Sunday, December 06, 2009, around 5:49PM, I was in a car accident. It was dark and stormy, like all stories begin, and my brother was driving. It had been raining for a while, but we went on our way. We shouldn't be late for our appointment; we were to have dinner at Mom's house. As we turned into 238, under the bridge, we went into a skid. Starting on the left lane, we slammed into the left barrier, ricocheted right and smashed into another car. We slid off it and continued onto the right barrier, turned some circles, and finally came to a stop.
Not even once did the thought, "I'm going to die!" cross my mind.
At the time, I was on the phone with mom, telling her we were coming. As we approached the bridge, I looked up front and realized that we were almost floating towards the barrier. I was not really paying attention to what my mom was saying, as usual, but I noticed this irregularity and my thoughts ran along the lines of, "Uhh, why are we turning into the wall?" And as I was contemplating when to alert my brother of this, as I'd have to cover the phone first so mom wouldn't overhear and complain about playing when driving, I saw my brother put his wrench the wheel to the right in effort to turn the car back. I decided I didn't have to remind him to straighten the wheel and get back on t--BAM! Crap.
The jerk felt so unreal, almost cartoon-like. It was so quick and insignificant. My thoughts then were simply: call Dad. We are in deep doo-doo. We crashed his Mercedes. Yet, I did not move. I saw the red truck appear in front of us. I groaned. BOOM! NO! Nononononono! I was whining in my head; hitting another car would just get us into so much more trouble! Another surreal yank.
I realized my stiff position and remembered that in the movies, when cars flipped, their legs get stuck under the dashboard, so I retracted them. I also remembered my dad's tip for crash safety: hang on only to yourself. As I was adjusting my position, I noticed sparks-bright yellow against the dark night. Strange, though, where did they come from? They should have come when we hit the other car, but now, we were spinning uncontrollably. I lied. We only spun once.
Before I knew it, we'd come to a stop. I finally hung up on Mom and dialed for Dad. I dialed a few times since he was not answering. I even called my step-mom a few times. My brother connected first. I will not describe the rest as it was routine. The tow truck came within a few minutes and I came to realize why the next morning when another two cars were in exactly the same situation we were in that night; they were expecting accidents. Lucky us to be the one of the few who gets to get into them.
So what happened? Well the aftermath was uneventful. Everybody remained calm and though the police kind of bullied us, we did what we were told to and that was that. If you want to know the reason why we went into the skid in the first place, it was because the Mercedes was too powerful. Its V8 engine made the wheels accelerate too fast and it lost friction with the ground. To have stopped the skid, my brother would have had to had his feet across the brake and gas and alternated between them until the car behaved itself.
We were pretty shaken about the whole thing, but by 7 or so, we started talking again and soon we were able to joke about it.
The whole issue isn't resolved yet, I don't think; there's all the insurance and damage to deal with (luckily, my step-mom works in insurance). But other than our own Mercedes, whose front bumper and hood are totally trashed--everywhere else was okay--we only damaged the other guy's wheel so it should be okay. Nobody's in trouble because it was truly an accident and the most "punishment" my brother is getting is ordering all the headlights and bumper for the Mercedes.
Maybe it was faith after all, because it was a top-of-the-line luxury sedan. The passenger seats feel like cushioned bathtubs, heated seats, personal temperature settings, etc. The bumper was so far from where I was sitting, I never felt anywhere close to danger. The worst was probably the shock, but it wasn't that bad. There wasn't any hysterical screaming or crying. If anything, we were apathetic, albeit a little worried.
I feel like this isn't a story to be shared with just anyone. I have yet to tell any of my friends, save one, and I don't plan to tell any in the future. It's personal.
But irony sure kicked our butts. If you believe that a more powerful engine will give you better performance, think again. If we had been driving the Mazda that day, the accident would never have happened because its engine is only V6, not nearly as much power as the Mercede's V8.
But we couldn't because we accidentally blew up the heating system...
Kind of funny how Dad always talks about how he prepared lots of cars for all his kids, and here is his first-born, destroying all of them.
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