My wife met with a bad accident yesterday. She was making a protected left turn when an idiot on his cell phone ran a red light and crashed into her at high speed.
The speed of impact and his position was such that he spun 180 degrees, hit the curb and spun backwards for 30-40 feet before stopping.
Thankfully my wife did not have major injury. And I am hoping and praying that nothing new shows up in the next few weeks, months or years. And she had just dropped of my kids at pre-school, but that very thought of ‘what-if’ is going to keep me awake for many days.
Just to make things more messy, my wife was driving my friend’s car who had swapped the car just 20 mins before since he wanted our minivan to pick up someone from SFO. Now this whole thing is going to be covered by his insurance who is already asking a bunch of uncomfortable questions.
I learnt two things from this whole mess.
a) I am going to throw my cell phone away in the rear seat whenever I get into the car from now on. People could have been killed yesterday. I don’t even want to think if there were pedestrians, bikers or other cars when the other guy swung out of control.
b) This is the last time I borrow or lend anything of any value to any one. I will probably be viewed as a jerk, but it just keeps relationships as they should be without messing them up.
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1. Comment by Venkat
5/Sep/2008 at 3:28 pm
Glad that she did not get hurt. And add this to your lessons (I learnt this through a close shave too!)…
c) Always wear seat belts, irrespective of legal requirements, and require passengers to wear one too.
2. Comment by Arvind Balaraman
7/Sep/2008 at 6:05 am
Sorry to hear about the news. Glad that she did not get hurt. Unfortunately sometimes we become victim of others mistake.
3. Comment by Henry Goh
7/Sep/2008 at 7:10 pm
OMG.
Just when I told myself at 5am just now to check on you guys and ask “is everything is going OK for you?”
I’m shock and so is my wife. We pray you’ll get over this without too much headache. Thank God the children weren’t in the vehicle!
4. Comment by Venky
8/Sep/2008 at 10:33 am
Hi Anand,
Sorry to hear this. Glad that your wife is safe.
You will get over this soon.
Venky
5. Comment by Raj
8/Sep/2008 at 1:45 pm
Sorry to hear about the accident and am Glad all is well, for now atleast. Wishing you all a speedy recovery.
6. Comment by Kris
23/Oct/2008 at 12:03 am
Hope everything is good on your side. I hope your friend also reads this. DONT ever lend or borrow your car to anyone just to save some bucks. I hate when people do this (especially they wanted to save renting a car to do airport pickup/drop). May be you’ll loose $50 max if you rent a minivan.
7. Comment by amimu
6/Nov/2008 at 11:46 am
Hope everything is fine in your family, yes the trauma itself is hard. Another thing we do is never carpool other family’s kids. Many parents from fremont stratford ask us can you carpool. We just say we are not comfortable driving other children.