Crash bandicoot

I had to drive over to Luna Park last night to collect Junior about 11pm. I went the long way around the north of the harbour - just for old times sake, since I used to live around Milsons Point for a year or so.

I got completely lost of course. I have little sense of direction.

I decided to take the short way home by going across the Harbour Bridge. Is faster, but much less interesting (unless you have a thing for driving over bridges and paying tolls).

That turned out to be a big mistake. Once we hit the Western Distributor, five lanes of traffic turned into gridlock. Gridlock that seemed to last forever. It was made worse by the stupid drivers that decided to zip down the outside lane to my left, heedless of the fact that it merged about 50 yards in front of where we were stuck. Those people really annoy me. I should have driven the Disco half into that lane and just blocked it to all except mopeds.

The source of the gridlock was eventually revealed as a half-cooked car in the middle of the Distributor. The front end was burnt out and and the molten and cracked road underneath was being shovelled up by firemen. Five lanes into two creates almighty congestion, even at 11.30pm at night.

We had gone barely a kilometre when we passed another crash. Some idiot must have planted it on leaving the crash scene (probably due to frustration) and lost it when taking the sweeping bend onto the ANZAC bridge. The car was sitting across the two left hand lanes, but all the wreckage was on the right. I reckon he went straight into the concrete divider on the right and then bounced back across the traffic into the left hand lanes.

There were no other smashed up cars around, and the Police hadn't noticed that they had another smash just up the road to deal with.

Most of the other drivers on the road didn't seem to notice either. I saw the busted up car and wreckage from way off, and slowed down to swerve around it at a safe speed. Other idiots, still pent up with frustration from the gridlock just behind them, came flying up behind me and tried to swerve around me to get ahead. All they got was a bumper bar under the front wheels.

I don't blame them for not noticing. Junior failed to see a thing, and the wreck was on his side of the car. He didn't notice the big, gouged out headlights sitting on the road in front of us (that I swerved around) or the torn-off bumper bars or the glass strewn right across the road or the bits of metal and plastic scattered in all directions.

I think people mentally switch off after being stuck in traffic. That was pretty clear last night.

One prang can easily need to another.