This could have been an episode of "COPS"!

For entertainment value, I thought I'd related a little experience which happened while my wife and I were traveling on I-40 West near Morganton, NC this past weekend.

It all started when we were in the right-hand lane near the Lake James exit on I-40 W around 5:30 this past Friday afternoon. We noticed a State Police patrol car parked in the gore of the exit, and the tropper had just picked something up off the road and was heading back to the car, looking over his shoulder towards on-coming traffic. I assumed he had picked up some debris and was checking traffic for his own safety. As you'll see, this was not the case!

The highway heads up a large hill at this point, traffic overall was very heavy, and the right lane had slowed a good bit, so I moved over to the left. As we reached the left lane, we noticed a second State Police car (a Dodge Charger) parked in the median at a break in the guard rail. At this point, my wife offered the opinion the police were looking for someone. Man, was she ever right!

Checking my rear-view mirror, I noticed quite a sight cresting the hill behind us. There were at least 6 State Police with lights flashing, moving at a VERY high rate of speed, and they were hot on the tail of a large pickup truck. All of this is IN THE LEFT LANE BEHIND US!!!

My situation at this point was as follows: We are heading up a very steep hill in the left lane, behind an SUV which was matching speeds with the vehicle to it's right. There was a solid line of cars in the right lane, nose to nose, and both lead cars (the SUV ahead of me and a minivan in the right) were traveling below the posted speed limit going up the hill. There are no vehicles immediately ahead of either the SUV or the minivan. A NASCAR-style train of runaway pickup and State Police is approaching us at speeds in excess of 100 mph, and it honestly appeared the me the driver of the SUV ahead of me was reading a book...

I frantically blew my horn and waved at the SUV and after several eternal seconds the driver finally noticed what was going on behind us and decided (fortunately) to accelerate and move over to the right-hand lane. I did not have time to try to pass the SUV, and wedged myself between the SUV and minivan. Less the two seconds later the train of vehicles blew by us on the left. It was pretty clear the pickup would NOT have stopped for us - it had never slowed down as far as I could see.

At this point, we had reached the top of the hill and were headed back down. Though most cars had seen the chase coming, and were diving to the right and slowing, there was still a good bit of traffic ahead. Nonetheless, at the bottom of the next hill there was a bridge and several State Police cars in wait. They threw stop sticks (this is what the first officer we had seen was thinking about doing, apparently) in front of the pickup which hit them and lost it's tires. The pickup swerved to the left and hit the concrete divider, hard, along the bridge, then immediately crossed straight across two lanes to the right - miraculously missing several cars - smashed through the guardrail, and rolled on it's side in a huge cloud of smoke and dust into a ditch.

Before the pickup had even stopped moving, the driver was out and running up the embankment. Six or seven police cars slide to a stop, police and dogs jump out, and give chase. More police come in, narrowly missing several cars including my own, at high speed and skid to stops. These police pull the passenger out of the truck, hold him down and point a gun at his head. They were not being gentle.

I had pulled over to the shoulder and had stopped by now, but decided to get back underway and get by the whole thing, figuring if there were going to be guns involved I didn't want to be anywhere nearby. In a few seconds it was all behind us and we had some time to reflect on how we had almost been run over by the truck, and then nearly smashed by the police. It struck us both there was considerable reckless behavoir by both parties. And it really felt like we had just witnessed an episode of "Cops" first hand! Very surreal...

We found out on Sunday the whole thing had been precipitated by a hit and run, and the police had found alcohol and a shotgun in the truck. I know people panic, but don't most folks know you can't outrun the radio? And taking off on an Interstate? Not smart.

At least noone was injured on the highway (don't know about the initial hit and run) and it all could have been a whole lot worse. The rest of the weekend, in comparison, was quite relaxed!

I hope this didn't run too long and you enjoyed the story. Let's all be safe out there!