Ouchies...
Jul. 22nd, 2004 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miss_ytI just had an object lesson in what you do when you get into a car accident. That and some other things.
On the way home, as I was driving down Tuckerman, I accidentally ran a red light at an intersection (or that's what seems to have happened, I can't remember, probably because I wasn't paying attention). Another car hit me on the driver's side (I remembered it as the passenger side, which shows how screwed up I was). I lost control of the car, which spun and hit another car waiting at the red light. We hit each other side-on. Luckily nobody was hurt and no airbags deployed. My car was up against the side of the guy I'd hit, and with the help of some people who lived nearby (who called the police for us), we managed to get the two cars apart. I was in the van, which was still driveable, so I parked it on a side street.
The guy who'd hit me was about my age, and the son of a diplomat (his car had diplomatic plates and his dad turned up later). The front bumper of his car was torn off. Those people from the house nearby took it out of the intersection and helped to calm me down. We wrote down each other's addresses and insurance information, which took a while because I forgot to get mine out of the car and the policeman came while we were exchanging paperwork and had to look at everything (it was raining while we were all milling around out there, so it was quite miserable). I called Dad, who called Mom. She called me - I said everyone was fine and the van was still driveable. But Dad told her to drive over to me, so she did. She thinks now that it was a bad idea, because the guy in the second car (the one I spun into) was all right while only I was there. After all, I was young, scared, profusely apologetic and probably really pathetic. When Mom got there he seemed to get upset and he took pictures of the van as I drove it away. Mom's afraid he might sue us, but since nobody was hurt and the police officer saw that, I think we'll be okay. The other drivers were nice about it, too, again because I probably seemed pathetic.
The other two cars had to be towed. The guy whose car I spun into looked fine but stalled out when he started it. I managed to drive the van home, but the sides are dented, the front passenger door won't open all the way and the car seems to think the rear sliding door on the driver's side is open. Since the car has several thousand miles on it Mom doubts that it's salvagable.
After the police officer sorted everything out, he said I was at fault, which was true, but didn't give me a citation. I wasn't being reckless, just absentminded. I'm lucky nobody got hurt. It could easily have been a lot worse. Mom didn't yell at me, though she said this is going to drive up our insurance premiums. Before this the fact that I was female (well, I still am) and had good grades kept our premiums down. Mom figured this was going to happen some time. She's worried that if Daniel gets in an accident, it will be worse, because of course he drives like a typical teenage boy.
Mom and Dad haven't forbidden me from driving - they think this will make me more careful in the future. I'm taking the bus home tomorrow and I don't intend to get behind the wheel again for at least a week. Dad's still at work, so I don't know what his reaction will be, though he sounded all right over the phone.
And me? I was pretty shaken up, but I'm fine now. I once wrote a story about a girl who narrowly escaped a fatal traffic accident and felt guilty for surviving (it was a very bad story that I wrote for a fiction class and I shall never show it to anyone ever again). I'm glad I don't have somebody's injury or death on my conscience - just the cars, the inconvenience I caused, and what will now be higher insurance premiums.
On the way home, as I was driving down Tuckerman, I accidentally ran a red light at an intersection (or that's what seems to have happened, I can't remember, probably because I wasn't paying attention). Another car hit me on the driver's side (I remembered it as the passenger side, which shows how screwed up I was). I lost control of the car, which spun and hit another car waiting at the red light. We hit each other side-on. Luckily nobody was hurt and no airbags deployed. My car was up against the side of the guy I'd hit, and with the help of some people who lived nearby (who called the police for us), we managed to get the two cars apart. I was in the van, which was still driveable, so I parked it on a side street.
The guy who'd hit me was about my age, and the son of a diplomat (his car had diplomatic plates and his dad turned up later). The front bumper of his car was torn off. Those people from the house nearby took it out of the intersection and helped to calm me down. We wrote down each other's addresses and insurance information, which took a while because I forgot to get mine out of the car and the policeman came while we were exchanging paperwork and had to look at everything (it was raining while we were all milling around out there, so it was quite miserable). I called Dad, who called Mom. She called me - I said everyone was fine and the van was still driveable. But Dad told her to drive over to me, so she did. She thinks now that it was a bad idea, because the guy in the second car (the one I spun into) was all right while only I was there. After all, I was young, scared, profusely apologetic and probably really pathetic. When Mom got there he seemed to get upset and he took pictures of the van as I drove it away. Mom's afraid he might sue us, but since nobody was hurt and the police officer saw that, I think we'll be okay. The other drivers were nice about it, too, again because I probably seemed pathetic.
The other two cars had to be towed. The guy whose car I spun into looked fine but stalled out when he started it. I managed to drive the van home, but the sides are dented, the front passenger door won't open all the way and the car seems to think the rear sliding door on the driver's side is open. Since the car has several thousand miles on it Mom doubts that it's salvagable.
After the police officer sorted everything out, he said I was at fault, which was true, but didn't give me a citation. I wasn't being reckless, just absentminded. I'm lucky nobody got hurt. It could easily have been a lot worse. Mom didn't yell at me, though she said this is going to drive up our insurance premiums. Before this the fact that I was female (well, I still am) and had good grades kept our premiums down. Mom figured this was going to happen some time. She's worried that if Daniel gets in an accident, it will be worse, because of course he drives like a typical teenage boy.
Mom and Dad haven't forbidden me from driving - they think this will make me more careful in the future. I'm taking the bus home tomorrow and I don't intend to get behind the wheel again for at least a week. Dad's still at work, so I don't know what his reaction will be, though he sounded all right over the phone.
And me? I was pretty shaken up, but I'm fine now. I once wrote a story about a girl who narrowly escaped a fatal traffic accident and felt guilty for surviving (it was a very bad story that I wrote for a fiction class and I shall never show it to anyone ever again). I'm glad I don't have somebody's injury or death on my conscience - just the cars, the inconvenience I caused, and what will now be higher insurance premiums.
