I got my license when I was 16. I’ve been driving for 2 and a half years and never got into an accident. My dad always told me that it would happen to me at one point because after a while young drivers get too comfortable when they are still inexperienced and make avoidable mistakes. Well, it did happen to me. I was home for winter break just finishing my first semester of college. I was driving with my three friends in the car to the busiest part of our town: the mall. Before I knew it the cars in front of me were braking out of nowhere. I slammed on my brakes and for a split second we were safe, until the car behind me slammed into us. I vividly remember my head flinging forwards and the sound of the crash. The airbags didn’t go off, but I looked over at my friend in the passenger seat and then my friends, in the back and asked, “Are you okay?”. Through driving school and my parents, I was taught to exchange insurance information, ask if everybody was okay, call the police and fill out paperwork but nobody could prepare me for the fear of still being in the road while cars zoom past you, not knowing if my car was still drivable or if anybody else would hit me. I eventually safely made it into a Target parking lot along with the two other cars involved. I remember checking the back of my car and thinking it wasn’t that bad but having a pit in my stomach when walking to the front of my car. My grill was completely pushed in, liquid leaking out and the hood slightly popped. In my thin jacket I was freezing while watching families do last minute Christmas shopping as I pulled out my phone.
“Hey Dad, I got into a car accident”. A sentence parents never want to hear as my dad curses over the phone and immediately asks where I am. I later found out that my mom and dad ran out of the house for me.
When the police arrived, I cooperated with them and gave them all my information. My parents eventually showed up and started to call a tow truck for my car and helped me answer questions on the report forms. I finally went back inside the car where my friends were to fill out some paperwork. When one of my friends asked me how I was doing, my voice wavered as I tried to stay calm, and I nodded and kept filling out paperwork. I still hadn’t cried.
Cleaning out my car, Betty White, in case I never saw it again was hard. I learned to drive in that car, got a drivers license in it, drove to high school in it, to graduation, up and down from college, and spent hours in it with friends creating memories. I took pictures of it before the tow truck took it away.
Nobody could prepare me for the amount of guilt I felt that night. It was so heavy it hurt my shoulders, and it hurt my heart. I laid on the floors for hours after, my hands shaking from the adrenaline wearing off and my arms hurting from bracing myself in the accident. The accident was not my fault, but I couldn’t help but wonder what I could’ve done differently. What if I left the house earlier or later? What if we ate food for a little bit longer or faster? What if I never had the idea to go over in the area? What if I was just two cars back, would it have still happened?
After weeks, my car was going to be totaled. It was too old and took too much money to fix it. We started to look at other cars for me. I felt a lot of fear to get back into a car and drive it. I was scared to even get a car because I didn’t want to get into an accident again and relive that.
Even since the accident, I drive more cautiously, leaving more space for the cars in front of me and watching my rearview mirror every time I come to a stop. When others are driving, I watch the sideview mirror sometimes or will brace when I think they aren’t braking fast enough for me. This type of fear is something that I wouldn’t wish for anybody and is why we need to get more education in driving.