Bad Luck, Good Luck

Did anyone else happen to see the accident in Coolidge Corner this morning? When I got to the corner of Beacon and Harvard around 8:45 a.m., two cars had gone over the Boston-bound left side sidewalk, with one of them landing right on the T tracks. Wish I had my camera; it was quite a sight.

Needless to say, one man's misfortune is another man's good fortune. T riders were diverted to the outbound platform, where they were told a shuttle bus would arrive to pick them up. But there was already a shuttle bus there, seemingly heading outbound. I asked the driver where he was going, he said he was heading inbound and was about to turn around. So I got on, got a seat, and made it to work with little delay. Meanwhile, the hordes of other T passengers were left stranded on the platform because they didn't realize the shuttle bus they were waiting for had already arrived.

Still, that was some accident. How fast must a car have been going — on Beacon Street in Coolidge Corner of all places — for it to not just go up on the sidewalk, but to knock down the railing, go through the bushes and land on the T track. And what was up that this accident involved not one but two cars seemingly right behind the other?