Impact of A Collision

(written September 5-7, 2006)

As the work world shifts back grudgingly into operational mode after the summer swoon and my wife returns just as reticently to driving hundreds of kilometres a week for her job after having had the summer off, I have unearthed a distressing new predicament: how do I keep her from getting into a car accident? The simple answer, I found out late last week, is: I can’t. And that’s what’s so upsetting to me now.

A collision was the furthest thing from my mind on Friday as Kim headed out for her fourth day back at work, on the last day before the Labour Day long weekend. She called me in the early afternoon and surprised me by saying she was in the hospital because she was just involved in her worst accident yet, of the five or six she’s been a part of so far. Not what I was expecting or ever want to hear again.

It turns out Kim is fine although she suffered from minor aches and pains all weekend, and will requires chiropractic and massage treatments for a few weeks. And, who knows if there will yet be any long-term physical repercussions for her.

As Kim explained it to me, a 73-year-old woman was traveling on Waterdown Road (at the North Service Road) in Burlington and sailed right through a red light, hitting our Ford Focus wagon flush on the driver’s side front door, as Kim began to accelerate through the intersection on a light that had just turned green.

She said the woman was traveling at between 60-70 km/hr and obviously had no idea the light had changed to red, because she hadn’t even begun to slow down. The driver of the car behind my wife ran to make sure Kim was okay and later confirmed with police that the light was indeed green when Kim began to travel through it.

In the hospital, the lady’s son talked to my wife and said that his mother was devastated and didn’t know how the collision happened, and that his mother had never been in an accident before. He said she was very upset that she’d hit someone.

Yes, upsetting. Kim’s been in about six accidents in her life, one with me in the car, none her fault. To date, none have caused her any permanent damage or even long-term physical or psychological harm. None have resulted in any demerit points on her driver’s license or cost her or her insurance company even one red cent.

In short, she’s a damn good driver who traverses carefully, even planning her lane changes and exits ahead of time. No kind of stress or turmoil seems to weigh so heavily on her mind that she can’t remember to follow all the basic rules of the road at all times.

If you drive as much as Kim does, you simply have to be constantly and consistently mindful to navigate your vehicle safely and defensively. Which brings me to my point: every motorist of any kind who’s on the road at any time absolutely must follow traffic laws as they’re stated no matter their personal level of distraction or anxiety – or God forbid, intoxication.

There are no justifiable excuse s for not being sufficiently aware or alert to operate what essentially doubles for a killing machine on wheels. Similarly, there’s no defence for not heeding stop signs and traffic lights, driving with a damaged or un-safe vehicle, drinking and driving, or being an active part of any number of other driving transgressions. Think I’m being a little extreme or dogmatic? Talk to anyone who’s lost a loved one in a collision (I find it increasingly difficult over time to call them ‘accidents’) and think again!

Don’t be a freaking idiot, I constantly ache to scream at people I see driving too fast or too recklessly. I am a constant pedestrian and rider of public transit, who spends little time in a car and many hours witnessing first-hand the stupid decisions (I refuse to call them mistakes) many drivers make, with seemingly callous disregard for everyone else on the road. It’s shocking and frightening to me that in our embarrassingly hectic urban areas, many motorists cut so quickly through small streets that they couldn’t stop if they wanted to if someone happened to dart out in front of them at any point. It’s disgraceful that they act like they’re doing nothing wrong.

I have an unrelenting urge to drill a thousand different admonitions into these drivers’ heads: If you’re in such a hurry, you should have damn well left sooner. If you can’t control your impulse to race along our quiet streets, then we need to make you drive exclusively out on barren country roads where you will kill only yourself. If you haven’t got it in you at the moment to take on the highways and byways safely and with a good degree of consideration, then stay the bloody hell off the road. If you aren’t able to drive any longer for one reason or another – be it old age, disability, constant intoxication, extreme nervousness, or any other reason – then stay away the f—k away from the wheel of a car.

It doesn’t take a master’s degree to figure it out: There’s no amount of reasoning that will justify having killed or seriously injured a family of four because you just had to rush to the grocery store for that bottle of wine that goes so perfectly with the chicken dish you just finished cooking for your guests that are about to arrive. You should have planned better. Likewise when you’re late for work. Consider that you may get where you’re going on time; or you may crash headfirst into a mini-van containing a mom, her young son, and three other players on his soccer team. The notion that you could have planned better or driven slower or more carefully then sounds great in hindsight, doesn’t it? Infinitely reasonable and perfectly safe! Let’s hope that hindsight never occurs to you from a jail cell as you ponder what wiser choice you might have made before the people you hit all suffer horrible deaths and their families commences years of suffering.

I think about what might have happened to my wife of eight years and the love of my life, the mother of my five-year-old daughter and the most important person her life. Every notion I have about safe driving is reinforced tenfold. I recall what I learned most from my Young Drivers of Canada training: anything can happen at any time so expect that it will. Kim expects that people won’t do the smartest thing on the roads, but how can you ever really expect to be literally blindsided at 70 km/hr.

Kim is lucky she had her seatbelt on; otherwise she might have ended up in much worse shape. Our lovely automobile suffered over $16,000 of damage, according to the insurance company. It will probably be a write-off. We’re still awaiting word on that.

I don’t know what to think about the woman who hit Kim. I don’t want to hate her and really I don’t. But I do hate that she didn’t have the wherewithal to notice that her light wasn’t remotely green when she went through it. I also hate to think (as does Kim) that she could have had our little girl in the car with her. I cringe at the notion that, statistically, someone who drives as much as Kim is hard-pressed to avoid collisions entirely for years on end. I am truly grateful that Kim has never been in an even more serious collision, namely on the horrendously busy 400 series highways, which she can’t avoid even for a day.

Lastly, I pray that those who drive near her can find it in them – somewhere, even on their worst days – to concentrate on the task at hand, and don’t end up causing themselves, and me, and many others like me – including a darling five-year-old girl who would never be the same again without her mommy – a lifetime of heartache.