Fortunately, I have been in only one really nasty car crash. I was seventeen, in the car with my boyfriend, now husband, and another couple that was in the backseat. We were at the outdoor theatre on a rather chilly summer night. My date and I were having a dispute so I was sitting where I was supposed to be, by the window on the passenger’s side of the car.I don’t remember what the movie was, but when we left for some reason we all fell asleep. Not a good idea. I awoke to the sound of metal scraping on the grass on the side of the highway. Evidently, all four of us had fallen asleep. This, of course, included the driver. This was in the country and we went over the center line and hit another car. Not head-on, fortunately, but almost. We went into the ditch on the wrong side of the highway, and the other car went into the ditch on the other side of the highway. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
We were really fortunate that a nice person had been following us out of the outdoor and observed us during the night. He stated that it had been cooler outside and we often had the heater running in the car. It was felt that we most likely suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning. This made sense as we were all asleep which was really weird.
This certainly left an impact on me. For months and months whenever a loud noise happened I would jump, remembering the sound of the crash.
When I woke up during the crash I didn’t even realize that there was another car involved. This was a shock and I was so scared that they were hurt. They weren’t, but, of course, everyone was really shaken up.
Since my boyfriend was introduced to my dad as “The Careful Driver”, this kind of put a damper on that image.
His car was in really bad shape. What I found really upsetting was how so many people stopped to see what had happened. Even after the police were there people just kept coming. I felt like people like to see other people in trouble, and weren’t there to help.
The only other time I had an accident was when my husband now didn’t stop in the country for an older gentleman who was on a country road and was turning into his driveway. We didn’t give him a chance to turn and ran into the back end of him.
I believe this is why I am never really comfortable driving with my husband as I don’t feel he is a defensive driver. The solution, why I drive, of course.
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