by Harold Schechter

Grinding to a stop, tires squealing, expletives pouring from my mouth as the brakes strain to bring my aging car down from 70 mph to 0, I catch out of the corner of my eye the highway warning sign telling all motorists to beware of congestion ahead.  Far, far down I-95, just south of Newark, I can see the ominous lights of ambulances and police cars spinning against the rain slicked street and wet metal of stopped automobiles.  But as the troubling scene drifts closer, and the smell of rubber and death steal through the car’s ventilation system, what is striking about the traffic slow down is not that an accident has caused four lanes to become one, justifying the backup, but that the accident is on the other side of the divided highway.   Rubbernecking is that infuriating human phenomenon that often explains the congregation of masses of humans intent... (preview truncated at 150 words.)

Comments (0)

Print

Tell friend

Top

---