Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Who do you first turn to?


Here is another (frightening) account from my vacation.

Around 4 am in the morning, we had just passed through Atlanta, Georgia. We were on 75 east, exhausted, movie-ed out and ready for the sun to be up and to have arrived in South Carolina. My boyfriend was driving in the lane next to the fast lane, as he wasn’t actively passing other cars. All of a sudden, we heard police sirens and saw police lights coming westbound (on the other side of the highway). In that moment, my boyfriend noticed a car, with headlights off, driving the wrong way on our side of the highway, in the fast lane. The car also flew by and was definitely speeding (as people usually do when they flee from the cops.) The car had actually passed us on eastbound 75 going westbound and was at one point, 12 feet from our car, full of precious cargo…

I am thankful I did not actually see the car as I was turned around retrieving something from the backseat- however my seatbelt was off for that temporary moment. Another friend of ours was laying down sleeping in the back, sans seatbelt. My boyfriend looked like a ghost for about the next two hours, hair standing up on both arms, and on the back of his neck. It is so terrifying that the little decisions we make can change our lives. Had we stopped at a different gas station to fill up, had we had decided to pass a driver in the fast lane…

All you can think in that moment is, “What if…”

Terrifying.

Okay so what’s the tie to New Media? Well it is a stretch, however- I will pull tautly anyway.

After the initial shock , and recounting of the story to each other…and even before the goose bumps relented, we wanted to know what happened. We wanted to know who would do that. We wanted to know why. We wanted to know if anyone was hurt behind us. We wanted to know it all.

And where was the first place we thought to look?

The Internet.

The fact there is basically no lagtime makes the internet such a great and primary resource. The radio was no help as we struggled to find clear stations that would even discuss news. Not to mention, we all knew that the radio would not be reporting the story so quickly.

Thank God for the power of the internet. But more, thank God we were not in the fast lane.

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