Saturday, March 27, 2010

Accident!







I've had really good luck pretty much my entire driving career. Riley will bring up everytime this topic is discussed that I have indeed hit a few things though. Stationary objects, nonetheless. Namely, my dad's car and my parents garage. The car incident was my sophomore year, probably months after I got my license. I was in the car with a bunch of friends, and I wasn't paying attention to where I was backing out until I heard a slight *screeching* sound and realized I was scraping the side of his company car. That was incredibly minor though, you could barely see the paint rub. I hadn't even planned on telling my dad, but Carter unfortunately witnessed the incident and ran in and spilled the beans.

Typical.

The second incident was backing out of the garage, again. I just have bad luck with them, alright?? I told Riley to let me know if I was coming too close to the side of the garage. He shirked his duty and told me MUCH too late that I was going to hit the sideview mirror on the side of the garage. So, it chipped off a few pieces, but was easily fixed with some super glue and a black sharpie.

This was an actual accident though! And I have to report the details because it's pretty much the only noteworthy event that has happened to us in the last few days.

{also, I'm sure people are sick of hearing this story from me, but when you work as much as we have been the last few weeks, I get excited to talk about anything remotely eventuful.}

So I'm headed down to Sandy to attend my final day of teller training for the week. (It resumes again on Monday, but the week was finally coming to a close). I change lanes into the far right "exit only" lane about a 1/2 mile north of the 90000 S exit. There was a red light ahead at the exit so traffic was pretty backed up. I slowed to a stop and waited for the cars in front of me to go move forward. If I was moving at all, it was only idling at this point. A Lexus SUV came to a stop behind me, and a few seconds went by. All the sudden, a Jeep Wrangler hit into the back of the Lexus, and in turn pushed her into me! Yikes!! I stopped my car, and tried to get into the shoulder. However, with all the construction going on in those parts there was pretty much zero shoulder room. Not even an emergency lane. I was right up against the barrier dividing the highway and the construction workers. The two cars that had collided were behind me, and both on their cell phones. I'm sure they were calling the police, so I called Riley to tell him what had happened. To let him know I was ok, but that I needed a number for the training facility so I could tell them I'd be late. He ended up calling them for me, which was nice, because I had other phone calls to make.

At this point, I still assumed it was just the 3 cars involved.

Because I've really never been in an actual accident before, I had no idea what information from the other drivers I needed to get. So I called my mom, my parents house, and my dad before someone finally picked up.

There was no way I was getting out of the car, because if I opened my door I'd be stepping right into oncoming traffic. So I waited for the police to show up, and even then I just rolled down my windows to speak with them. The officer ended up telling me that there were actually 5 cars involved in the accident. Apparently there were two cars behind the Jeep!

I filled out an incident report sheet, complete with a requested drawing on the back. I specifically noted all 5 lanes of traffic, which one of the officers ended up making fun of me for when I handed it to him.

They gave me a driver exchange sheet that included the name, address, and telephone number of each driver and of their insurances. Luckily everyone involved has insurance, so hopefully that'll end up being a positive thing.

3 out of the 5 cars involved ended up being totaled and hauled off on tow trucks. I had no idea the extent of the damage until I saw them take the cars away. The Lexus' back half is destroyed, and the Wrangler had significant mechanical damage. It was a Camry that ended up getting squished between the Wrangler and a Ford van, so it took the brunt of the force. The front end was totaled by the Jeep's trailer hitch, and the back half destroyed by the van. I'm really surprised that the driver was able to walk away with no injuries, because his car is sure messed up.

All in all it was an incredibly traumatic experience! I have to wait till Monday to get an official copy of the accident report. That will specify just who was at fault for the accident, and who's insurance will HOPEFULLY cover my costs.

My bumper will have to be replaced along with the right tail light. The alignment feels like it may have gotten shifted a little, but nothing too major. So stay tuned for what I find out about that!

On a good note we had a fun evening with some friends last night. We went out for ice cream at SubZero with Jared, Sammie, Mitch, Amanda, and their friends Zack and Emmy. You can't go wrong with SubZero..or so I thought. Sammie and Jared had the bright idea of ordering raspberry ice cream with gum as a mix-in. Who knew that gum would freeze and become hard in ice cream? They ended up spitting out all the pieces onto a napkin on our table.

"What are you??! Five years-old?!" -Riley
"I'm sorry I didn't order a mature enough ice cream mix-in for you!" -Sam

We finished off the night at our condo just talking about our plans for the summer. We've decided upon multiple nights of camping, bonfires, fishing, and riding fourwheelers.

Warmer weather, here we come!!

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