Near Life experience ( Anubhav ishtyle) on I-95
Yesterday evening we(Suraj, Jeetu, Anubhav and I) had been to Siva Vishnu temple. Samir's whimsical nature justified with his undecisive contemplation to come or not , finally "No" being his desicion, coupled with Pradeep's mood ensured that we had two places empty in our Honda Civic.It was 7 ish in the evening and it struck me as we were leaving the house that Anubhav was alone and he would not mind accompanying us.Anubhav's extraordinarily quick "geting ready" skills ensured that we werent delayed anymore.The absence of Anadi in the car ensured that we didnt take any wrong exits and lose our way, though I must admit that I am usually his(Anadi's) accomplice in crime(taking wrong exits) when he doesnt screw it up all alone.We spent a nice 1/2 hour at the SSVT culminated with savories like "Yogurt Rice" and "Mango Lassi" that made Anubhav promptly declare, "Wow..This is the best way to end a fast".
On our way back, Suraj doing his typical "ranti" manouvres, we were approaching Baltimore pretty quickly. In the middle of the journey we were overtaken by a Uhaul truck with a BMW Z3 convertible in tow.We just got into a deep discussion about why that person must have hooked the BMW to his Uhaul trailer. Only a desperate relocation at a time when no one else must have been available for him might have prompted his imprudent decision. It was not difficult to hear each other echoing similar thoughts that had the BMW Z3 been theirs, how they would treat it like a queen and never do such a ghastly act with it.More disturbing were the sparks which were emanating from the friction between the trailer and the ground, undoubtedly due to the high speed(about 90mph) the Uhaul was pulling it at.Suraj stuck to 60Mph and soon the truck was out of sight.A few minutes passed by and Suraj suddenly interjected the silence by saying," Oh shit, saw that car? did you all see that major accident?". Taken aback by his words which caused our lackadaisicial minds get out of slumber we all rhymed back a "NO".As we drove past the spot where Suraj had suspected that an accident just took place, we saw nothing and Suraj was sure by then that he had been hallucinating. But he kept telling us that he saw a car which cut across two lanes and went into the bushes that separate I-95 N and S and needlessly to say we didnt believe him. Seconds later we saw a Uhaul, this time with nothing in the trailer behind it and a close second look at the sparks coming from behind confirmed that it was the same Uhaul we had seen a few minutes ago. Where was the BMW Z3 then? Yeah..Suraj wasnt hallucinating, it was the same unmanned BMW Z3 which got unhooked from the trailer of that Uhaul and cut across two lanes to the left before crashing into the ditch(bushes)/road divider between I95 North and South, and mind you this happened when there were other vehicles behind the Uhaul travelling at around 70.The owner of the car was still oblivious about what a phenomenon had taken place and his Uhall still whistled away at 90 mph.We immediately decided to chase the Uhaul and let him know that his BMW Z3 was gone and here we were helped by Suraj's F1 style driving which has earned him the dubious distinction of many speeding tickets.We were next to him by his right and we were honking and honking to attract his attention but that man ( who I can now say for sure was a drunk, stoned idiot)would not hear.Luckily, there was some other person who had also noticed what had happened and (he)sent an alarm from the left side making the person( the BMW owner) finally realize that something was amiss and causing him to slow down. Being on a highway we couldnt just stop, so we just moved ahead, just looking back and thinking about what had happened,almost missing exit 47B towards UMBC, engrossed in our discussions.Just spare a thought for the person who realizes that his fav possesion which he was carrying in tow is no longer there.What thoughts must have raced in hs mind for that split second when he was told by the person who informed him that his BMW has crashed, what a mile or a mile and a half behind. What must he have been thinking when he would have had to take an exit to get on to I95 south and keep looking around to the left in the bushes to see if he can find his BMW somehere.But I guess a man as stupid as he, deserves his fate. He may argue for the nex few months with his insurance agents or may even sue Uhaul for not providing a stable trailer but can he ever answer these questions:

Scenario 1> What if the approaching cars from behind had crashed into the BMW leading to a massive mayhem with about 10 or more cars involved in the crash.
Scenario 2> Say it eluded the cars approaching from behind, but what if the unmanned BMW ( clearly a misfired bullet) evaded the ditch between I95 N and S and got on to the other side causing a major accident.Imagine a driver on I95 south coasting along at 65 and suddenly he sees a BMW just cutting across out of nowhere.Since the Uhaul was travelling at 90 odd there is a good chance that the sideways speed of the BMW, when it got itself free from the trailer hooks was pretty high ,since it had the momentum to keep moving along.

We all laughed it out in the end with Suraj(now endowed with the power of hindsight from Dravid) saying that he had thought that the car was making an F1 style overtaking manouvre.He said he was thinking.." Oh that car has briskly changed one lane, oh another..and oh its gone( crashing into the bushes )". But what if there was actually a scenario 1 as stated above, then we(our car) would be approaching a mass car melee at 70mph :-))

~Anoop