The Crash
July 5th, 2008 by Bill ColleyMy car has a large and new dent and it appears a blessed event. A friend called me Saturday and mentioned he was going to church Saturday evening. I was planning a 7:30 service Sunday but decided I wanted to see the man and his wife. Her sister died last week and I just believed I needed to see them in person this week. When I arrived at church I backed into a parking space. My first inkling was to pull directly into the space but backing out can only subject someone to possibly piling into me. This place is crawling with tourists and I offer witness to the strange driving habits of cars tagged New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Then, again, my back bumper is scraped from contact last summer with a bolder and as I’m considering trading the car for a new Civic Hybrid or Prius maybe somebody should pile into my car’s rear end. The bumper would be replaced and perhaps help at trade in.
Shoulda, woulda, coulda. After church I visited with Rich and his wife and also with the Principal from a local school. The man has dropped 67 pounds over 9 months and we compared weight loss notes.
In the parking lot a crowd gathered. When I walked from the church some folks approached. “A woman backed into your car”, a fellow said. There is now a grapefruit sized dent on the forward bumper and it’s dislodged just below the front left headlamp.
The woman was parked nearby. She was most remorseful and in 50 years of driving this is her first fender-bender. God bless her. I must have had my first before 50 days as a licensed driver. The woman has already notified her insurer and next week I’ll get an estimate.
Why do I get into these entanglements with the nearly sainted? I bought my car when it was still on the delivery truck. It never made the showroom floor. Seven months later I was parked at work and the Chief Engineer walked into the broadcast booth to inform me he had backed into my still shining new vehicle. A week later it came out of the repair shop and looked great. One week later I was stopped at the end of an off ramp when a harried pizza delivery man plowed into my car. More replacement parts followed. It should be made clear the engineer and the pizza shop owner were very, very nice people. You would welcome them as neighbors. I find I feel worse for these people than I feel for my car or myself.
It leads me to an ever growing belief that many good people have the occasional bad day behind the wheel. Maybe even a great many bad days behind wheels and we can examine our own consciences and remember some very close calls. Think about it the next time someone cuts you off at the grocery parking lot. Before you make the obscene gesture you might consider that in the previous week you cut off someone else.
I’ve been looking at photographs of shiny new cars this week and then I look at my dented and nicked and reliable form of transportation. It’s frustrating but I can’t be angry with these other folks. Darn.
Just think, next year at Independence Day we’ll all be riding bicycles, Vespas and horses. Then about which what will we complain?
July 7th, 2008 at 5:47 am
Been there, myself, Bill. I never got mad, either. I tell a tale of one early, frosty morning when my daughter said to me, “Daddy, I didn’t sleep last night. I took a friend home and when I backed out of her driveway I scraped the front fender on their gatepost.”
I asked her if anyone was hurt or if the post was damaged. The only damage was a ding and some whilte paint on the fender, over the wheel arch. I looked at the car and shrugged. “Things like this happen,” I calmly said to her, then went back inside. She was relieved. (I hasten to add that I don’t normally fly off the handle at such things.)
I then had to back my van out of our driveway. The windows were somewhat frosted up but I thought it was safe to back out (not onto a main road, though). I pulled around my wife’s car and then… Crunch! I had backed into my daughter’s car and locked my rear bumper under the wheel arch that she had slightly damaged. There was no way to remove my van without doing more damage, so I had to go indoors and ask her for the key so I could get her car away from my van.
She came out and watched me move her car and then said, “I’ll bet you’re glad you never shouted at me.” I had to laugh but I did feel so foolish. And she was right. No further damage was done to her car but my new van suffered quite a dent in the rear corner.