My Last Day At Uni

I told you about the motorcycle crash on my last day in the army (in
Berlin.) I said, someday I'd tell you my other crash story. This is
it:
It was, duh, my last day at Uni. I rode my Honda 400 the 15 miles to
school for my last exam. Stupidly, in those days, I didn't take
cycling seriously and was wearing an open-face helmet, a ski sweater,
jeans and sandals. Look, it was decades ago and I was totally clueless
on 2 wheels. On my way home, I was on I8 in Mission Valley. I was
doing ~5mph over the speed limit in the fast lane and passing a car
just ahead of me to the right. A pickup truck came up behind me and
started tail-gating. I figured, gimme a few seconds and I'll be out of
your way, buddy.
The next thing I know, he's pulling up beside me. The bushes in the
center divider are thwapping his window and he's half in my lane. Then
BAM! I go sideways, instant tankslapper, and I get launched. Flying
through the air, time stopped and I remembered an article I'd read
that said a common injury is broken wrist caused by people trying to
break their fall when flying through the air. Amazing, how silly stats
can be helpful. I landed, did a tuck and roll, and wound up between
the middle 2 lanes of a busy freeway, at 2pm on a Friday. Traffic
screeched to a halt. I scrambled to the side of the road, with people
jumping of of their cars to help. A paramedic ambulance was going the
other way, saw it and was on the scene in minutes. The CHP came, and
before they took me to a hospital, they pointed at a man and asked if
I knew him. "I've never seen him before." I spent the night in the
hospital with major cuts and bruises, but nothing worse.
It turned out, a retired cop was in the next lane and behind us. He
saw the driver pull up, look over at me, then jerk the wheel towards
me. He followed the guy and stopped him a mile down the road.
The driver, Donovan Alan Leistico, was out on bail for murdering his
wife. They were getting divorced, she wanted half the estate, and he
said over your dead body. He bought a truck, didn't file the new
registration, replaced the steel bumpers with wood ,had the windows
tinted all round, and then called her at work one day. He said, I'll
meet you at the house. On her way home, he ran her off the road, but
she didn't crash. She got out of the car to confront him and he rammed
her between the two vehicles. She fell down, he backed over her, and
then he got stuck. He spun wheels trying to get free. Cars showed up.
He told them to go find help. Then a cop showed up. The cop held the
woman as she died. He asked Leistico what happened, didn't buy the
story, and arrested him.
He got out on bail and two months later he hit me. After that, he was
out on bail again before I was out of the hospital. He was driving
around for another 2 years, before the case came to trial. Eventually,
he got 3 to 5 for assault with a deadly weapon on me, and life for the
murder. I sued him and got $20k. I "retired" and bought a one-way
ticket to the South Pacific. In Tahiti, I got a post card of naked
babes on a beach, and wrote, "glad you're not here" on it, but then I
figured, why give the bastard a pretty picture. As far as I know, he's
still sitting in prison somewhere.

 

Jesus

 

Worth a read.

 

?>"Thomas" wrote in message

Wow. incredible

 

+1. That's one you couldn't make up.

 

<snip>

Blimey.

 

unless you're a screenwriter for CSI or something.

 

Or an unbalanced, ADD suffering, usenet poster with a persecution complex.

 

are you talking to me?

 

Cool story bro!

 

To, maybe. About, no.

 

Let's hope he's still rotting. Pity it wasn't Huntsville though.

 

We're not all after you. Really. Just some of us.

That's the point of the story, I think. There are certified whackos
out on the road. In training, we're taught to ride as though they're
out to get us. Well, some of them really are. When I went to pick up
my gear that had been collected at the scene, a CHP moto officer asked
if I would ride again. When I said yes, he encouraged me to actually
learn how. Before that, I don't think I ever realized there was a
skill involved.

 

**** off to alt.ontology.solipsism where your sort are dismissed as
figments of non-existant-others' imaginations.

 

Whaaaaaaaaaat?

No fucker told me.

 

Fuckers.... keeping us in the dark all this time....

 

'bro' you fucking ponce.

 

Is that the prison where if it gets full, they put up some more tents?

 

Hark at you, like it's a crime to try and introduce new vocabulary to ukrm

 

There's new vocabulary and there's sounding like a fucking backpacker.