I've seen it twice, its a strange feeling, but I'm a very emotionally detached person.

Once I was driving down the right lane of a two lane bypass, and a guy was at the side of the road sweeping leaves out of the drainage channel. His van and cage trailer, for the leaves, was parked on the hard shoulder, which was only really half a car wide, so about 2 feet of his van was in the slow lane of the road. The road was very quiet, I saw maybe 4 cars in 10 minutes, and it's completely straight, in broad daylight, he was totally safe (theoretically).

At that moment a large truck, going way too fast in the left lane (slow lane in the UK) came barreling past me, probably doing 80. I think what a prick, it's a quiet road but you have a responsibility, especially in a vehicle that big. Next thing I hear is a huge crash - no screeching before it - just a huge crash. I see the van on its side, the trailer about 10 feet off the left side of the road, leaves everywhere, and this guy sat up on the side of the road, looking at the truck, which had slowed down, and then pulled off again. Blood literally running out of his mouth and forehead. By the time I'd stopped, and ran over to him, he'd already fallen back and died. No pulse, no breathing, nothing.

I called the ambulance and the police, and gave them details of the truck, but I never heard about it again. It was mentioned in our local paper, the guy had no real family or friends, I doubt anyone even knew he had died, and I was the last person he saw.


Another time we were driving to France for a holiday, and there was huge amounts of smoke pluming out of a truck cab, as the traffic slowed nearly to a halt and went past - this was a very busy road, a few cars had already stopped - the guy fell forwards and out of the cab, about 7 feet to the ground, his clothes burning off of his back. He never even tried to roll when he hit the floor, just laid there in flames.

Each time, either the people I've told or the people who were with me have been crying or almost crying, but I don't know, things like that don't really have any effect on me. It's not that I don't care abut them, I feel bad for the families of those who die, but feel completely detached from reality in these situations, it's weird.