3am Drunken Bumper Cars

It was an A-typical event occurring on an otherwise typical morning for me. Honestly, I thought about taking the morning off from my customary 3am run however when I rose 2:15 I was wide awake so I figured why not.

I dressed and stepped outside to my truck and noticed it was unseasonably mild. I left my house driving towards the beach and came to the intersection of Center & Grand. As I looked to the left up Grand Avenue I noticed a fast-approaching vehicle traveling west bound. There was considerable distance still between us so I made my turn onto Grand and merged into the left lane. As I peered in my rear view mirror I noticed that vehicle went right through the intersection that I just left which has a 4-way stop. The vehicle came quickly upon the passenger side of me and came awfully close. At first I was scared then it infuriated me that this bastard almost hit me. As it raced by me I noticed it was traveling between 45-50, in a 30-mile hour zone, and remained in the right lane. As the vehicle approached the top of the hill just past the Church I noticed that it was quickly coming upon a parked vehicle. It swerved and clipped the tail of it. I knew something was wrong so I reached for my cell to report this to the police when suddenly I saw it looked as though it was going to plow directly into the back of another parked truck when at the last moment it swerved but still hit the parked truck hard.

He stopped for a moment then proceeded to leave. That's when I came quickly behind him flashing my high-beams in hopes that the vehicle would slow down thus give me a chance to get the license plate number. The driver made a right turn on Eucalyptus without stopping at the stop sign and pulled over. A man approximately in his mid-30's stepped out and came towards my car which by then I was on the phone with the police. His slurred words were "Yeah, shit, I fucked-up". He started to head back to his SUV when I got out and moved aggressively towards him and shouted "Don't even think about getting back into your car. The Police will be here any second and I have your license plate number so you can't escape jerk-off". The Police arrived within 3-minutes and at that moment I thought Shit, what if this ass had a gun and wanted to eliminate me just to avoid being arrested for drunk driving and hit-and-run? Four patrol cars arrived and surrounded both of our vechicles. Shortly after I told them what happened, two cars went up the street to inspect the vehicle's that were hit. The police took the driver off to the side and then began to administer a sobriety test on him. The police took my information, thanked me and said I could go. I looked back at the driver and it looked as though he was about to be handcuffed.

After I concluded my run and was driving home past the area where all this occurred, I again thought, what if this guy had a gun? I could have been killed. While this was a possibility my natural instinct was not one of fear but one of duty. As a citizen of my town I believe it was my duty to report this and help law enforcement in this situation for the betterment & safety of the community where I reside. Who knows what may have happened if I simply let him go figuring he didn't hit me so what do I care and besides, I don't want to get involved. He could have killed himself or worse, killed an innocent person. I especially felt I had to after the horrible accident that occurred early Wednesday morning (1/28) when a police officer going to work was killed in a head-on accident when a 21-year old was traveling the wrong way on the 10-Freeway.

To think that this episode occurred in less of a 5-minute span left me pondering that at any given moment, life can change that easily and that quickly.