Red Lights

Brake Lights at the end of the Virginia Beach Fishing Pier

I’m going to assume by now you’ve seen the footage of the car driving off of the Virginia Beach Fishing Pier in an apparent suicide. If you haven’t, I won’t show you the video because at the end of that pier was the end of someones life, but I will tell you I have watched that video no less than a dozen times looking for something. It wasn’t immediately apparent to me what I was looking for but the more I watched, the more I realized that what struck me, was the lack of hesitation. I was looking for brake lights, and while there was only the slightest slowing as this person reached the end of the pier, it seemed to be just to acknowledge that this was the end of the road and as the brake lights let off, she let passive acceptance take it’s course and the car crept over the edge and plunged into the water.

I wrote in “Burnt Out” that I too found myself at that crossroads once and the only thing that stopped me was the fact that I had not yet done the work. This poor woman apparently had, and the only thing left in her mind was action. There was no hesitation at the end of the pier because she had probably hesitated a hundred times. She probably had even hesitated many times on the drive to the pier. That’s what stood out to me. Raw and utter acceptance of a fate that didn’t have to be. As a matter of fact, she probably was filled with regret and terror the moment the car hit the water.

This one hit a little close to home for me, quite literally. I have fished off the Virginia Beach Fishing Pier many times and watched the sunset from the beach there. Because I’ve been there, I know that Virginia Beach traffic can be a nightmare in that area, although maybe not during this time of year. There are dozens of stoplights along Pacific Avenue, the last main stretch before you turn onto Atlantic Avenue and into the parking lot of the Virginia Beach Fishing Pier. I can only imagine her feelings of desperation and sadness as she drove to that spot, wondering if at the end, she would have the courage to do it. I wonder at how many of those stop lights she hesitated for just 3 seconds after the light turned green. I wonder if the car behind her in their impatience blew the horn for her to go. I wonder if in the 4th second, she might have made the decision to turn off of Pacific and persevere for another day. I wonder how many decision points she had to turn before she ever got in the car. I wonder if anybody ever noticed she was hesitating on green. I wonder if anybody ever asked her why?

No. I’m not putting the blame on anyone else. Sometimes, it is just so unpredictable. But, if you really look closely, I would imagine that there were some moments where someone in the car with her (I’m being metaphorical now, if that’s not clear) might have looked over and seen that that 3 second hesitation was coupled with white knuckles on the steering wheel. I wonder if maybe someone had noticed that, could they have reached over, grabbed the wheel and guided her into a parking lot to talk before she found herself driving down Pacific Avenue?

There were no brake lights at the end of the pier. Someone should have seen some before she got there.