Pat Gaudette

A few days ago I was driving on a two-lane country road with a posted speed of 55 MPH. It didn’t take long to end up behind a driver going 45. There was no reason not to go the speed limit, which I wanted to do, but apparently the driver in front of me was driving to his capability, the vehicle’s ability, or just felt like going slower. I was annoyed and kept waiting for ongoing traffic to clear so I could pass.

As is usually the case, the ongoing traffic was spaced out just enough that I’d have to really step down and go when I saw an opportunity.

And then I realized what road I was on. It was the same one that a couple weekends before, a man in a pick-up truck found himself in the same spot as I was in — behind a slower moving pick-up truck.

It was about 9:30 at night and it had rained most of the day. The headlights of intermittent oncoming cars cut the darkness.

He saw the lights of an oncoming car but took a chance that he had enough time to get around the pick-up truck. As he passed the other vehicle, he struck the two motorcycles head-on. One passenger was thrown onto the windshield of the slower pick-up. Three of the motorcyclists, couples in their fifties, died at the scene; one of the passengers died at the hospital.

If only…