tadcranky

Driving While Completely Insane
Saturday night, I was walking to my car, parked in the West End area of DC. I heard a car hitting another car, and brakes screeching, when I looked in that direction I saw a driver doing what looked like a bad job of parallel parking. As I got closer, I saw that there was a guy in a car that was in the first spot on the block -- there was no car ahead of him, which made his parking problems particularly strange. I saw that he had backed into the car parked behind him -- a nice Volvo -- but there didn't seem to be much damage. But he wasn't through.

As I stood on the sidewalk watching this guy, he gunned the car forward, through the stoplight at the corner. Then he threw it in reverse, and slammed into the Volvo, which then hit the car behind it. Then the guy got out of the driver's seat, and hopped into the back seat of the car, never acknowledging that there was a guy there -- me -- watching this whole thing. I didn't have my cell phone with me (as usual, when something interesting happens), but by this time a couple of other guys had shown up, and a guy who turned out to be an off-duty Prince George's County police officer was on his cell phone talking to the police, who it seemed were asking him a million questions.

Next, a guy emerges from the darkness, looks at the car that's done all the damage, and exclaims "My car." I tell him what happened, he sees the guy in the back seat, who, it turns out, was his brother, who had been given the keys and told to sit in the car and wait for him. So he starts yelling at the driver brother, who then gets out of the car and utters some nonsense, and starts running. Non-driver brother chases after him. Still no police, it's been about 15 minutes since the incident, and the Prince George's County officer is still being interrogated on his cell phone. Finally a police car comes down the street and we flag it down. The off-duty officer explains things to the DC officers, who don't really seem to phased by the whole thing, and make no effort whatsoever to find the madman on the loose and/or his brother.

The DC police seem to have no interest in talking to me, which is fine with me. About the time the Prince George's County officer leaves, the driver of the Volvo shows up. He's just a kid, and he's with his friends. He's shocked, and he's even more shocked when I explain to him what happened. I give him my card, if he needs a witness or anything, and move on to my car, so that I can pick up my girlfriend, who's been waiting for me all this time. I pick her up and explain to her what happened, and we stop by the scene so that I can show her. By this time, some of the Volvo kid's friends are there, and I'm asked to tell them the whole story. The DC police are still on the scene, talking to each other, I'm not really sure what they're doing. Then up pulls the off-duty Prince George's County officer. He looks at me and says "Guess who I've got in the car?" Out steps the non-driving brother! The DC cops are very impressed. Non-driving brother is very apologetic to everyone, and then gets questioned by the DC police.

Just a regular Saturday night in DC.