Surviving the Uncontrollable

Driver’s Education is extremely important when it comes to reducing the risk of death while driving. I like to believe I am a safe driver. At 28 years old, I have not received a ticket for speeding or negligent driving and have only been in one accident. The accident was exactly that, an accident. I was driving slower than the speed limit due to the weather. It had just begun to snow and the roads were covered with a light dusting. At the time, I was driving a compact Toyota Yaris, a relatively small vehicle. When I approached a slight bend in the road, the wind picked up and my vehicle began to fishtail. In the moment, I remembered one very important lesson from my driver’s ed classes over a decade ago about what to do when your vehicle begins to fishtail. I immediately began to turn my wheel. I have been in a few situations in the past where I experienced fishtailing but was always able to correct the wheel right away. That was not the case this time, though. The vehicle straightened for a moment and then fishtailed in the opposite direction. I turned my wheel again, but instead of straightening, the vehicle over-corrected and began to swerve in a wider track. I continued to work on turning the wheel to stay within my lane as much as possible. Thankfully, the driver in the lane next to me noticed what was happening and slowed down enough to not be affected when my car started to move outside own lane. Eventually, my car turned perpendicular to the road and together, the ice and my own momentum led me straight toward a wall. At that moment, I also remembered our instructor telling us about tensing during a crash. He told us that often times tensing can cause more injuries than if you allow your body to relax. As my vehicle started to head straight-on toward the cement wall, I took a deep breath and accepted my fate. There was nothing else I could do in that moment, and so I waited until I was a few feet in front of the wall, then closed my eyes and put my hands in my lap. I crashed into the wall, spun counterclockwise and hit the wall again on the driver’s side. When my vehicle stopped moving, I opened my eyes and took in the surroundings. At first, I could not see anything due to the condensation on all the windows. I also couldn’t breathe. Instead of panicking, I started to move my fingers and toes. Then my wrists, shoulders, ankles, and knees. When I recognized my extremities were fully functional and there wasn’t any nerve damage, I was finally able to take in a full breath. I rolled down the windows for a moment to make sure I was not still in the road and then took several more breaths before calling the police. In the end, I ended up with minor bruising, misaligned hips, and a mild concussion from whiplash. If I had tensed up before the impact, I could have been more seriously injured. If I had left my hands on the wheel, I could have been de-gloved. Fortunately, my actions minimized my own injuries and the amount of swerving that could have happened. No one else had taught me about fishtailing or relaxing in a crash. If these lesson hadn’t been ground into us at 6:00am for weeks, things could have ended much worse, with more than just myself injured. All this is to say, even safe drivers can be involved in car accidents, and if I hadn’t had those lessons when I was just learning to drive, that day could have ended with one or more victims on the driving death count.

The number one thing we can do to reduce the number of deaths related to driving is to teach and remind people how to react when an accident is approaching. We can not eliminate accidents altogether. As humans, we make mistakes and we live in a world where the people around us make mistakes. Not every accident is our fault, nor can every risk be fully prevented. We can not control the drivers around us nor can we control the weather or animals crossing the road. We can only control our own behaviors and reactions. The best we can do alongside teaching safe driving is teaching the skills it takes to stay alive. I know I will be sharing my story and teaching my future children what to do if they are ever in a similar situation to reduce their risk of death when they inevitably find themselves face-to-face with an oncoming accident.