Highway to hell

This past Tuesday I was in a minor car crash.  I'm fine, nobody was hurt.

My mom was driving; I sat in the passenger seat while my sister sat behind me in the backseat.  We were on our way to the mall for the afternoon, but we were first picking my sister's friend up, who lived fairly close to the mall.  We turned onto her court, maneuvered around a Bobcat (to which I said something along the lines of, "we almost hit him!"), only to be t-boned by a car rapidly reversing from the first driveway on the right.

As my memory serves, he wasn't driving overly fast, but now looking at the damage to the right side of the car I'm shocked.  I don't exactly remember the impact, I just remember my sister screaming, but we were nudged to the side before he realized what he was doing and stopped.  (by my use of phrases like "I don't remember" it sounds like it was some massive crash where I was heading toward the light and woke up in a hospital bed with amnesia - god forbid - but the impact was enough to terrify me and keep me shaking for a good while afterwards) He hit the side where my sister and I were sitting, and the sight of a car backing up straight into you is something I don't want to see now.  Now seeing the damage on my door, I'm surprised I'm not a pretzel.

Sure, my neck hurt for a while afterwards, and my sister hit her head on the window by jolt, but we were unscathed.  My mom sent us off up the court to my sister's friend's house where we sat around until the insurance stuff was sorted out and the police filled out their crash report.  The guy was apologetic; he knew it was entirely his fault and he seemed genuinely sorry, although my mom told us after that he had said his head wasn't in the right place because his wife just left him and if we weren't in the way of his car he would've gone out to kill her.  Uhhhhhh.. (and I swear to the baby Jesus I didn't make that up)

If anything, I've re-evaluated my thoughts on driving.  I'm sure my friends can attest to the fact that sometimes I'm not the most precise or careful driver, and I realize I'm like that.  Even though we weren't at fault in this case, it's opened my eyes to the idea that anything can happen at any time, since none of us even saw the guy throw into reverse.  It just means I need to keep all the more attentive, and maybe keep the radio down just a tad.  I'm notorious for loud music.

Then again, I'm not the worst driver in the world - or, I'm not as bad as people make me out to be.  My dad is convinced I'm the worst driver to ever grace this earth, and he's forbidden me from driving his BMW - he wouldn't even let me take it a few hundred feet up the road to pick up a friend and come back; "that's far too risky," he said about the trip that only involved driving straight and turning once.  While sometimes I'm airy, I'm not a dangerous driver at all.  Maybe I have a bit of road rage, but that's only because pedestrians are fucking idiots, but I'm safe and I have yet to endanger anyone.  I know my responsibility as a driver and as the one with my passenger's lives in my hands, and I would never abuse that in trade for dancing around to music or looking at the dog on the side of the road.  Lighten up, pops!

The damage to my car is fairly bad, but the car is still drivable for now.  I have yet to take the wheel since Tuesday, and I'll be slightly apprehensive when I do.