I just drove by a horrendous accident on Portsmouth Ave at the Fairfield Inn. It involved a school bus and a car. The car was completely destroyed. I have no information regarding injuries. Please be careful on the roads today during this rain event.

Update; Children ok, male driver  of automobile in critical condition. Let’s all pray he  makes a full recovery.

This accident occurred on Portsmouth Avenue, a local road. It is imperative that  you maintain full alertness when driving.It is wise to be fully aware, even on a broad boulevard for the car coming straight at you from an opposite lane. I look right at the other drivers faces behind the wheel as I approach.

On a road like Route 125 which has more felony level drivers than I have ever witnessed this is  key to survival.

Crossing  the center line  as cause for an accident is becoming the norm from what I can see in press reports. You simply cannot have any distractions behind the wheel when driving. You have to stay in your lane and stop this drifting  which you can check on today while out driving. I cringe for joggers and bicyclists and pedestrians that don’t do their activities without facing the oncoming vehicles.I have been behind cars with both wheels firmly planted in  bike paths, breakdown lanes. They do this on curves! (Drive up to Newfields and back sometime a road with  joggers, and the Constantly Walking Man). Then when they look up from texting or whatever, dog rubbing, they realize where they are ,  suddenly see the bike , jogger , pedestrian , broken down car, overreact, then swerve to the  oncoming lane. This then causes the  oncoming  texter, dog rubber, makeup-applier,newspaper reader,looking for fallen cigarette guy, to freak out when he  or she looks up to see a car coming right at them. Hope they got some room to maneuver, hope they  actually know where they are, (situational awareness) but they only have a second to make their move and that’s when their own distraction will cost them.

The steering systems today  are  not requiring the same constant inputs as when  I was a kid driving a 1965 Impala, Volkswagen bug, Catalina,Fiat, Bonneville, LTD, Marquis ,even the early Toyota.. Those were the vehicles of my youth. You had to be  steering all the time. Maybe that’s the issue, everyone is falling asleep, the system has been damped too much, I don’t really know, but the ability  to keep the car between the lines seems to have gone out the window.

Get the dog off your lap too, please!

Just see how many drivers are actually keeping their cars between the lines.  I just got  a call from Doozie headed south to RI  who just drove by another terrible accident on Route 1 in Lynnfield.

Mike