I live near I-66 and even though there’s a sound wall, I can hear a lot that happens on I-66. For instance, there’s white noise 24 hours of the day which is great if you like that kind of thing. Many times if there are incidents, I hear those as well. About a half an hour ago I heard a lot of sirens. I had just finished reading a Dr. Gridlock chat session on washingtonpost.com where one reader was talking about how many of the traffic cameras are down and that it is not difficult for him to plan his route home from work. I decided to take a look on trafficland.com. Sure enough there was a huge accident on I-66. It’s hard to tell how many cars are involved but I can see that only the left lane is open. Looking at the other cameras on 66, I can see that traffic is backed up to the Beltway which is only about 4 or 5 miles. I hear a helicopter outside and I wait to see the helicopter land online. I then realize that it’s kind of sick for me to sit here and watch the accident scene play out online. But still, I can’t turn it off. I really hope that the people involved in the accident are okay. At least I’m not in my car holding up traffic to see what’s going on.

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