I knew that I was going to write something tonight but I wasn't sure what. I could write about Rites of Spring, about my grandmother, about what I have been doing for the past few weeks, ... But something happened on the way home and I think I will tell you about that instead. I am not shaking as much as I was when it happened, and maybe after writing it down, I will stop shaking altogether.
On the way home from work tonight I was coming up to a tight curve in the road, one where I was on the inside of the bend, and traffic coming the other way often cut the corner if there is no traffic in their way. Well, I guess the guy coming at me didn't think there was any traffic coming because he didn't even slow down while coming around the bend.
Did I mention that the guy coming at me was driving a tractor-trailer? I didn't? Well, he was.
So here I am heading around this tight curve and I see a semi come blasting around the corner and coming into my lane. We both hit the brakes and avoided a major collision. But we were completely blocking the road while we checked what damage had been done. It took less than five minutes for traffic to be backed up for over a hundred meters in each direction and for two police cruisers to arrive. The police must have been really close.
The hood of my truck was under the trailer of the semi, but didn't look too bad in the parts that we (myself, the driver of the semi and the police) could see. Since my truck still ran, I got back in, started it up and, with guidance from one of the cops, reversed out from under the semi. That's when we were finally able to get a good look at the damage.
There wasn't much ...
After getting in an accident and being under a semi the sum total of the damage will cost less that $5.00 to fix.
As it turns out the hood of my truck was just low enough that it slipped under without touching the underside of the trailer. The driver's side mirror had hit, and rubbed, the side of the trailer leaving a significant scuff mark, but no scratches, on the plastic enclosure of the mirror.
The more telling piece was that my front bumper had stopped right against the wheels of the trailer. This left another a scuff mark on the rubber of my front bumper. If the semi hadn't stopped as quickly as it did, those wheels would have continued up and over the bumper and my truck, but instead it only scuffed the the bumper.
So, two scuff marks which I should be able to deal with using ArmorAll (hence the $5.00) if I even have to deal with them at all.
So basically, no damage, but a lot of shaking. Some of which was from the anger which arose when the semi driver kept trying to blame me for the accident when I stayed in my lane the whole time.
But after all that, I am completely uninjured. I feel very lucky and thankful for this.
How was your evening?
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