Yesterday I had my first accident and my first traffic violation. I'll also have
my first insurance claim.
I was pulling out on a busy street, trying to
make a right hand turn. I looked to my left, and my lane was clear past the next
intersection, so I turned. I heard a BANG! and I looked, and I had hit a car.
They pulled over, and I pulled up behind them. I grabbed my cell phone and
called Erick. The first thing I asked him was where were the hazard lights? I
had never had to use them before. I'd never had anything like this happen
before. Cars were going all around us trying to figure out what had happened. I
crawled out over Sarah (she was the only one with me) because there was too much
traffic to get out my door. I went to look at the other car to see where the
damage was. I didn't even see any damage at the first glance. She got out and
she had already called the police on her cell phone. We looked at her car. She
had a foot long black mark behind her tire, and it looked like the hub cap might
have been slightly chipped. My car had a little more damage than hers did--the
bumper had been bumped and one my turn signals got knocked out.
The
police came out, and the first thing he did was ask us to move our cars out of
the busy street to the next parking lot. They took all of our information and
then he wrote me out a ticket for failure to yield. I have to go to court on May
20th. I really don't see how that's failure to yield. I looked and didn't see
anyone. I don't know where she came from. Erick thinks maybe she switched lanes.
Could be. If cars could materialize out of thin air, that would have been my
best guess. Other than that, the only logical explanation I could come up with
when the officer asked me what happened was to say that I didn't see her.
Oh well. I guess I couldn't have a perfect driving record forever. What
is a little irritating is that I got the first one. I always was so sure Erick
would get a ticket before I did, because I'm so much more careful than he is. I
even tried to make a bet with him once. I was going to bet $10 that he'd get a
ticket before I did. It's a good thing he didn't take me up on it!
My
first accident, and it was a non-event. No blood and guts. No being on the
evening news. No tow trucks or lying upside down in a ditch. Everyone looked,
but they were probably wondering why we were stopped in the middle of the road
since there wasn't any apparant damage.
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