A Deadly Bump

Christy and I decided to drive to Utah together, with her 4 kids for Aunt Sandra's funeral, and the family reunion. The drive up was pretty uneventful. The same cannot be said for the return trip. I realized today that we were lucky to make it home in one piece.

Outside of Cedar City on I-15, I was cruising through a construction zone at...well it was early, and on a Sunday, so the construction crews weren't around, so lets just say that I didn't really reduce my speed, and nobody else in front of me did either. We passed by a series of construction signs and therefore only noted the sign that said "bump" until I was only a few feet away and cruising towards the "bump" at 80+ mph. I say "bump" because I believe that "ditch" might be a more appropriate description. I just remember catching my breath as I saw the bump sign at about the same time that the van launched into the air, and wobbled briefly as all four tires lost contact with the road. Christy and I both saw the huge scrape marks all over the other side of the ditch/bump as we flew over. We both agreed afterwards that we would have also left an additional scrape in the road had I actually been heeding the speed reductions for the construction zone. We touched down on the other side, made a very bumpy landing and continued on our way.

After it seemed safe again we both started laughing about the incident. It was that relieved "the only reason we can laugh about this now is because we came out of this okay" kind of laughter. It took us a minute to regain some composure, at which point I mentioned to Christy that I was grateful that I didn't slam on the brakes, and the person in front of us (who was also going 80ish) didn't either, because I was fairly certain that the outcome would have been disastrous.

Today, I was reading through the Deseret News when an article caught my eye about 2 deaths on I-15 in Washington County. One of the deaths was apparently caused by a "bump" in a construction zone. The fatality occurred going northbound, but then I read the comment posted below the article verifying my suspicions that the northbound bump is similar to the bump on the southbound side:

"I hit that violent "bump" yesterday. It was the worst and most abrupt interstate 'bump' I have ever experienced. The people in our car suggested we should return with a video camera today to capture the inevitable resulting wrecks. It's just as bad southbound. The carnage is not over until highway engineers fix their mistake. "

Having personally experienced the "bump" I must say that I agree with the poster. I think we were fortunate to have cleared the hazard without incident.