The Wreck On The Beltway

By Eileanora Clock
Staff Writer
        June 8th, 2013. Tiarra Nichelle Jackson was in a car accident on the Capital Beltway.  Tiarra was a 22 year old single mother, a petite, pretty woman with a vivacious personality.  Right on the ramp in the Outer Loop of the Beltway, Tiarra lost control of her car, and it crashed onto the barrier, spun across all four lanes, hit the barrier separating the Inner and Outer Loops, and came to a stop.  Amazingly, Tiarra emerged unharmed.  She walked back to the roadway, possibly looking for help.  What happened next was the real tragedy.  Instead of flagging down the help she so desperately needed, Tiarra was almost immediately run over by an oncoming car.  The car sped on.  The next car came, and there was still hope for Tiarra's survival.  The car sped on. For the next twenty minutes, Tiarra was run over by car after car after car after car.  In the end, she was barely recognizable as human.  The story of that fateful day is simple, but it leaves so many questions behind. The Beltway combines the regional traffic.  It is crucial to a D.C. driver, a Falls Church driver, an Arlington driver. One of the most common, every day things we do is ride on the Beltway. Are we to be traveling this roadway of our lives and suffer the same mishap as Tiarra? A flat tire, or a leaking radiator perhaps? Would anyone- should anyone- stop and help? Or are we, everyone of us, capable of being dismissed outside the safeguards of human compassion? Are we capable of giving and receiving the cold heartd indifference which took the life of Tiarra Nichelle Jackson?   If the Beltway ties us all together, on a small level, Tiarra's story speaks for and to you.