The Roots Tourbus Rolls Across Highway En Route To Paris

In college I flipped across interstate 80 driving from Denver, Colorado to Salt Lake City, UT for a ski trip. The Toyota LandCruiser I was in flipped three times across the highway before stopping in the median of the divided road on a cushion of snow. Blackout. Dead silence. Complete stillness. Moving slowly, a little to make sure you are indeed alive and nothing is broken. Saying something (You don't know what you are saying). Screaming to see if the person next to you is alive/OK/can hear you. That's how I describe the train of thought following the 3 seconds your life passes by.

Wearing my seatbelt, I came out unscathed -a tiny little cut on my palm from broken glass after I had to climb my way out of the totaled vehicle. A few years later I went to go see Will Smith in I, Robot. He flipped his car like 5x in that movie and Hollywood used this slow motion effect to reenact it. It was eerily similar to how I felt after my car accident. Wednesday night the Roots were driving on a double decker tour bus (how most tour buses swing in the EU) on the way to a Paris tour stop when their bus rolled across the highway. Drummer/DJ ?uestlove took to Okayplayer and typed about the experience, thinking his bus was hanging off a cliff. Everybody's fine.

The last thing he remembers before the roll was "eating 2 pieces of cold pizza and a bowl of rice krispies and watching will ferrel's nuts dance on top of john c. riley's drumset in step brothers." The drummer goes on to explain that he fell asleep which is out of the ordinary because he's "usually glued to [his] computer, doing some sort of activity like converting music or tv shows."


"In reality the crash was all of about 7 seconds," ?uestlove wrote, "But to do a 360 on the highway and end up ramped up (the van that crashed into ours was UNDER our double decker bus) in the air....is....well...a frigging miracle." The picture of the carnage is below.

"i just couldn't believe it," ?uestlove continued. "i mean....how in the hell did we experience this? how did we manage to....man.....dog we are soooo alive right now. and yes we went through all that shit people go through when they go through accidents.dazed. amazed. grateful. laughing?"

To read the rest of his account head here.

To sum up how he feels today ?uestlove used a line from the band's "The Spark":

"I used to live life, like there was no manana
Now I'm treatin every breath, like it was "your honor"

I hear you ?uestlove. Welcome to the world of the backseat driver.