The Cube

On the 14th November 2006, I was involved in a traffic accident, where a guy came racing out of a t-junction, at around 60 mph, and whacked into me, as I was driving along the road he was trying to enter.

Why was he going so fast? Later his response was that he could not find the brakes, or his foot slipped off the brakes, and pushed hard down on the accelerator.

The moments leading up to the actual accident is still, after all this time, very clear in my mind. It was kind of surreal, seeing the car come out of the junction, knowing I would not be able to avoid the crash. The only response I could give was to angle my car towards him, in the hope that he would hit the front, rather than directly onto my side, which would have been worse. 

My injuries were not too bad, all I can say is thank god for wearing my seat belt. If it was not for that, I would most probably been much worse off.

Two funny (if you can call it that) facts about the accident was:

1. I was just on my way back fro the hardware store, where I had gone to purchase a piece of perspex to use as the back of my picture frame that I was building. When I placed the perspex on the back seat, I hopped in front, and when I looked in the back via the rear-view mirror, I realized that it was placed in a very dangerous position. My exact thought was - If I am in an accident, that thing is gonna gome right at me, and slice my neck. So I got out and placed it in the boot. Much safer, and yep, soon afterwards I was in an accident.
2. Mel, was just returning from her driving test. She would have wanted to go for a drive, and now the car was no more. As it happens she did not pass, so the car was not missed. 

It was also a bother that the accident occurred just before December, with xmas and new years coming up, and it would have been a bother to be without transport, especially because my sister in law, and her then boyfriend, was going to spend xmas/new year with us. Fortunately the police officer who attended the case told me about a 'no claim, no payment' company that he used once, and they include a hire car. As the accident was 100% not my fault, I used their service, and they gave me a brand spanking new ford to drive around in, which sorted us out for the holiday period. 

Here are the images of what my car looked like after the incident (images were taken the next day, after the car was dropped off via a recovery vehicle at our home)

The following image shows the spot in the road where it occurred. I was traveling, at around 30mph along this road (in the direction the image shows) and at about this point/distance from the side road, I realized the car comming out of it was going way to fast, and was gonna whack into me. The only reaction i had was to brake, and turn my steering towards him, hoping the nose of the car would absorb most of the impact.

The following shows my injuries. The worst one was my right shoulder area. The image only shows the scar, but all the muscle underneath was torn and damaged. It took a long long time for this to heal. Still now, after a year, I still have some pain when the muscle is strained a bit.

I had a few other scars and bruises, but they were small, and not worth an image.

And finally, sometime in January 2007, I bought my new car:

This car was sold a year later, when we moved to Australia.