The Little Yellow Beetle Saved My Life
I kid you not. If I drove any other vehicle besides that new beetle I would be dead today. That’s what the police officer said to me who investigated the freak-car-accident I was in early yesterday morning. I was driving over the Cooper River Bridge around 2:30 am. They do a lot of construction on it late at night now, and I saw that traffic was backed up quite a bit, almost to the East Bay Street exit. Anyway, I slowed down and came to a complete stop in the left lane behind the car in front of me. I put the car in park and was rocking out by myself, windows down, music blaring when all of a sudden I hear a giant boom and see a huge van literally flying over my head. It lands upside down in front of me in the lane for oncoming traffic. Apparently, some tipsy CofC girls didn’t see the “Slow, 25 mph” sign and were doing 85 up the right lane. “Them girls were haulin ass” according to a bunch of drunk 40 something people who were also stopped a few feet ahead. They got out of their cab to come investigate along with everyone else trapped on the bridge, and if I hadn’t been so upset, I probably would have really enjoyed the absurdity of the whole experience, trapped on top of the bridge with the strangest group of people ever. Anyway, the car couldn’t brake in time, and when it saw that traffic was completely stopped, it swerved into the left lane where it hit the kid in the van so hard that his car was propelled into the air, used my car “as a ramp” shattering my rear window to bits, and flipped over twice before landing upside-down just feet in front of me. The speedy car then moved back into the right lane and hit the car in front of it as well.
The good news is I’m safe. I just suffered from being the most afraid I’ve been in my entire life, and little shards of glass in my hair. The bug is fine. There is no body damage, not even scraped paint, only a broken window. How freakishly insane is that? The police arrived instantly because there were two other car accidents on the bridge several yards ahead. The one officer gripped my shoulder and said, “Little girl. You are very lucky you drive this here yellow car. I wanna show you something.” I followed him around to the back of my car to have a look. “You see, because the back of your car is shaped like a ramp, that van over yonder just rolled over your car. If you’d been driving anything else, that thing would have just landed right on top of you. Squashed you like a bug!" He smiled at his joke. "You’re one lucky little lady.”
AHHHHH. How can you say that to a person?
I was stuck on that bridge until 6am in the morning. They ended up closing it for the night, and so after everyone cleared out, cars were towed (all except mine) and I helped sweep broken glass and car parts into an industrial sized dustpan, I had to turn around and drive home via 526. The only cool part about this was that I drove down the new bridge going the opposite direction and faced all the red Xs.
I came home and my mom did all the wonderful mom things she’s supposed to do after her child has a traumatic experience, like hugging me a lot and making hot tea, however when I called my father to inform him about what happened, the first thing he did was yell at me for not calling him back when he called 3 times while I was in Columbia the day before, and then he told me I was no longer allowed to drive after midnight. SAY WHAT? Why does he hate me so? He should love me now. I have long clean hair, eat cheese, and no longer want to trade in my car…
The good news is I’m safe. I just suffered from being the most afraid I’ve been in my entire life, and little shards of glass in my hair. The bug is fine. There is no body damage, not even scraped paint, only a broken window. How freakishly insane is that? The police arrived instantly because there were two other car accidents on the bridge several yards ahead. The one officer gripped my shoulder and said, “Little girl. You are very lucky you drive this here yellow car. I wanna show you something.” I followed him around to the back of my car to have a look. “You see, because the back of your car is shaped like a ramp, that van over yonder just rolled over your car. If you’d been driving anything else, that thing would have just landed right on top of you. Squashed you like a bug!" He smiled at his joke. "You’re one lucky little lady.”
AHHHHH. How can you say that to a person?
I was stuck on that bridge until 6am in the morning. They ended up closing it for the night, and so after everyone cleared out, cars were towed (all except mine) and I helped sweep broken glass and car parts into an industrial sized dustpan, I had to turn around and drive home via 526. The only cool part about this was that I drove down the new bridge going the opposite direction and faced all the red Xs.
I came home and my mom did all the wonderful mom things she’s supposed to do after her child has a traumatic experience, like hugging me a lot and making hot tea, however when I called my father to inform him about what happened, the first thing he did was yell at me for not calling him back when he called 3 times while I was in Columbia the day before, and then he told me I was no longer allowed to drive after midnight. SAY WHAT? Why does he hate me so? He should love me now. I have long clean hair, eat cheese, and no longer want to trade in my car…