Can someone tell me about the car accident Ray Bradbury witnessed in his youth? I'm doing a report on him and I thought it would be interesting.

Ray witnessed this accident when very young, and the person's head was mangled, enough physical damage to make young Ray fear of ever driving a car... a fear that lasted his entire life. Where this happened, and exactly how old Ray was, and how young or old the victim was, perhaps can be answered by others more aquainted with the incident.

NK, yes! I believe it was also the motivation of the s.s. entitled "The Crowd."

As I recall, Ray was 15 years old, the worst possible age to witness such an event. At 10, a person would have five years to get over it before obtaining a learner's permit. At 16, they'd already be driving and have crossed that hurdle, but at 15, if that was learner's permit age in California then, as it certainly is in other states....

He was at a friend's house in a deserted area of L. A. when they heard a horrible noise. I forget whether two cars hit each other (I may be confusing it with an accident my uncle witnessed around the same time) and then one hit a pole, or whether only one car alone hit a pole, but anyhow, the car was sheared in half, blood, guts, and dead and dying bodies all over the place.

What inspired "The Crowd" was there were no buildings near his friend's house, and yet in minutes a large crowd assembled. Nothing was nearby but a deserted warehouse and a cemetery. So Ray wondered where did all those people come from--the deserted warehouse, or the cemetery?

Ray was terribly traumatized, walked home running into trees and wasn't normal for months. Never learned to drive. As it turned out later, his eyes were very bad. He wore Coke bottle-thick glasses from the age of 10 and was rejected from being in the service in WWII due to his eyes, so couldn't have seen well enough to drive successfully anyhow. I might add, if I lived in a place with traffic like Los Angeles, I'd never have learned to drive either!

The scene from F451 when Montag is crossing the ten-laned high speed roadway sure does call up my own experiences with the LA Freeway the two times I have visited California. Fast, vast, and merciless!

[This message has been edited by fjpalumbo (edited 05-13-2004).]

I always thought it was strange that a man traumatized by a horrific car crash would rather put his fate in the hands of another person driving than to drive himself. Does that mean that he trusted his own ablilties far less than those of other people? Has he ever taken cabs, or does he only ride with people he knows well enough to trust that their driving is safe? Could it be that he did get over his fear a couple years later, but by then he just never cared to drive, and used the accident as an excuse? Just wondering. Please don't think I'm putting him down, I don't mean to, I just don't understand. I think it is very odd.

His excuse for not driving a car was, "I didn't have money for one until I was 32 years old, and you don't learn to do things when you're 32 years old." Yes, he did trust just about anyone's driving over his own--he was afraid he'd commit "massacres" behind the wheel of a vehicle. I don't know if that was due to his eyesight, personality factors, or some combination. Yes, he rode in cabs and even accepted rides from strangers! His only request was that he be allowed to "cower in the back seat." One day he was on a street corner in L. A., I think on foot--he often took his bike but may have been walking that day--and a young woman driving alone just pulled over and picked him up! She had no idea who he was and he was asking her, is this advisable, to just pick up strangers off the street? She replied, "You looked very English and very safe." He and the interviewer had to laugh over that--"You don't want to look safe." He said driving was "Like sex and a 12-year-old--you don't miss what you've never had."

Bumping up this old thread as I want all available information. Such an event would certainly have made the papers. Here are the details included in Sam's book:

The accident occurred in 1935 in Los Angeles on Washington Boulevard in the block near the cemetery. A car hit a telephone pole and four died on scene. Ray and a friend witnessed the accident (heard the crash from inside his friend's house and arrived just as the last victim died). Anyone care to go through Los Angeles police accident reports or newspaper reports or know of any other resources to try? I'd like anything regarding this! Thanks.

All the victims were fatalities. Number is given between four and six depending on which account. Wish I could find the official account on this!

Here's my account of my researches, with my conclusion of the exact spot it must have happened.

Phil, you are my HERO! You are correct: Ray did speak of the crash as being near a cemetery. There is a place in Los Angeles where accident reports can be looked up by intersection! Now that I know the street names, all I have to know is how far back those reports go and how wide a date range they allow. If necessary, I can do more than one search. Will get right on it Monday!

I always get a little frisson when one of Ray's anecdote turns out to be plausible - and am then reminded of his human fallibility when some detail turns out to be wrong.

He may have got details wrong but it seems too significant to be an outright fabrication. We shall see....

This is not for the faint-hearted, but there are some gruesome photos of fatal 1930s car crashes here. Not quite Bradburyesque, but a reminder that car crashes then could be just as horrific as car crashes today.

Worse. No seat belts and the windows were little better than house window glass, not to mention whiplash if seat backs were too low.