Eyewitness Accounts
Last week my husband and I were the third car in the left turn lane of a four-lane highway. We were heading east, turning north. When the traffic light turned green for our lane, we watched in horror as two cars collided in the intersection, sending one, a black SUV, airborne. In mid-air, the vehicle rolled over. It then came down on its top just inches away from the first car in our lane.
My husband called 911 on his cell phone while I grabbed my small videocam and joined the other people who were rushing to assist the accident victims. I videotaped the scene as I approached and heard a man say that everyone in the SUV, several teen girls, were okay. A young couple with two small children looked dazed as they stood in the middle of the intersection beside their compact car. Within ten minutes there were fire rescue vehicles, police cars, and ambulances on the scene.
The woman driving the first car in our turn lane and I compared notes as to what happened and we both agreed that we had a green turn arrow when the accident occurred. She said the SUV had been going south, at a high rate of speed, and was hit by the compact car as it was turning west (left) from the northbound lane. I agreed that the SUV had been going south but thought the compact car had been in the eastbound lane turning south. When my husband and I compared notes later, this is also what he thought happened.
The intersection was completely shut down while emergency personnel jacked up the SUV and removed the girl pinned in the front passenger seat. She and another girl were taken to the hospital and the rest of the girls called family or friends to pick them up.
When a police officer asked my husband and I for our statements, we both said the turn light had been green for us and that the SUV definitely had been traveling southbound at a high rate of speed. We said we were almost positive the other car had been turning south from the eastbound lane.
The next day, a story in the local newspaper had photos of emergency personnel at the overturned SUV and gave details of the accident. According to the police report, the SUV had been northbound at a high rate of speed and turned left (west) in front of the compact car as it headed south. The police charged the driver of the SUV with causing the accident.
Even though we were right there and saw the cars colliding, we didn’t really see what happened! As “eyewitnesses,” we got it all wrong, even the woman in the first car whose view of the intersection was completely unobstructed.