Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Boom
First, let me say that no one was injured, thank heavens.
Second, what I know of the accident came to me from an eyewitness. If I have to explain what I saw, then it’s going to come out funny. I’m driving, a white car moves out in front of me, there’s kids in the back, I slam on the brakes, my car doesn’t stop in time. There’s a loud noise, more a thud than a crunch, when my fender meets her passenger side rear panel.
One split-second difference and I would have collided squarely with the passenger side back door. You know, where the kids were. Of course I’m only thinking about split-second differences now.
I ran back to her car, which had spun around and ended up backwards, I think, on the side street. I asked her if her kids were okay and she said, “Okay, okay.” They were in car seats (again, thank heavens!) and both were crying. She didn’t speak English. She seemed about ready to drive off and I would have let her. Then we could all get back to our lives — I to my office, where I had no patients to see for a whole afternoon, she and her kids to whatever it was they did. Surely they had something to do.
It seemed odd, though. Why wasn’t she coming out to check her own damages? Isn’t that what people did under these circumstances?
Fortunately, there were some bystanders (one of whom witnessed the whole thing), and they blocked her car and told her she had to wait. One of them told me to call the police, so I called 911. Only then did I think to check my car for damages.
It ain’t pretty. The front looks like a Road Warrior car: part of the fender is jutting forward like a spike. There’s styrofoam showing. Styrofoam! So that’s what cars are made from these days.
The eyewitness said that she pulled out into the intersection in front of me. Why would she do that? I didn’t have a stop sign, but she did. There’s a crosswalk sign posted on my street, but it doesn’t look anything like a stop sign. Either she didn’t see me, or she mistook the crosswalk sign for a stop sign. In other words, maybe she thought it was a four-way-stop.
The rest is pretty routine. The policeman showed up (thank you, Officer Deadman). (No kidding.) He took statements, told me that she didn’t have proof of insurance or her driver’s license, but she said both were at home. Oh, her ride? A Lexus.
I was sufficiently rattled that I called Karen and had her pick me up from work. I didn’t feel much like driving. I’ve never enjoyed driving, but now I REALLY don’t enjoy driving. And here I am.
I’m thankful that she and her kids are fine.
D.
Soilent Cars are made from styrofoam!! :O
I’m glad that *you’re* fine.
And, yeah, lots of cars these days are essentially plastic over foam to make them light so they get better mileage. Whee.
I hope that she does have insurance and that it all gets taken care of.
{{hugg}}
That does rattle one. Glad to hear everyone’s all right. I’ve been so very thankful that every time I’ve been hit (I’m like a magnet for getting hit) my daughter hasn’t been in the car with me – that always adds an element of aching dread to the equation, thinking about what could happen to hurt a kid.
i was in an accident similar to that approximately 5 years ago…the woman driving the car i was in–my boss, taking me and her daughter to the place where she worked so that i could watch the baby there–was distracted talking to me and forgot about a stop sign. went right through, and my first thought was oh, we’ll just turn around on the other side of the street…then BAM. we were hit, spun 180+ degrees, my glasses flew out the open window and i cracked my head on the side of the car…luckily mine was the worst of the injuries. and like your accident, if a split second had been different, the car that hit us would have killed the baby (who barely even cried, just out of shock at first and then was totally ok). we didnt realize that until later, when jill–my boss–took her car to the shop and really LOOKED at it…scariest thing ever.
i’m glad everyone’s ok. i still get nervous at that intersection. car accidents are no fun (except in NASCAR :-P).
Well done for getting the police. It’s easy to say, sure we can change details and all that, glad it wasn’t worse – and then find out they’ve stiffed you for the bill of the repairs and put your insurance up so they can continue being cheap bastards.
It’s trite (we always say it!), but I really am glad that everyone’s OK. I’ve never had a serious accident, although I did get hit from behind pretty hard many years ago.
Styrofoam is actually a good bumper material: light, it absorbs a hell of a shot, and is easy and cheap to replace. There’s a reason they use it to pack everything from electronic instruments to bombs.
I hope you are feeling okay this morning; sometimes aches and pains can show up the next day.
My accident story is when I had the Integra, and I already had the green light to go, was alredy in the intersection when an older man drove right through the red light, spun my car around ripping off the front bumper; the car came very close to being “a total” The guy later said he thought the light was green for him; I had several eye witnesses who offered to testify.
When I had my first Honda Accord, I was sitting at a red light and got sideswiped by a guy with no license, no insurance. The entire driver’s side was a mess.This was up on Arrow Hwy. The guy came over on my side of the street to do this.
Horse time! Grab it by the reins and climb back on.
Seriously, drive often and then more often. Don’t end up like me, a drooling dweeb when it came to driving. Took me years to get my butt back on highways after an accident. I still fucking hate fucking cars.
Scary. You never know. Carpe diem. Glad you are unhurt. Yes, sadly, our cars are just illusions of safety. I have 5 kids which equals probably 10 wrecks. Thank goodness everyone survived.
Glad you’re okay too!
Back in school, we learned about the modern day fiberglass and paper maché cars. I remember my teaching commenting that’d he’d rather have one of the steel frame and metal cars from the 50’s and 60’s while everyone else was driving around in their “milk cartons.”
I’m glad you’re okay. Pretty scary.
Oh boy! I always get really irate at people who do dumb stuff in traffic (racing across the street against the light with a baby in a stroller – not smart!), since I really don’t want to be the instrument of someone’s fate.
Three accident stories:
1) I’m in the right lane going straight. Car in left lane makes a right turn across the front of my car. Turns out he’s on parole, has no insurance (accent on the in, since this was in Texas), and his driver’s license is from a go cart track (really).
2) I’m in Europe driving down a small street and enter an intersection. Wham! Broadsided by a rundown truck. In Europe, the right of way rules are different and I wasn’t on the priority road (marked by a yellow diamond). The driver was a gypsy who made an X on the signature line of the report form and subsequently made many claims for whiplash treatment for him and his family.
3) My first hour at the location of a new job and I’m picked up at the airport by one of my staff in his wife’s lovely and expensive luxury automobile. There’s construction and he has to take a detour (he’s only been in the area for three months). It’s very late, so the lights are flashing. He goes into an intersection and we are broadsided by two guys driving at the speed limit (as were we). The car spins around, hits a light poll, etc. It was my first airbag experience. The other driver was a young guy in a junky car and he’s clearly shaken. He looks at the signs on the road we had travelled on and there, high up in the sky, is a yield sign, and he starts to jump up and down, pointing. I felt bad for my guy, since he’d totalled his wife’s car. I had mammoth bruises from the seat belt and a way swollen knee from hitting the side of the car. The next day, my guy tells everyone that he’d been blindsided and it was all the other guy’s fault. I felt bad for my guy, since the sign wasn’t in a place where Americans are used to looking (it was really way up there), so the accident was totally understandable, but he was legally at fault, which wasn’t how he characterized things. Interesting way to start a new job…