It has been raining for nearly a week straight, and there’s still no sign of it letting up. The forecast says it may continue through Friday. Quite a few low-lying parts of Wuhan have already flooded, though fortunately the Hongshan area hasn’t seen much standing water. Still, after so many wet days in a row, everything seems soaked through. My car is parked in an underground garage, and even the cabin feels damp now. Every time I get in, there’s this humid, watery smell inside that makes the whole ride feel uncomfortable.
On the way out this morning, I was driving on the Third Ring Road and was just about to exit when this happened. There was a truck ahead of me, and since there’s a construction site in that area, vehicles stopping on the inner side isn’t anything unusual. I was doing around 85 km/h. The truck was in the fast lane, so I figured I’d go around it using the side lane and pass through.
That stretch has been under roadwork for years, so there are only two lanes left because the left side is blocked off. What I didn’t expect was that there were piles of stones sitting in the side lane. The cones had been placed right in front of the stones—three cones by a few stones on the left, and another three by some stones on the right—but there was no warning sign farther ahead at all. In heavy rain, with that little reaction time, how is anyone supposed to spot that in time? On a road like the Third Ring, if debris like that is left in a lane, there really should be warning signage set out well in advance, at least something like 100 meters ahead.
So of course I hit it.
There was almost no time to react. To avoid smashing the front of the car directly into the rocks, I could only steer left, and in the end the right front wheel took the impact. I was still moving fairly fast, and it honestly felt like the whole car bounced into the air for a moment. Thankfully the stones weren’t huge.
As soon as I got off the Third Ring, I pulled over to check the damage. By then it was pouring again, which really made the whole thing even more frustrating, but I still got out and looked in the rain. The plastic splash guard near the right front wheel had cracked. Other than that, the parts inside looked like metal structure, and I didn’t notice anything obviously wrong. There was no fluid leaking either, so I drove on to the office.
So far the car hasn’t shown any obvious problems, but I’m planning to take it in around noon to get it checked properly. Better to inspect it now than leave some hidden issue behind. Just terrible luck.
When I took the same route again the next morning, things had already changed. They had put up proper roadwork warning signs, and the broken stones had been gathered into two piles. Cones were set out where drivers could see them from a distance this time. Looks like someone must have filed a complaint.
The day wasn’t all bad, though. Over the weekend, Ciyun Data was running a giveaway, and I happened to join in. Somehow I ended up winning first prize: a 128GB USB drive. At least my luck showed up somewhere.
