One minute before 4 PM, I was with a friend of mine who's visiting and we heard a couple of those chilling THUMPs of cars hitting cars. Worried that one of those cars might have been my friend's parked out front, we sprinted outside. My friend's car was fine but three cars in the intersection outside my house weren't fine, nor were all their occupants. Medical attention was needed but it didn't appear anyone was seriously hurt.
Neighbors were spilling out to see and the folks in the cars were tending to cuts and starting to exchange info. My friend asked, "What do you think happened?" and I replied, "I don't know but I might have it on video." One of my security cameras captures the front of my house and also a nice chunk of the street outside. Sure enough, it had captured the accident. I pulled it up on my iPad and moved the video to where it would be playable (and e-mailable) through my Photo app. Then I ran back out.
By now, the street outside was filling up with tow trucks, emergency vehicles and one police car, all of which arrived a lot quicker than I would have expected. Two police officers — a mixed-race, mixed-gender combo — were taking down info and conflicting statements. I watched them for a while and was impressed by their efficiency, courtesy and command of the entire situation.
I waited until one of the officers had a moment, pointed to my house and told him, "The security camera on my house captured the whole thing." His face lit up like I'd given him a lovely gift. He said, "Can you wait 'til we finish with all the paperwork?" I said sure…and I watched him, as well as his partner, finish handling everything precisely the way a situation like this should be handled.
I should mention that that has been true of every single encounter I have ever had with police officers. I know there are bad ones out there. We often see the damage they do. But every policeman or woman I've ever met had been just what you want police officers to be.
As the tow trucks began hauling the battered cars away and the paramedics departed, the female officer came over to me, watched the short video on my iPad and said, "You got it, clear as could be." I didn't do anything, of course. The camera got it and it wouldn't have gotten it if the collisions had happened about three feet to the left. Just luck.
The male officer came over to see it and the female officer told him, "I wish we had this for every accident." I gave him my contact info, we did an AirDrop transfer of the video from my iPad to his iPhone and the officers thanked me and started to head for their car.
A woman who'd been in one of the injured cars figured out what we were doing, came over to me and asked, "Can I see that?" I asked the officers, "Any problem with me giving her a copy of it?" The male officer said, "It's your video. Do whatever you want with it." I showed it to the woman then AirDropped it to her cell phone and she excitedly waved over her husband, who had been in the car with her and showed him what I'd given her. They were very pleased. It showed pretty clearly who was at fault and it wasn't whichever one of them had been driving.
Where this goes from here, I have no idea. One of the officers said there was a slim chance I might be called as a witness but it was unlikely. I also gave my contact info to the couple but I forgot to say, "When this is all resolved, give me a call and tell me how it was all resolved." Maybe they will anyway.
No one said this but I got the feeling that the police collected the accounts of the folks in the cars, they did not match up…but the video will settle the question of what actually happened. I wonder how often that happens now in the era of security cameras and cell phones.