Saturday, December 3, 2011

Of accidents of the car sort

I... have an okay track record with cars. It has caused me to be a very, very cautious driver which annoys anyone who wants to get somewhere quickly. I will drive the speed limit, dammit, always use my blinkers, avoid other cars like the plague, wait the required amount of time at stop signs, peek at train tracks to make sure the barriers haven't broken and that even if they're up there is actually a train coming, refuse to talk on the phone or eat while driving. And so on and so forth with the things that drivers should normally do but tend not to do.

The reason why I only have an okay track record instead of a good one is because of the accidents I have been in.

Accident the I: sometime in fourth or fifth grade. Not a big deal. I was in afterschool care at a day care, and I got picked up from school with a bunch of other kids. The giant van, of course, had no seat belts. That would be too safe. So as we are driving up a stop light and a car behind us accelerates and slams into the back. My head smacked the back of the seat in front of me, and just as everyone was straightening up again, they hit us AGAIN. And thus my head hit the seat again. I still do not know what the hell their problem was, because I understanding rear ending someone once, but twice? And why would you speed up at a stoplight? And for the love of god, why did we not have seat belts?

Unsurprisingly, we got seat belts after that.

Accident the II: September 11, 2001. Yup, I had to add a car accident to an already shitty day. 9/11 craziness going on, my grandpa going into the hospital for one of the last times, and a car accident. We were seriously just leaving the parking lot, and my mom wasn't paying a lot of attention because she was distracted with worrying about my grandpa. My mom, my dad, my brother, my aunt, and I were all in the car. My parents in the front seats and me, Jacob, and my aunt in the back. We pulled out, another car stopped abruptly, and we plowed into the back of their truck. The front of our car just crumpled, it was kind of insane that such a small amount of force completely killed the front of our car. They lost their bumper. The only injury I received was a red painful spot on my shoulder and chest from slamming into my seat belt when it locked. A girl in the truck in front of us thought she broke a rib, but the pain cleared up pretty fast so it was assumed she didn't. Even if she did, what would the problem be? We were right outside of the hospital parking lot.

Accident the III: 6th grade. Not quite a car, and also not quite a go cart. I don't know. Anyway. I was in it with my dad's friend driving, who apparently had had more than a few drinks. He took a turn too fast, we flipped over three times. That was... an interesting experience. It was like a blur though, I don't actually remember much of flipping, not the fear or anything because it happened so fast. It was like I blinked and was sitting in it, while it laid on its side. My seat belt had held me securely in place, and besides a streak of oil down my shirt and being shaken up, I was fine. My dad's friend was not so lucky because he was not wearing his seat belt. He flew out and landed on the concrete and seriously injured his ankle. Lesson: drunk drivers are bad, and you should always wear your seat belt. It will save your ass.

Accident the IV: Yesterday. I was with my mom, and we made a turn and the back tires slipped. I don't know how, because they slipped the wrong way that they should have if the turn made them slip. So, they slip once and we make a full circle on the road, my mom tries to straighten us out and we just spin in the other direction, and then back in the other direction. The only thing that stopped us was slamming into the grass on the side of the road. We were two feet away from the ditch that ran there, and on the other side of the road there was an eight foot ditch. No injuries besides a scratch to the side of our truck. What disturbed me the most was the car that just drove by us as we were spiraling all over the road. seriously. What the hell? If we had spun in the opposite direction we would have hit him and then there would have been serious injuries. And as we are sitting there half in the grass and mud, facing oncoming traffic, everyone just drove by us. Seriously. People disturb me sometimes.

Any accidents y'all have been in?

love,
Alice