I decided to take a trip to New York for the weekend as an early birthday celebration. I took the Bolt Bus from downtown DC. Like a baby I was awakened when the bus stopped moving only to see the remains of what looked like a horrific accident on the New Jersey Turnpike. There was a tarp over some form of wreckage. That entire area was wet and black and I could see various car parts. I also saw various other cars that had crashed into each other.

I tweeted this: (ignore the typo)

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and this:

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I went back to sleep. The next time I woke up, people were responding to me about the accident. One person was actually in the traffic and wanted to know what I saw. Another person wanted to know how far the turnpike was backed up. Yet another person was about an hour behind me on another Bolt Bus.

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Had I looked at Twitter search, I would have seen that more people were tweeting about being stuck in the traffic caused by the accident. Many of the people had no idea what happened.

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That made me think, what if before taking a road trip people checked Twitter to see if there are any problems. Eye witnesses might have news before traditional news outlets or before government alert services announce an incident. On a road like the New Jersey Turnpike where exits are sparse it might be good to hear from fellow travelers ahead of you. Not only that, but in the event of incidents Twitter can be used as an informal communication system among those affected. (This was seen in the case of the Mumbai attacks as well.)

Many will say that Twitter is not a trustworthy source of information. Certainly there is a lot of information on Twitter that can be ignored but it doesn’t take much to verify if a story is real. Despite what many in the media have said about people tweeting about eating cereal or bodily functions, most people I know on Twitter are not. Even those who post seemingly useless information, probably have kernels of usefulness occasionally.

As more people sign up for Twitter, I imagine that there will be a lot more information flying across the network. News agencies, businesses, government and individuals would be wise to use Twitter as a barometer for what’s going on.

Unfortunately, however, the accident was fatal. It involved a tractor trailer and nine cars. Five people died and many others were injured. This information was disseminated via Twitter as well.

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