It Was An Accident: Part 6 – Panicked Young Girl

As I mentioned in my previous post, it seems as if bad things come in threes. I had just been rear-ended twice in a few weeks. I was concerned about it happening a third time soon after those two, but it didn’t happen for several years. So, I don’t know if it can be considered part of a Bad 3 or not. I don’t really know the rules about such things.

This time I had just crossed Cypress Mill Road going south on Pine Street. Those of you familiar with this location will know that there is a KFC at that corner. There was a car in front of me that had slowed down behind another vehicle that was turning left into an off campus book store. So, I slowed down as well. However, the young girl driving the car behind me decided she didn’t like that idea. She just kept on moving at full speed. Unfortunately, physics demands that two physical objects not occupy the same space. Thus when her car attempted to occupy the space my car was currently occupying, my vehicle accommodated it by jerking forward. Somehow that jerk caused my foot to slip off my brake pedal and hit the accelerator pedal. This caused my car to attempt to occupy the space held by the car in front of me, which in turn accommodated my car by jerking forward. Fortunately, the car in front of that car had already made its left turn and avoided our entire physics experiment.

My son, who was in the passenger seat asked why I had pressed the accelerator, like I had done it on purpose. I explained that the crash had caused me to do it.

Having been a part of a three-car pileup before, I was thinking, “Oh no, here we go again.” I just hoped it wasn’t that unknown man’s handicapped friend hitting me again. If it was I planned on writing down his tag number before he time to sneak away like the last time.

While sitting there in the car regaining my composure, I looked in front of me and saw the car I had hit speeding away. I just couldn’t figure out why. The man in the customized van had committed a hit-and-run, which is understandable given the accident was his fault. This guy, however, was committing a be-hit-and-run. Why would he want to leave? Apparently there was a reason he didn’t want to be involved in a police report. Drugs in the car, perhaps? Or maybe he’d just killed an endangered animal and it was in the backseat? Or, perhaps he was illegally smuggling an elephant from India into the country? Who knew?

When I got out of the car, it turned out that it was a young girl who had hit me. She was about to have a panic attack. She kept going on and on about having just had another accident that was her fault. She feared her insurance rates were going to become unaffordable or the insurance company would drop her altogether. She also said something about her dad possibly killing her. Anyway, I got the sense she wanted me to just let her go, but she never asked directly. I guess I was supposed to be sympathetic to her plight. I was not. My car was too damaged for empathy. I wanted it repaired.

So, as with my other rear-endings, the police came, took our reports, and let us go on our not-so-merry ways. My car was repaired, but I never heard what happened to the girl. Hopefully, she didn’t end up having the third “bad things come in threes” wreck soon afterwards.