“The coast ain’t clear, __-___”
This isn’t our car and it’s not even the same model year, but the front end of our car looks something like this.
If I had just a moment and could turn back the clock, that’s what I’d tell the person that waved the kid through.
It’s what I would tell the kid, too.
We had just seen “True Grit” at a new theater that just opened about an hour’s drive from home. On the way home, we decided to go ten miles out of the way to go out to eat.
When it happened, we were driving on a road that is two lanes in each direction with a center turning lane.
We had just gone through a traffic light as it turned yellow. The next light had just turned green and the cars stopped there had started to move. We were in the southbound lane next to the turning lane and there were fewer cars ahead of us than there were in the other southbound lane.
Just after we made it through the light that had turned yellow, a car that I hadn’t seen darted through a gap in the other lane of traffic.
They had been waved through by a driver in that lane.
“The coast ain’t clear, __-___s”
We were about three blocks from the restaurant we had decided to go to.
I hit the brakes and thought that we just might make it – but realized, just before impact, that we weren’t going to.
We hit hard, but not so hard that the air bags deployed. The impact moved us a little sideways, so that the front, driver side tire was over the yellow line of the turning lane.
Shortly after the impact, the kid backed his car back into the drive of the convenience store, clearing one lane of traffic. The __-___ driver that had waved the kid through didn’t even stop to see if anyone was hurt. The accident happened right in front of their vehicle, but they just drove off.
Our car wasn’t going any place under it’s own power.
“My chest hurts.”
Karen still had her seatbelt on.
_____________
Karen’s brother brought us home after she was released from the Emergency Room.
Karen is still hurting, but nothing is broken – according to the x-rays – and her heart is fine. She got a shot for pain at the Emergency Room and got a prescription for the same medication – something that doesn’t cause nausea.
I’m fine – no pains that I can attribute to the accident. Tomorrow may be a different story.
The car is 6 years old with quite a lot of mileage on it. It’s probably totaled. The cost of repair will probably be more than the value of the car.
