Look Both Ways

Today, I was merrily listening (and singing) to my POP playlist in Pandora while driving to work. I have a meeting early morning so I figured to go to work earlier than usual.

I was driving my usual routine, sticking to 30-40 MPH speed especially during these rush hours when the police love to hide behind the bushes and surprise you with their speed trap from a dangerous curb somewhere (35 MPH is the speed limit).

I have a (bad?) habit of always looking at my rear view mirror. Mostly to compare if I am driving too slow, too fast, if there is police car somewhere or if someone is tailing too close.

Today it was consistently that blue Toyota. For the first 10 minutes of the drive it was driving at least 5 cars behind me, which is way far than the normal. A mile from my office, you would have to merge from a two-lane shortcut road into a six-lane high-way. So I stopped and waited for the high-way to clear up before I turn right. I remember happily singing to this song while I was waiting (on full stop):

And then… BLAAAAGGAAGG!!!

That blue car hit my rear bumper!!! Fortunately I was hitting on the breaks the whole time, or else the force would have pushed my car towards the high-way full of speeding cars. Whew!

I went out of the car, met the driver of the blue car. He was just a kid – definitely a teenager. He couldn’t talk at all. I asked him: “Were you speeding? Are you in a hurry?” He answered in the softest voice: “No, I was looking to my left – on the road.” Great. So he was merging to his right, he looks to his left for approaching cars and forgot to check if there’s a car in front of him. Great.

I called my husband and I was relieved that he agreed to just let it go since it was just a scratch anyway, plus the fact that it was a kid. I reminisced the days when I was just a new driver and had I made the same mistake that the kid did today, I would already be crying my eyes out of fear and embarrassment by now.

I took the boy’s insurance information. The car and insurance was named under his parents’ and grandparents’ name. He will be doing some explaining to them when he gets home later. That may be enough punishment to make him remember to ALWAYS LOOK ON BOTH SIDES BEFORE CROSSING THE STREET.

So today I got my first official Guam/US accident.* It’s not an accomplishment but I guess it adds points to the level of life experiences.

*The unofficial first accident was when I scratched another car’s bumper while trying to come out of a cramped parking area. Although it left a dent onto my bumper, the other car was just a make-shift stainless steel bumper so its rust was just scratched off.