Hit From Behind

The other day I was driving two of our grandsons to their twice-yearly dentist appointment. Isaiah is really into cars and so is very aware of what is driving past us, etc. I was driving up Brookside Road and as we approached the intersection with Lower Macungie Road, I commented that I’d had my first auto accident in the Lehigh Valley at that intersection. Here is the story behind that comment.

 

Moving to the Lehigh Valley

In the 1970s, Air Products was growing rapidly. They had a few years before transitioned from just an industrial gas company into one which had a chemicals division – and changed the name of the company from “Air Products, Inc.” to “Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.”. Their use of computers was likewise expanding. At the time the Management Information Department (MID for short) had a somewhat abysmal record when executing large projects. The previous three large projects had all gone well over budget (budget 80K – actual 320K; budget 80K – actual 240K; and another of 100K which was soon to be completed at 350K). They had recently acquired the Escambia Chemical Company in Florida and the estimate to move the computer systems (written in RPG) was 100K. They couldn’t afford yet another fiscal fiasco, so decided to bring in someone with experience both in RPG and in project management. This was unusual for MID as they typically hired people right out of college and trained them in “the Air Products way.” I already had two Master’s degrees and four years of experience, including doing a similar RPG conversion. But I was looking for a new position and had listed myself with an executive search firm.

Around May of 1975, I got a phone call about this new position with Air Products and had driven down from Connecticut to be interviewed. They put my wife and I up at a hotel in Allentown and I was picked up the next morning by Ray Hoving – who would eventually become my new supervisor. We took a somewhat circuitous route from downtown Allentown to Emmaus to Plant 1 (the first home of APCI in the Lehigh Valley) where the Chemicals and Financial groups of MID were located. Over the next several hours I had a series of interviews with various managers in MID – Ray Hoving (MID-Chemicals), Bob Bruno (Ray’s boss), Rick Gobrecht, Tom Collins, Tim Gemmel, and the overall director of MID, Carroll Claitor.  All were about my age or a few years older with the exception of Mr. Claitor who was in his late-50’s. The first two interviews were in the Emmaus plant, the rest were in the company HQ in Trexlertown. My trip between the two locations was with Maury Robert who was driving an old over-the-hill VW that could barely make it up any sort of grade. Although I did not know road names yet, we went up Cedar Crest, then over Lower Macungie Road to Hamilton Blvd where the Trexlertown offices were located.

Back then, in 1975, Lower Macungie Road was a two-lane road through corn fields with little traffic. There was a traffic light at each end (Cedar Crest and Hamilton), and only one stop sign in between where it crossed Brookside Road. Trexlertown was also in the middle of corn fields. There was a fairly new mall at the intersection with Hamilton Blvd., but most of the available maps of the area still showed that corner as being the Trexlertown Airport (which had been a simple grass strip for private planes).

At any rate, at the end of the day, I was offered a position, accepted it, and after giving my notice and arranging to move from CT to PA, began working at APCI in June 1975.

 

The Accident

While most of my work was in the Emmaus plant that first year, there were still regular visits needed to the Trexlertown offices, so I started becoming familiar with making that trip over Lower Macungie Road. As I mentioned above, the only stop sign in those days was at the intersection with Brookside Road (both roads being just two lanes), with Brookside being the through road and not having any stop signs.

The below picture shows that intersection today as you approach it from the east on Lower Macungie Road. The building on the right is a restaurant (which has undergone several name changes over the years). But back then there were no concrete berms, no bicycle lanes, and the road was just two lanes – roughly ending where the break in the underlying pavement is in the middle of what are now three lanes plus the marked shoulders.

[Picture of intersection]

 

I brought my car to a stop at the indicated white stop line (which is in the same position now as it was back in 1975). But the bushes on the right still block your view of the traffic which might be coming from the right (and which did not have to stop). Thus, after making a legal stop, I had to pull forward beyond the stop line and stop again in a position where I could look for oncoming traffic. As I did so, I was hit from behind.

The driver of the following vehicle had stopped behind me when I made my first stop at the marked stop line. Then when he observed me beginning to move forward, he also started forward, but he was not watching my actions or my tail lights and did not stop again in time to avoid hitting me.

It was a low-speed collision given that he had just started up from being stopped. But when you are hit from behind unexpectedly it still jolts you a little. We both put our cars in park and got out. The other driver, who was about the age of my father, and I both checked it out. There was no observable damage to either vehicle except from a little scrape mark on my rear bumper.

However, realizing he was at fault, he said so and he immediately owned up to it. Since there was some possibility of hidden damage, he got his paperwork out of the glove compartment to give to me so if I needed repairs his insurance would cover it. (There ended up being only the superficial scrape which I never got repaired so it did not cost him anything.) But as I was copying down the information, I obviously looked at his name on his insurance and registration forms. It was Harold Gemmel. Having had my interviews at APCI just a month before, I asked him if he was related to Tim Gemmel who had been one of my interviewers. He said, “yes, he’s my son.” I suppose that made it even better as if I had any problems with the insurance, I could simply ask Tim at work and get ahold of his father that way as well.

 

Afterward

In the nearly half-century since this incident, this part of the Lehigh Valley has had pretty explosive growth. Lower Macungie Road, which used to have a single stop sign its entire length, now has eight stoplights, many of which have turning lanes as does the intersection with Brookside Road pictured. In addition to the one shown, Brookside Road, which in 1975 had only one stoplight at the northern end and a single stop sign at the southern end, now has stoplights at both ends and three others in between. There are multiple new housing developments, two new schools in the area, a large Walmart, multiple malls in Trexlertown, etc.

Harold Gemmel and Carroll Claitor passed away in the 1980s, and I and all my co-workers are now in our 70s and retired. But this story is still one that I can share with my grandchildren as a way of reminding them that one needs to be always cautious on the roads – whether it’s riding their bicycles or driving a car (which will be coming along before you know it.)

I should also mention that I brought the project I managed UNDER budget at 85K!