Rainy Days.

One thing some people need to learn is that when it's raining, you just can't drive like the roads are still dry. I know you like to drive fast, but sometimes you just have to suck it up. It's no wonder that whenever it's raining hard we're getting called to car accidents resulting from hydroplaning. Seriously, you can never know when your car will start to slide and when it does you're just along for the ride. There's no stopping it.

The other day it rained for a couple of hours and we were sent to a car that had slid into the trees off of the highway. As we were approaching the accident, we passed a car in the opposite lane that had also hydroplaned into the guardrail, then into the median barrier. It was torn to pieces on both ends, but the passengers were fine. If this guy hadn't been on a kind of overpass where there were barriers on either side he could easily have ended up in the oncoming lanes, or rolling across the ditch into the trees. The driver even told me he had just installed "Hydroplane Resistant" tires. The other driver was also fine, he had slid and spun off the road but luckily there were no trees in his path. I want to get into "seatbelt importance" at another time, but these folks were all wearing their seatbelts, and escaped injury because of it.

Yet as we drove back to base along the highway after checking everyone out, there were cars flying past us doing at least 130km\h. These were drivers who had just passed these mangled cars on the highway, but it didn't sink in. If there's one thing I've learned in this job it's that when I get called to a car accident on the highway, where speeds are always high, I expect the worst. And I've seen the worst-case scenario. Trust me, you don't want to go out like that. Please, just cool it until the roads clear up. Oh, and seatbelts.

Sincerely,

-AM