Responses
My initial reaction to Saturday's car accident was shock, wobblyness, and guilt. Shock because it should not have happened. It was stupid. It put 7 people at risk because of the minivan driver's poor judgement. Wobblyness because it was scary. Noise and shattering glass like a gun shot. Guilt because I put the person I hold dearest to me at risk - the love of my life in jeapardy. Not intentionally. Not with fore-knowledge. I asked her to go to Willmar with me. In my Dad's old truck. It's a beautiful drive, and I love her company, I told her, trying to convince her to come, rather than weeding those potatoes. Commenting on beautiful farms, rolling hills, and how I could use one of those lovely Ford tractors so low and beetle like in their mass. Those are my agrarian thoughts de jeur. I felt like I had not done enough to avoid the accident. My defensive driving was sub-par due to a machine that is old and I am inexperienced in operating at highway speeds. I know that I could have avoided that accident had I been behind the wheel of the Corolla. That knowledge will haunt me. And the questions. Should I have swerved? I had already braked so much that I had once compensated for a fish tail. I had a 200 pound steel construction lock box loose in my bed. What if it were to crush the cab? Fly over the cab and smash through our windshield? Smash into the mini-van? Would a swerve have caused me to roll the truck? 60 seconds of thought that will haunt a life-time. We were lucky. A glancing side blow to the minivan, on my drivers side left - the minivan totaled. 3 small children, including a baby, screaming in fear. But no one hurt. Just stunned, strained, and bruised.
Unlike the accident with Mehlhaff in the Tularosa Mountains SW of the VLA sophomore year, everything was in rapid fire motion. I can hardly recall what happened. Only what I thought. I can barely remember the fishtailing of the truck or double spin of the minivan when I struck it.
I hate these machines.
I would have been hit by the car, a Dodge Intrepid, this morning, had I not dived off my bike. But this time, my reaction was immediate anger. Anger was mixed in with my calculations even as I maneuvered, knew that I would have to hurt myself to avoid landing on the car's windshield. Part of those calculations included identifying the make of the car. Why did my brain think to do that? The driver stopped immediately. I hated him. I wanted to hurt him. To beat him. I felt like a rabid wounded animal when he asked me if I was okay. I told him my pants were ripped. Oh, how I wanted to hurt him.
But instead my knee hurts.
I hate these machines.
Unlike the accident with Mehlhaff in the Tularosa Mountains SW of the VLA sophomore year, everything was in rapid fire motion. I can hardly recall what happened. Only what I thought. I can barely remember the fishtailing of the truck or double spin of the minivan when I struck it.
I hate these machines.
I would have been hit by the car, a Dodge Intrepid, this morning, had I not dived off my bike. But this time, my reaction was immediate anger. Anger was mixed in with my calculations even as I maneuvered, knew that I would have to hurt myself to avoid landing on the car's windshield. Part of those calculations included identifying the make of the car. Why did my brain think to do that? The driver stopped immediately. I hated him. I wanted to hurt him. To beat him. I felt like a rabid wounded animal when he asked me if I was okay. I told him my pants were ripped. Oh, how I wanted to hurt him.
But instead my knee hurts.
I hate these machines.