Illegal, drunk and crashing into me
My first interaction with an illegal was when a guy fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into me.
Let me take it from the top.
I was a young guy delivering pizzas. I had just turned into a townhouse development and was going up a steep hill, looking for the owner of the pizza I was carrying.
As I was glancing off to the left, I noticed a car at the top of the hill, sort of in the left lane. He just seemed out of place. After all, he was facing oncoming traffic. His brakes were on and he was stopped, so I continued looking on the left side for my house number.
When I got to the top of the hill, about 50 feet behind him, suddenly, the brake lights went off and he started drifting backwards. Shocked and surprised I hit my horn and kept hitting it over and over. It happened so fast I didn’t have time to drive around him.
I threw my car into reverse, pushed the floorboard with my left foot and looked out the back window as I hurriedly tried to get away from this car that was coming at me. When I got to the bottom of the hill, a car turned into the development and stopped my exit.
I had to swerve my car to the left, exposing myself to the oncoming car, which was moving very fast, backwards, down the hill, straight toward me. I felt completely helpless and stared in disbelief as I faced the reality, this car was going to hit me.
When the car slammed into my driver’s-side door I jumped away a little bit, as much as I could, since I was still buckled in.
I climbed out through the broken glass and stood on the hood of his car screaming at him “What the hell are you doing?!” It was then I realized the person who crashed into me was drunk and sound asleep. Both he and his friend were both sound asleep, snoring, in the front seats.
I opened his door and the smell of alcohol hit me like a ton of bricks. I said something to them, but neither of them responded.
I then went to the townhouse close to where the accident happened. It was only a short distance away, maybe 50 feet. It was close enough that I could keep an eye on both of the guys in the car while I asked someone to call 911.This was before the days of mobile phones.
After someone told me they would call, I went back and sat on the curb next to the cars. When the officer arrived I explained to him what happened.
He asked me “Did you leave the scene of the accident?” I said “No sir, I went right over there to that townhouse and asked them to call 911. I kept an eye on these two guys the entire time. They were drunk and asleep and didn’t move once.
What did the officer tell me? He told me he was going to have to let them go because there was no way to prove the guy didn’t get drunk when I went to call 911. He said he had to write it up as an “accident.”
I said “Are you kidding me? These guys are so drunk they didn’t even wake up after they crashed into me and they’re still asleep!”
To add insult to injury, because he was an illegal, had no insurance and no money, the officer said I would likely never get anything from the drunk. I never did.
It was a scary night. I felt like I almost died. And the crazy thing is, the guy who almost killed me, slept through the whole thing, drunk.