10:04 PM, May 8, 2003 
5/8/2003 11:04 PM
I had a bit of a fright tonight, on my way to work. Well, first off, I got pulled over last night, because of my expired out-of-state license plates. It took me an additional month to raise $1600 to pay the sales tax on the new car, and that becomes possible with tonight's paycheck, so, all along, I had planned on resolving the situation in the morning. Notwithstanding, the state trooper cited me for not having a valid registration tag.
This in mind, I took city streets to work tonight, which are not as heavily patrolled by law enforcement officers, and definitely not by state troopers, who I would guess might have an eye out for me and my expired invalid tags. My route, once I left Kansas City, was MO-350, all the way down to Lee's Summit, as shown below:
I drove southeast on 350 along my normal route, and had no trouble of any kind until I reached the light at Noland Road. In my new car, I like to take off from lights and stop signs very quickly, and reach a point about 5-10 mph above the posted limit, when I will stop accelerating. Just east of Noland Road, the speed limit on 350 goes up to 55 mph. Naturally, I like to go about 65-70 mph at this part, because only about a half-mile later, the limit goes up again, to 65.
Just before this second speed limit increase, the road scales a rather hefty hill, and makes two dangerously sharp turns. Also, it was wet outside. It wasn't raining, but it had been raining all day. One thing I love about my new car is that with all-wheel drive and excellent suspension, it is made to handle poor driving conditions. For this reason, I like driving aggressively in the wet stuff. I took off from the light at Noland Road(with no one in front of me), into the new higher speed limit, toward the turns. WRXes love to turn. Unfortunately, there are lots of kids in the Kansas City area that love to drive dangerously, in cars that they shouldn't. Next to me at the light was one of these people.
As I was saying, I took off from the light, when it turned green, and headed toward the turns. The person in the left lane blared their engine to keep up, with the intention to pass me. I wasn't racing him. I was going the speed that I enjoy going in my new car. If I had been racing him, I would have gone much faster, but I'm not retarded, so I didn't race him. I entered the first turn at about 67 mph, and pulled through it just fine. My rear wheels didn't even start breaking out. The motorist to my left was about a car length behind my car when I went into the turn, and naturally had a little difficulty maintaining a comparable speed to get through it. When I came out of the first turn, he had fallen back about a hundred feet, and I could see him in my rearview mirror, as he came out of the turn. What followed is depicted in stomach-churning detail below:
He came out, and after straightening out, I could see his car begin to swerve slowly, then quickly, until his swerves were so dramatic that his car turned ninety degrees, and ran off the road into the woods. I repeated the words, "I have never seen that happen before," over and over to myself, and drove the remaining three miles to work with my jaw in my lap. When I got to work, people's first question was invariably, "Well, did you stop?" I cocked my head, and said something like, "Oh." it honestly didn't occur to me to offer any help.
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