It is the three year anniversary of the time I was in a car accident.
I was in my Toyota highlander–that car was a tank and I loved her–waiting at a traffic light to cross a busy street from one shopping center to another. I was the first at the light, and when red turned to green, I proceeded forward. As I reached the middle of the intersection, a truck comes at normal speed on my left.
At this moment, time slowed down, and many things went through my head at once. What was I doing in life? What was I shopping for? Wasn’t my light green so why is he still coming? I know there were more stupid, irrelevant thoughts, but I can’t remember them. The oncoming driver slammed his brakes, and had I sped up, he might have clipped the rear of my car and I could have gone spinning, or maybe he would have missed me entirely. Who knows. What did happen was that he rammed into the driver’s door and the arm rest touched my arm. Not hard, not soft, but firmly, like a handshake. The intersection came to a halt, and the witnesses allowed me to slowly drive my car through the intersection into the parking lot so as to not impede traffic.
The driver followed me with his truck. I was unable to open my door and had to exit through the passenger side. We exchanged insurance information, I took pictures of the damage and his license plate. He apologized and said he had just come from a meeting and wasn’t thinking. I had already texted my parents and they were on their way.
I was distraught. My car was damaged, my day off was now ruined, but somehow I remained unscathed. There was gratitude that I was not injured, at least that’s what I kept repeating out loud, but not enough grace to be anything but curt. All of these feelings flooded out of my eyes and down my cheeks the moment my dad arrived to the scene.
A while after, a police officer found us. He checked to make sure I was okay, questioned the driver, then came back to talk to me. He told me that the driver had immediately confessed his culpability, had stated that he had come from a meeting with his lawyer about his divorce, and that he wasn’t going to issue a ticket since the man was already going through a lot and would be slammed by his insurance anyway. This pacified me, and looking back at the situation, I commend the officer for his judgement, as he had every right to issue a ticket but chose mercy.
I still drive through that intersection, albeit in a different car. The first few times, an unconscious wave of trepidation rolled over me, and I could sense being especially cautious. It is, after all, a survival mechanism to remember the place where a traumatic event occurred, so as to avoid it in the future. As time passed, the fear of this particular location has dwindled, but the memory remains.