I witnessed a car accident recently - fenders were bent, but thankfully no one was injured. My father and I were standing at a corner waiting for the light to change when a woman ran a red light and smacked into a car in the intersection.

There were a lot of witnesses on other corners heading toward the scene, and we’d decided to go on when a pair of women halfway up the block ahead of us started moving toward the accident, hooting and hollering with excitement, telling each other that they saw it, and that, "Oh, yeah, she had a green light."

They were talking about the woman who had run the red light.

As we passed them it was clear that they couldn’t wait to get into the thick of things, to offer their eye-witness accounts. The fact that they were facing the other way at the time didn’t seem to bother them.

And that’s when my dad turned around.

I had an "Oh, shit" feeling, not because I was unwilling to get involved as a witness to the accident - it was pretty clear that we would have to, if someone was offering a contradictory version - but because I didn’t relish a direct confrontation with the drama queens. So as my father went to speak to the driver of the car that was hit, I went over to the corner where the other witnesses had gathered.

We’d all seen the same car run the red, and in fact two of the witnesses had just passed through the crosswalk and so were seconds away from having been hit themselves. Nevertheless, the two women from up the block rallied to the side of the woman at fault, swearing up and down that the light had been green. The driver asserted the same, and it was creepy to watch them reinforce their version of events, each of them becoming more sure as they talked.

One by one, the rest of us went to the other driver, told her what we’d seen, and gave our phone numbers. She was a teenager with two friends in the car, and though she’d only had her license for a couple of weeks, she stayed calm and kept her wits about her. Some of us waited on the corner to give statements directly to the police, watching in amazement and not a little disgust as the two non-witnesses made up with volume and righteous fervor what they lacked in accuracy. As they basked in the attention and tried to engage other witnesses in debate, I couldn't help thinking that irresponsible pair would have been right at home during the Salem witch trials.