One Brick Short

At 7:12 p.m. Thursday night, as I started to cross U.S. 29 from my Rio Road perch on the way home, a flash of movement caught the corner of my right eye and the sound of a big engine hit my ear, forcing my right foot off the accerlater as a large, laden semi-tractor trailer blew through the red light, into the intersection and on its merry way north.

Some day, someone is going to get killed, I thought.

At 7:08 a.m., Friday morning, as I updated the area commute at dailyprogress.com, a burst of activity from the police scanner caught my ear and forced my heart to my throat: Seminole Trail northbound at Ashwood Boulevard for a tractor-trailer that t-boned a car.

It was bound to happen. It’s not an everyday occurrence, but it’s not rare to see semis blow the U.S. 29 signals, their 40 to 55 miles per hour speeds within the legal limit but too high to stop for the changing light. They can roll through one second, two seconds, almost as much as a three-count after their light is red and yours is green. I’ve seen it enough that I’ve started waiting, pulling slowly into the intersection—especially at Rio Road—and watching while the jerk behind me blows like Moby Dick on the horn.

It was bound to happen. The intersection at U.S. 29 and Forest Lakes South has been dangerous and deadly since it was built about a decade ago. Southbound traffic cannot see the light for the hills until it’s upon it. There are flashing signs and warnings, of course, but if the CD needs changing or the cell phone argument is intense or you’re just plain tired, there’s a rear-ending waiting to happen.

The vision is not much better on the northbound side and both have major downhill slopes leading to the cross-over.

It was bound to happen, but oh, how I wished it hadn’t. I thought of my friends who might be driving through that intersection. I thought of my oldest who is back from college, maybe out checking on a friend or the youngest who was on her way to CHS to take AP test. I thought of brothers, fathers, mothers, wives and, in a flurry of mental activity so rare, felt the shock and sickness and grief that each death could deliver.

And then came the e-mail. A 16-year-old on her way to school, a recently minted driver who followed the rules, waited for the green, eased out into the intersection just like in Driver’s Ed and....

I felt so bad. I still feel bad. I can only imagine what it must be like to be friend or family, but I can imagine. It isn’t right. It isn’t fair. They should have built the U.S. 29 Bypass years ago to take tractor-trailers off the roadway. They shouldn’t have built so many homes off that road until the Bypass was built. They should have graded flat those hills and better designed that intersection. They should have, we should have, she could have, why didn’t he…

Sydney Aichs, 16, of Albemarle County died yesterday morning. It wasn’t necessary, but there’s nothing we can do about it.

Our sympathy, our hearts, our understanding, as parents, friends and peers, are with the family.

Let’s pray that it never happens again.

I enter and exit my neighborhood via that intersection almost every day. So does my husband and my son, an 18-year-old AHS student. It could have been any of us. What can we do to make sure it never happens there again? Today, Sydney’s classmates, young girls are darting across the road to place flowers at the site where she died. It’s not safe. They need to stay on the Ashwood side before another one of them is killed.