Crashbang

It is amazing the details that you remember when things happen quickly.  The world around you can also change pretty darn fast sometimes.  That happened today on the way home from work.  Go figure that when you stay a little later than you had planned the shit hits the fan.  However, in the end, things could have turned out a lot worse than they did.

Well, you might have guessed at this point to what I am referring.  This evening, on the drive home from work I was involved in a car accident.  Fortunately none of the people involved were injured.  I was rear-ended, and I was the last of four cars to be hit.  Thankfully I had the presence of mind to keep my foot on the brake which, while may have caused a little more damage to the rear of my car, prevented me from hitting the car in front of me.

The woman driving the car in front of me was nice enough to offer to be a witness if needed so I collected her information so that she could get on her way.  At this point I hadn’t realized how many people had been involved, so when I turned around to see if the guy behind me who had hit me was OK I was quite surprised to see the two other cars.  If only I could make combo shots like that while playing pool!  The thing that really amazed me was that when i sat down to fill out the report for the police, I could remember hearing screeching tires and seeing the car behind me coming at me out of the corner of my eye in the rearview mirror.

The driver of the car that seemed to initiate the chain of events was a young girl who was quite shook up about it.  When it is your first car accident, it can be hard.  Having been in a much worse accident when i was a new driver, I think helped me to maintain a sense of balance.  Of course i have also been involved in other accidents non involving cars and I think that teaches you how to keep your cool and take care of business.  In situations like this I always remember what my boss said to me four years ago: “Equipment can be fixed, lives can’t.  So as long as no one gets hurt things are not as bad as you think.”

It is just a car, and cars can be fixed or replaced.  These are the words of wisdom that I tried to offer to this girl who was quite worried about what her parent’s would say.  Sure, it sucks and it can be a scary experience to be in an accident, but any accident that you can walk away from without a scratch on you is a good one, and all of us walked away un-injured.  Sometimes you just have to look for the positive sides of the situation.  I probably spouted off more stories than anyone wanted to hear, but I like to think that it helped a little.

So, hopefully the damage to my car is not bad.  it doesn’t look bad to me, but I am no expert.  If I can’t get everything fixed before we go to Moab next week, hopefully the shop will say that it is fine to drive that distance before getting repairs done.  We shall see.