Collisions

   I totalled my car once, making a left-hand turn in front of oncoming traffic. I thought that I had clearly looked to see if I had enough time to make the turn safely but, in the middle of  it, there was suddenly a car bearing down on me that had  come out of nowhere. I can remember hearing the sound of screeching tires and thinking to myself, "They're not going to be able to stop in time" and then the impact.

Could really have used THIS...

   The force of the collision activated the passenger side airbags and drove the passenger door into the dashboard. Apart from that there was not a lot of damage to the rest of the car. After a lengthy time to consider, my insurance company finally decided that it was not worth repairing and therefore was a total write-off. There was much less damage to the other car and none of its occupants were hurt.
   Well, not physically hurt anyway. Nor was I physically hurt or suffered any real financial damage but that was not where everything ended.

...to avoid what looked like THIS!

   The collision is now inside of me and I think of it almost every single time I need to make a similar left-hand turn. I still hear the sound of it and remember the feeling of being knocked almost parallel to the seats. I can remember the sound of the female driver of the other car crying and her husband yelling. Me being unable to explain my actions to them. It is a haunting kind of thing and I can't even begin to think of how things would be for me now if anyone had been seriously hurt or, worse yet, killed.
   A collision opens up new possibilities. It is one of those things that is so foreign to almost any other of your life experiences that, when it happens, you are forever altered. Prior, it was a bad thing that happened to someone on T.V., or in the paper. You are not naive enough to think it could never happen to you but you manage to tuck it away in a corner dark enough to never have to consider it as a possibility. Post-collision and it is something that now defines you, almost indelibly. You are a person with blue eyes and an accident. Grey-haired with a hint of shattered glass.
   I drove past an accident scene the other day. There was a young lady in one of the cars, her bumper was almost on the road, and she was crying. She did not appear to be hurt and the accident appeared to be less serious than even the one I had been in. But she had obviously been overwhelmed by it all. I have noticed this from time to time, that if someone is distraught at the scene of an accident it is generally a woman. I've never really thought about it too much until the other day. What occurred to me that day was that, for the most part, collisions of any magnitude are not something that women have as a life experience to relate back to. As much as my accident was an awful experience, it was at least tempered by every other collision I've easily lived through. Primarily, I'm thinking of sports-related collisions, I guess. All the times I was running full speed in one direction and intersected someone running full-speed in the opposite direction. Collisions I knew were coming and ones that completely blindsided me. Head-over-heels stuff, the occasional broken bone. Every single one of those prepares you for the one when you're driving. My feeling after my accident was similar to other times--"Holy crap, that was hard!" and then, a few seconds later, "But I'm still standing!"
   The difference, though, was what could have been. I could have had a passenger that night. And if I had, he or she would have been seriously hurt. It could have been my wife, a son, someone I work with. This is how it got into my head.

Of course, it's best of all to avoid THIS!

   Since my accident, I have had to make that left-hand turn on a weekly basis. If I can, I avoid it. I take a whole different route so, that when I get to that intersection, I am travelling straight through it and not having to turn. But this does not rule out every other turn a driver needs to make against two lanes of oncoming traffic. When I find myself in that situation, having to carefully gauge traffic speed, I invariably think of that collision. There are the occasional close calls and everything is re-inforced all over again in a very intimate sort of way. Things happen for a reason, though, and I do believe this. I believe that a better understanding of the possibilities involved have kept future passengers (not to mention myself) just that much safer.