I’ve been working wrecks for over half my life after beginning my news career back when I was 25. When it comes to collisions, I’ve seen it all many times over. And yes, a lot of it will burn itself into your mind’s eye if you let it.
Given the fact that I’ve conservatively worked well over a thousand auto accidents over my career, a few hundred of those resulting in fatalities, I’ve learned to be careful anytime I get behind the wheel. I assume, as should you, that the other guy will do something stupid. I think the worst of other driver’s and, as such, drive very defensively. If I see you coming in the opposite lane I’m going to just assume you are texting or Pokémon hunting and are going to swerve over into my lane and try to kill me.
After all, in the wrecks I’ve worked there’s always that trigger which causes the crash. Generally, it’s distracted driving. Someone is looking down at the radio, texting, their attention is pulled away by kids in the backseat or looking at a yard sale on the side of the road. Folks often use their cars as rolling offices, forgetting they are navigating a 3,000-pound lethal weapon in public.
There are also those occasional wrecks where you really don’t know what happened. One of the most common is the green light scenario where both drivers say they had the green light. Actually, in most cases of the “double green light,” I believe both drivers truly think they had the green light. There are also those wrecks where the drivers can only shrug. “I never saw him coming,” they will say, or that “he came out of nowhere” and they couldn’t stop.
Well, guess what, the numbers finally caught up to me this past week during a torrential rain storm over in McMinnville. I was driving home from playing tennis and had just stopped at a stop sign atop a hill behind the civic center. I paused to let a car clear from the four-way and began my left turn to go down the hill and then BOOM! Yes, from out of nowhere a slam head-on into a black truck. I never saw it coming. He was coming up the hill and turning right as I was turning left.
While the crash was only at about five miles per hour, it left both of our vehicles with heavy damage, mine getting about $5,000 worth. Unable to open my driver door, I slid out the passenger door, walked through the driving rain and pecked on the other guy’s window. It slowly rolled down.
“Todd!” I exclaimed, seeing an old classmate of mine looking a little stunned. “Are you okay?”
Aside from a bump on the elbow and a $500 deductible (perhaps a gofundme account would help) I’m fine. However, I gained an appreciation of how fast things can happen and how “they can literally come out of nowhere” like I have heard. Oh, and as a parting shot let me tell you I would have likely eaten my steering wheel if I hadn’t been wearing my seat belt. If you don’t buckle up you aren’t using the good sense God gave you.
Contact Duane Sherrill at
news@smithvillereview.com
