I couldn't tell how old she was. She stood on the side of the freeway with her hands pressed flat against her cheeks. As we drove by slowly, we could clearly hear the sound coming from her open mouth.

It was a scream.

Only moments before, my son, who was sitting in the passenger seat beside me, had jerked to attention when I had thrown my arm over his chest as a protective reflex. We had been traveling at a pretty even clip in the car-pool lane when no more than a dozen vehicles ahead of us, I saw a car swerve suddenly to the right, into the area next to the median.

Traffic in all lanes seemed to slow to a stop almost instantaneously. Within moments we drove by the collision. The girl with her hands on her cheeks screaming was looking in horror at her small white car, which was now wedged - crumpled and steaming - under the rear bumper of the gold truck she had just smashed into the back of.

We watched this drama unfold Monday morning as I drove my son to school. Two days before, we had watched four more sets of lives affected in what I suspect was exactly the same way.

We were on our way to a party at a friend's house in San Bernardino. But the drive that should have taken us no more than 25 minutes took nearly three times that long.

When we drove by the first pair of cars, it was obvious one vehicle had slammed into the back of the other. Two sets of families stood solemnly under the Saturday sun as the drivers involved in the collision dutifully exchanged information.

Then the traffic slowed again, then again, as we passed two more rear-end collisions. Two more sets of distraught car owners. Four more families whose Saturday afternoons had been ruined.

We finally came upon the crash that was the primary cause of the congestion. Even though we knew we shouldn't look and add to the impossible tangle of slowed traffic, we were unable to avert our eyes.

Whatever had occurred had left a gold vehicle twisted into an unimaginable form, crushed so severely it was impossible to tell whether the vehicle had at one time been a compact or an SUV.

A thin man stood next to the vehicle, the windows of which had been draped with sheets. Dressed in a black business suit in 95-degree weather on a Saturday, there was something foreboding and out-of-place about him as he surveyed the scene in front of him.

Then I noticed his hands. He was wearing blue latex gloves. It did not take me long to realize his sad, unmistakable purpose.

Next time you drive, think about the girl with her car crushed under a truck, so overcome with shock she could only stand with her hands against her face and scream. Think about the families that spent their Saturday afternoon with mangled cars, distraught and dismayed on the side of the freeway. And think about the man with the blue latex gloves.

Then perhaps you'll think about leaving a little more space between you and the car in front of you the next time you get behind the wheel.