gonores
09-03-2005, 05:16 AM
I got in an accident today...an accident I caused. 3 car wreck...lots of car damage, minimal bodily damage. It wasn't the classic cell phoning/eating/talking to passengers/driving tired or drunk accident. It was simply me having to deal with a traffic light that doesn't appear in Wisconsin, and dealing with it improperly. For those of you familiar with the lights, it's the "Left turn OK but Yield to oncoming traffic" light. I assumed that as that light turned yellow and red, oncoming traffic would simultaneously receive a yellow and red. As you can guess, I tried to clear the intersection as my left-turn light turned red, and oncoming traffic had a green and the two cars I thought were slowing down rightfully barreled through the intersection, first car into my right-front quarter panel, the car following grazing the first car as it swerved.
Fortunately, of the 6 people in the 3 cars, there were 6 people wearing seat belts. One lady got punched in the face by an airbag and burned her hand, but everyone else seemed ok. My insurance covers everything, and quite frankly, after we all sorted out what happened and I manned up and accepted total responsibility, the air was pretty casual. Air bag lady was happy she was gonna get off work. The Canadian family (mom and 3 teenaged kids) in the other car was house-hunting for the afternoon and weren't really detained from anything important. I had a deck of cards in the car and taught mom Texas Hold 'em while we waited for the cops to clear things up and send a taxi for us to go to the rental car agency.
But still...I feel terrible. I'm in touch with reality enough to know a lot of bad luck was involved, but just exercizing a bit more prudence or just taking a second to stop and think about the light or just treating every car like a missile aimed at your car (just like papa told me to do when I was a youngin') and I'm not endangering the well-being of 5 really cool people.
Then I got to thinking...what if were on the phone or what have you? Or worse, drunk (something I have done >0 times in my life, though there was only one clear time I did that, and maybe 2 or 3 borderline cases...3 or 4 times too many). Jesus Christ. The world does not revolve around me. The consequences of my actions do not just affect me. Did I really need a [censored] accident to teach me that? [censored]...I'm retarded. I think and hope from now on I'll treat the road with the respect it deserves.
I'm guessing when it's all said and done, my accident is gonna cost me $7-10000 after deductible, lost time to getting my car repaired/shopping for a new car (my baby is pretty jacked up), and increased insurance rates. In all honesty, that's a pretty cheap lesson.
Fortunately, of the 6 people in the 3 cars, there were 6 people wearing seat belts. One lady got punched in the face by an airbag and burned her hand, but everyone else seemed ok. My insurance covers everything, and quite frankly, after we all sorted out what happened and I manned up and accepted total responsibility, the air was pretty casual. Air bag lady was happy she was gonna get off work. The Canadian family (mom and 3 teenaged kids) in the other car was house-hunting for the afternoon and weren't really detained from anything important. I had a deck of cards in the car and taught mom Texas Hold 'em while we waited for the cops to clear things up and send a taxi for us to go to the rental car agency.
But still...I feel terrible. I'm in touch with reality enough to know a lot of bad luck was involved, but just exercizing a bit more prudence or just taking a second to stop and think about the light or just treating every car like a missile aimed at your car (just like papa told me to do when I was a youngin') and I'm not endangering the well-being of 5 really cool people.
Then I got to thinking...what if were on the phone or what have you? Or worse, drunk (something I have done >0 times in my life, though there was only one clear time I did that, and maybe 2 or 3 borderline cases...3 or 4 times too many). Jesus Christ. The world does not revolve around me. The consequences of my actions do not just affect me. Did I really need a [censored] accident to teach me that? [censored]...I'm retarded. I think and hope from now on I'll treat the road with the respect it deserves.
I'm guessing when it's all said and done, my accident is gonna cost me $7-10000 after deductible, lost time to getting my car repaired/shopping for a new car (my baby is pretty jacked up), and increased insurance rates. In all honesty, that's a pretty cheap lesson.