There is a particular and specific sound that accompanies the collision of vehicles, which has changed over my lifetime.
There is a lot of low frequency energy that accompanies the dissipation of kinetic energy through the mass of metal parts, such as the chassis and drivetrain. But now that so many parts that used to be sheet metal have been replaced by plastics, and with energy absorption devices now installed, there is more acoustic energy in the mid range than there used to be. The crumpling of large pieces of sheet metal is (to my ears) muted or missing entirely.
All the glass in modern vehicles is now tempered, and it fails with a sound somewhere between a loud pop and a crack, followed by a fairly quiet shower of small glass fragments hitting the surrounding surfaces. It’s over with very quickly, and if you are the person in the accident, you might not even hear it over the longer envelope of all the rest of the plastic deformation. And generally speaking, in terms of sound propagation, vehicles are a sort of closed box that is something like a drum, often producing a singular resonant percussive pulse in amongst the rest of the sonic chaos.
On Tuesday night, I was driving home from work on the I-5 southbound in heavy rush-hour traffic, crawling along at about 15 miles an hour, when I heard that particular sound behind me. I looked into the driver’s side sport mirror just in time to see the largest spray of debris I have ever seen in an automobile accident, out of the center of which came a motorcycle, flipping end over end and crashing to the pavement. I remember thinking that the motorcycle looked like a cheap trail bike, because it had no fenders, no fairings, not even a seat that I could see, and I wondered if it was legal for use on the freeway.
I slowed down to make a decision about whether or not I should stop and give aid, but at approximately 500 feet away from the accident, there were all kinds of slack-jawed, wide-eyed people pulling over and getting out of their vehicles to walk back to the crash site. I immediately knew this was going to be some kind of crowd control problem, so I didn’t go back. About 10 – 15 seconds after I made that decision, I saw the top of a black SUV with red and blue flashing lights pulling up to the crash site. With the police already on the scene, there was nothing for me to do anyway.
.
On this beautiful, sunny summer afternoon, there was a 21-year-old man riding his Honda CBR500R at a high rate of speed on the white line separating Lane 3 (left) and the HOV lane. He struck five vehicles and became airborne from his bike, slamming into the back of Vehicle Number 6, an Escalade in the HOV lane.
Lights out.
What I saw in my mirror was the riderless motorcycle experiencing its final rapid unscheduled disassembly on the back of Vehicle Number 5, a Mazda CX-50. The impact stripped everything off of the motorcycle, which explains the shower of debris and the unexpected appearance of the naked metal frame, motor, and wheels.
There were several accounts on social media of the motorcyclist driving at “100 miles an hour” and making “a lot of lane changes.”
Lane splitting is illegal in Washington state, so for his family and friends, this was a terrible mistake to make.
All but one lane of the I-5 had to be closed, and many of the people in the four mile backup got home three hours late.
