Here’s the AP story about the accident supposedly behind the snarl I just posted about:

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Traffic is finally moving again on the northbound 405 freeway near Sherman Oaks where a construction site crane earlier toppled onto the roadway.

The accident trapped the crane operator and triggered a collision between a big-rig dirt hauler and an S-U-V when the truck swerved to avoid the crane boom.

Firefighters managed to pull the operator out of the crane cab where he was trapped for more than an hour.

Fire spokesman Brian Humphrey says the operator was conscious and alert. A fire helicopter landed on the freeway to fly the victim to the hospital.

The accident, which happened shortly after one this afternoon, brought traffic to a halt on northbound Interstate 405 near the 101 freeway. The transition road from northbound 405 to the 101 freeway remains closed.

(That’s the update; here’s an earlier story from the San Diego Union Tribune. Again — couldn’t find anything on the Lost Angeles Times site.)

Before we get comfortable and attribute this one accident to the endlessness of my pilgrimage home, let me ask this: Why did it require 70 minutes last night, when there was no accident?

The accident didn’t create the snarl, it exacerbated it.

Hurricane Katrina didn’t create all of the problems it left — it exacerbated many that pre-existed. (People without adequate support systems, bad government on all levels, inadequate emergency response, and so forth.)

We’re going to see more accidents of all sorts. It’s past time to get smarter in how we manage our resources.

On that long drive home I realized two things I could do immediately: schedule some meetings differently, and start to use videoconferencing. We’re all going to have to become more clever.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 2nd, 2007 at 11:07 pm and is filed under On being, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.