(and a lesson about what really matters)

So much traffic angst these past weeks!

So many slow downs.

I grumbled this morning when I checked my traffic app. It’s something that I try to remember to do before I head to work. It’s a good habit, because sometimes I see tie-ups before I leave and can take the backroads, so I avoid slowdowns all together. I confess that I often feel a little proud when I zoom along, catching glimpses of stopped traffic on the freeway which runs nearly parallel to the backroad. Except this morning, the traffic app indicated that the freeway up the hill from me was closed, but that an “alternate route” was available.

An alternate route is the backroad.

My backroad.

Not surprisingly, this made me a little crabby.

If you’ve been reading here these last weeks, you’ll remember that I’ve been caught in a few traffic jams lately and haven’t had the best attitude about any of them.

This freeway closure was due to yet another fire up the road. But this was surprising because, wonder of wonders, it rained a little this morning. Yes, water fell from the sky. In summer! It was lovely, actually, to walk outside and smell the damp earth, and to see that everything was wet, not just where the sprinklers had watered.

The traffic app indicated that the fire was caused by a semitruck that had veered off the road and crashed. This factoid made me a little crabbier. These trucks! So many of them have caused fires in our area, one just a few weeks ago, that also closed the freeway for hours.

So I was obsessively checking the traffic app, trying to figure out if the road would be clear by the time I needed to leave for work, when there was an update. There was a new entry that changed the type of accident from a normal sort of collision to an 1144: a fatality.

And I was so worried about my commute time.

The driver of that truck died in his fiery cab early this morning while I slept, as a little rain fell.

I do not know what caused the crash that took the life of that driver. The road might have been slippery from the rain. Possibly the driver was going too fast. But then I remember all the times I’ve driven too fast or made errors while driving and no harm came to me or anyone else. Just the other day I was with my son and pulled out of an unfamiliar parking lot in Roseville. I was sitting in what I thought was a left turn lane, but was wrong. (In my defense, the signage there was confusing!) A driver in the lane next to me hurriedly rolled down his window and told me I needed to move over one lane. Thankfully, just then the light turned, and we were on our way without incident.

It was an easy mistake, not so different from driving a little too fast down a suddenly slick section of highway early on a Saturday morning.

The road was clear by the time I finally headed out, so there was no slow down today. The story of the accident and the driver’s death made the front page this morning of my Sacramento news station app, but it was nearing the bottom of the feed this evening and will probably be gone by tomorrow; other area deaths from drownings and gun violence took its place. There was no new information about the driver who died. It was someone who was a son, or a daughter, a beloved child. A friend. Someone who was loved. Somebody who died all alone just a few miles up the road from me.

So I am ashamed by my earlier annoyance. It’s easy to forget the trauma that these accidents cause for the people who are driving the trucks and RVs that cause the fires. And for the rescue workers who respond to the scenes. I hope in the future that my first thought when I dutifully check my traffic app before I leave for work and see a slowdown caused by an accident or fire will not be about myself and how irritated I am by this unfortunate inconvenience. I hope I will remember to say a prayer for all those involved.

I think it’s a lesson that will stay with me.