Proximate death

Yesterday, nearing the end of my drive home from work, I discovered that the police had blocked off both ends of the country mile on which our driveway empties. It turned out that someone had been killed in an automobile accident roughly an hour prior, and just a few hundred feet from our home. A man and his 11-year-old son apparently tootled along, minding their own business, when some young fellow crossed the double solid yellow and passed on a hill, slamming into the man and his son head-on. Though hardly surprising, since everyone (except, no kidding, myself) travels well over the speed limit on our road and sometimes passes at inappropriate moments, the whole matter felt vaguely disturbing. But the real tragedy? The wrong guy died.