Near Death Experience

I almost died this morning on my way to work.

Seriously!!

I was riding the "short but" to the park and ride like every morning. I sat in my usual seat sideways talking to the people who always sit on the back bench. This has been my normal routine for the past many months. This morning, was slightly differnt. At one point the road the bus was on intersects with another road. The intersecting road is actually the freeway off ramp. So, imagine with me, if you will the following scene:

           off-ramp
            | |  |
            | v  |
            |(T) |
------------     ------------

     Bus ->
------------     ------------
            |    |
            |    |
            |    |

I looked out the window of the bus at the off-ramp and saw a dump truck (T) moving at approximatly 60 miles an hour (you know, as it was coming off the freeway). I was exreamly surprised since neither the bus nor the truck appeared to be slowing down. The bus had to make a right-handed turn, which put us directly infront of the fast moving truck. As we were making the turn I thought to myself, "Gee, I hope that truck slows down, or he's going to run his red light." It quickly became apparent that the truck did not have a red light. The truck had to slam on his breaks, and, not surprisingly, slammed on his horn. Out the back window I saw the front grille of the dump truck. It came about 3-5 feet from the rear of the bus. My jaw dropped as I said, "Ohmygosh! We were almost hit!" My bus companions asked for the details of what had just transpired, and turned to see how close the truck was to us. By that time it was far away, but I was still more than a little distressed.

One of the guys on the bus said he was going to call Metro Tansit and compalin, I contemplated it, and still might. I saw him again on the ride home, he had apparently told the other people waiting with him about our adventure this morning. He said he told them, "that your jaw totally dropped open." Then he demonstraited, he opened his mouth wide—then reassured me that I looked totally petrified. Well, duh! We almost died!

So, yeah, scary, but at least we weren't actually hit. I'd rather scared that injured.