either off the road to the right or into oncoming traffic to the left—“road departure” and “lane departure” are the official terms—can be a hallmark of distracted driving or dozing at the wheel. But, as is often the case, establishing with certainty the cause for Rose’s fatal swerve has been difficult for investigators. Those most able to explain were killed.
    Friday the thirteenth was full of such unexplained drifts into destruction. Jillian L. “Jilly” Rebel was a victim of one. A forty-year-old worker at a local gas station and convenience store, Jilly was well-known in her community for her cheery greetings to customers and her love of all sorts of animals. On Friday the thirteenth she drifted across the centerline on I–80 in Lackawannock Township, Pennsylvania, at 2:30 in the afternoon. Her PT Cruiser hit the grassy median, skidded, and rolled four times before crunching to a halt. With her seat belt left unbuckled as she drove—another common theme this day—she hurtled out of the car to her death during the roll.
    Ten minutes later, eighty-seven-year-old Dick Morgan died at the wheel of his Ford F–150 pickup on Minnesota State Highway 19 after he, too, drifted across the centerline and collided head-on with a semitruck. Chad Hilborn, a thirty-three-year-old corrections officer coming home from a graveyard shift in Washtenaw County, Michigan, died the same way, crossing the centerline and running head-on into an approaching pickup truck, critically injuring the other driver. There were more than two dozen fatal crashes of this sort during the day: drifting out of lanes, driftinginto clearly marked barriers, drifting into fields and forests. None of these involved