A View to a Crash
Driving home from work tonight I turned on the radio and found myself in the middle of a freeway car chase. If you aren't from Los Angeles, you may not realize how frequent a happening this is: L.A. has 527 miles of freeway and a whole lot of cars, not to mention any number of lawbreakers whose first instinct, when the police turn on their flashing lights, is to put the pedal to the metal. The first really heavily televised car chase was back in 1994 and I blame O.J. Simpson and his white Bronco for this whole phenomenon. Tonight's chase was out in the Lancaster-Palmdale area north of the city and was eagerly being narrated by the clowns John and Ken on KFI, a talk radio station with a conservative bent.
"They say he's going a hundred and twenty miles an hour!"
"He's slowing down. Why is he hitting the brakes?"
"He just went into a GATED COMMUNITY!" (The driver apparently rammed the gate, drove in, a passenger [who has since been arrested] jumped out of the car, and then the driver headed back out and onto another freeway. As one of the radio hosts pointed out, this has never happened before in the televised history of Los Angeles car chases.)
One well-meaning network journalist on television recommended that people in the area keep their children indoors. John and Ken greeted this rather obvious piece of advice with glee and every five minutes would again remind their listeners to lock their doors and stay inside. As I listened I heard that the chase had started in Northridge, in the San Fernando Valley - a good 40 miles back - and that the driver had hit a pedestrian there. No word on how the pedestrian was doing. Who cares? There's a car chase to narrate!
Eventually the chase petered out, as these things do. The fox - I mean, driver - was run to earth on a dirt road out in Palmdale. Driver then proceeded to sit in his car for about fifteen minutes, before eventually being persuaded to come out of the car, where he was promptly cuffed and will no doubt face any number of charges. I just hope manslaughter isn't one of them.
Labels: Los Angeles, Pop Culture
posted by Dr. Alice at #
Being persuaded to come out of the car would make a very poor movie climax. Even the best writers would struggle with that.
