Crashing? Into My Parked Car?

Not exactly -- it's even better. :)

This morning on the way to school, I turned left onto Williams Street to head up to Lynn. Williams Street is a notoriously steep hill (~25-30° incline relative to the ground in some parts), and on icy days it can be particularly treacherous. Well, today was no such day: the sun was up, the weather felt warm (for winter), and the road was clear of any snow or ice.

No, instead what happened was that this girl's engine decided to stall. And rather than put the car in Park or put her foot on the brake, she decided to try the accelerator one more time. And the distance between us closed from 2/3 of a car length to one foot. Whoa!

She stopped moving, but decided to turn off her car to try and restart the engine. All the while, her car was still in drive -- and with the engine dead, it was as good as being in Neutral. The gap between us closed to literally what must have been two inches before she realized she'd done wrong (in a split-second) and turned the car back on and slammed her foot on the brake. At this point, God bless her for stalling but, I honked. This girl was already freaking out and she probably didn't need me honking to make her even more nervous, but I was nervous, too -- one more experiment or slip-up and she was going to crash into my car.

She made her third and final attempt to release the brake and put on some gas ... and it worked! She began to inch forward ever so slowly! But she was too late for one driver -- the guy behind me. Having grown impatient (and not in the same position I found myself in, so close to the girl's bumper), he decided to try and swerve into the oncoming traffic lane and overtake us. Yes, that's right: he decided to overtake two cars effectively "parked" on a hill, going uphill (not down) ... with a pickup truck barreling down at him. He was to my immediate left as the girl who started it all began to accelerate. As the girl who started it all cancelled his chances for cutting us off. As the girl who started it all signed his doom.

Lucky for him, the truck slowed down to a near-stop and I managed to go at the same time, the combination of which permitted him to avoid a near car wreck of his own and get back behind me.

I committed her license plate to short-term memory (OA 9892 "In God We Trust") and headed on my way to school.