The Old Blog in the Desert

There are many ways to make an impression on a Friday night, but piloting a Porsche up Geiger Grade like the Devil himself was riding shotgun is one of the more memorable—if not advisable—methods.

Late on March 28, a 2016 Porsche Coupe was engaged in what might generously be called an unwise expedition northbound on SR-341 at a speed more appropriate for a comet than a car. The posted limit was a respectable 45 mph, but the Porsche, evidently believing speed limits were mere suggestions, was galloping along at an estimated 80 to 85 mph.

As it approached a left-hand curve, the driver—perhaps emboldened by spirits of the liquid variety—realized, rather too late, that physics was not inclined to negotiate. A fellow motorist loomed ahead, and in a heroic but ill-fated maneuver, the Porsche veered right, kissed a metal barrier, and then proceeded to perform an unscheduled descent down a dirt embankment, ultimately coming to rest on its wheels—a salute to German engineering, if not to common sense.

Storey County Sheriff’s deputies and the Nevada Highway Patrol arrived, likely shaking their heads before placing the driver under arrest for suspicion of driving under the influence and carrying a firearm while intoxicated–because why stop at just one poor decision?

Meanwhile, the passenger was carted off to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, presumably to reconsider their choice of travel companions. The driver, now a guest in the Storey County Detention Facility, will have ample time to reflect on the consequences of speed, spirits, and steel barriers.

Elsewhere in the Silver State, fortune tragically dealt a far graver hand.

Near Mineral County’s mile marker 37 on US-95, a commercial vehicle hauling a flatbed trailer was making its way southbound when a bracket—a seemingly innocuous piece of metal—made a bid for independence. It separated from the trailer, hurtled through the windshield of a northbound GMC Yukon, and like a cruel stroke of fate, ended the driver’s life in an instant.

The Nevada Highway Patrol is still working to identify the deceased.

And though the circumstances of the incident are still under investigation, the grim truth remains: sometimes, a man meets his end not by reckless choices or foolish misadventure–but by the heartless randomness of fate, as a single piece of errant steel turns a highway into a scene of sorrow.