Monday, May 25, 2009

Excuse My Absence

It's been a week since I posted, and my posting has been sparse in general lately. I came to the realization this weekend that the accident I had a few weeks ago had shaken me up more than I'd realized.

I haven't said much about it here. On May 3, I was driving my son to my ex's house, when a guy in a Nissan Murano SUV rolled a stop sign and broadsided my little Toyota Corolla. His car struck me square on the door. I had my eyes on the road, but my son was watching the other car-- he shouted out a warning just before it struck us. He said that the guy was actually accelerating when he hit us.

I checked to see that my son was okay, then realized I was cut up from the window, which had shattered when the Murano hit us. To my disbelief, the car was still driveable. I got my son out of the car, moved my car out of the intersection, called the cops and began getting information from the other driver.

The first thing out of his mouth was "Oh my god-- this car is brand new!" Uh, gee, I think my kid and I are okay. We exchanged information. I called Kim to tell her what happened, and to ask her to pick Adam up and get him to my ex's house. After nearly half an hour, the police still had not shown up. I drove my car to my home. My neighbor Bob was kind enough to let me keep the car in his garage overnight-- with the window broken, anybody could have walked off with battery, radio, etc. I cleaned the blood off of my arm and leg and went to work that night.

To make a long story short, the other guy's insurance company assumed most of the liability. I bought myself a new used car-- a Camry (I love Toyotas). I should get the settlement check tomorrow.

In the meantime, my various aches and pains have been subsiding, but I've been left with an unsettling realization-- that if I'd been in my old Plymouth Horizon, the car I was left with at the end of my second marriage, I likely would not have been able to walk away from the accident. I realized over the last couple of weeks that the accident had made me nervous about getting in a car and driving.

This weekend, I worked a lot, but otherwise took it easy. I counted my blessings; the accident could have hurt my son or I badly, or disrupted my plans to start nursing school this fall.

Tonight, I got in my new used car to go pick Kim and Mel up at the airport (they went to visit my in-laws this weekend). I turned on the satellite radio and took my Camry out onto the Kennedy expressway. Getting on the highway gave me a chance to try out the cruise control-- the one thing I'd asked my mechanic for when looking at cars. It makes the 11 or 12 hour drive to see my folks much easier. As I neared the airport, I realized that I was relaxed, and having fun-- I'd forgotten how much fun it is driving a car with a manual transmission. I also realized that there was one other benefit of having an old-fashioned manual transmission: it forces me to pay much more attention to my driving. And my son should be happy about it-- I'll be teaching him to drive in the next year, and he expressed a desire to learn how to drive a manual transmission car. Looks like he'll learn to drive on one.

7 comments:

Joe said...

Glad you finally got your new ride.

Traumatic incidents like car crashes tend to shake people up in ways they're not even aware of right away. Glad you're ok.

SkylersDad said...

Take time to heal, physically and emotionally. That was a hell of a bangup!

SamuraiFrog said...

I'm glad to hear you're doing better. My accident in January still has me nervous about driving in bad weather. I envy you right now.

Churlita said...

I'm glad all of that badness is clearing up. I have a stick shift in my Subaru station wagon. It was great when we were driving in the mountains.

vikkitikkitavi said...

Holy cow! So happy you were not seriously injured.

GETkristiLOVE said...

SV and I call them Moron-os because it seems like only morons drive them. Now I'm certain.

Freida Bee said...

I'm glad you and your son are ok! I had a person pull out of a driveway in front of me when I was going 55mph a couple years ago. I would have killed the guy, t-boned him right on, but I swerved hard to the left, ended up, miraculously, stopping me with a 30 foot straddling skid on a median and totaling my car... and the jerk drove off.

I flinch to this day when I see cars pulling up the road from driveways.