A couple of days ago, I was driving north on I-5 after spending the day with my daughter down in Corvallis. I was in the middle lane. There was heavy traffic due to the holiday, with lots of people returning to Portland from who knows where, many in RVs towing their various water toys.
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A guy in a jacked-up and gnarly looking Ford F-250 pickup with at least one jet ski in the bed (possibly two, I couldn’t tell) came rocketing up in the left lane going at least 80 mph. He was also towing a ski boat. The traffic was stop-and-go from Woodburn to Wilsonville. Mr. Macho would gun it whenever the traffic would start to flow, then hit his brakes hard whenever it stopped. “Go with the flow” wasn’t in his lexicon, apparently.
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What could go wrong? 🤔
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He was alongside and slightly ahead of me when the excitement happened. He gunned it at a time when the traffic began to flow momentarily, but apparently didn’t see the guy’s brake lights ahead of him when it suddenly stopped. He rear-ended that vehicle, a Honda Accord. His jet ski(s) broke loose, then the guy behind him (in an SUV of some type) rear-ended his boat trailer, sending bits and pieces of his SUV, the ski boat, its trailer, jet skis, Accord and F-250 debris all over the freeway. All three vehicles pulled over into the median and the drivers got out, so I assume no one was injured. Not seriously, anyway.
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I’ve been thinking about that guy this morning, and how much that little mishap is gonna cost him and the insurance companies. He probably paid $70-$80k for that truck, excluding all the testosterone-bling he’d tacked on it. The Accord probably cost $35-$40k or so. The boat, the trailer and the jet skis combined, probably as much as his truck. Then there’s the guy in the SUV who plowed into his trailer. Good luck convincing a judge you weren’t at fault too.
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Meanwhile, I just motored on by in my Excitementmobile; an 18 year old Toyota Prius that my dad gave me—clocking in at 52 mpg. No macho, no ski boat, no jet skis, no trailer, no insurance cancellation, no citations, no lawsuits.
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Sometimes boring is good. 🥱
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