Stuck in the middle of a four way intersection, I saw the whites of a young man’s eyes, forcefully griping on to his steering wheel for his dear life. BAM! POOOSH! The airbags escaped in time to alleviate the punch of the car onto my body. He had rammed right into my door causing the door to cave into my side. Thankfully the impact was not extreme enough to injure or kill me. I soon began to think about how much responsibility was in my hands. At the twitch of a wrist, I saw how important it was to maximize ones driving abilities at all times and eliminate distractions. Driving from there on had given me an entirely different perspective about how much an accident could affect the lives of people around you. Driving must be taken as a huge responsibility as you can control the fate of yourself and others.
Each Thanksgiving and Spring Break my family and I have had a ten year tradition of travelling by car to Miramar Beach, Florida to visit our grandparents. However this time was much different as my dad was in Italy visiting family and my sister was now at the University of Georgia. The entire week had been a myriad of jam packed, non-stop fun. The weather was always perfect, as it was sunny without a cloud, seventy degrees, and had a touch of a refreshing breeze. As time flew by in a flash, as usual when we have a blast, we had to say our goodbyes. At the crack of dawn of a Sunday morning my mom and I began to hit the road. As I have my learners permit, my mom had wanted me to get my practice. My mom knew there would be a great deal of traffic, however, so she decided to use Waze to find the backroads around Alabama, as she though it would match my experience level much closer. Driving through the backroads, there was not a sole out on the road. I began to think that driving was a piece of cake, and then I started to calm down very quickly. The sunny day brought a spirit inside of me that everything was all perfect. While Ed Sheeran was playing on the radio, he was giving me in a sense of freedom, great optimism, and extreme confidence. As my muscles were no longer tense, I felt optimum control of the wheel, no longer giving it the death grip. With all of these comforting circumstances, I then began to feel as if I was on top of the world, which gave me the confidence by going fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit of fifty-five, and my mom had approved since she had confidence in my great driving. Perhaps my confidence was too high.
Suddenly, I saw a flashing yellow light indicating that there was a stop sign ahead. I then arrived at the perceived four way stop. However, something just did not seem right. Something deep inside was telling me, “This is strange, man, what is going on.” I soon asked my mom, “Can I go?” She then quickly replies, “Yeah go.” I trusted my mom and I took a left turn right after the stop sign, knowing nobody was in my way. I suddenly find myself stopped in the middle of the intersection. My heart rate skyrocketed, thumping like an earthquake. I am in shock and see a black Lincoln sedan slamming on the breaks right through the vision of my side window. I did not know what to do, I felt a frozen period of time going by in a flash, as the sedan quickly hit my side door. Seeing my door cave into me, I quickly transformed into a phase of great grief, feeling terrible about myself, and worrying if I had injured anyone. I then pulled over to the side of the road and my mom told me to stay put.
I saw my mom negotiate with the young couple on the other side of the road. Then I suddenly heard a screeching high pitched cry. Peering over the top of the car, is see a baby girl, and I was in the greatest state of happiness to see that she had not been injured from the crash. I had been so worried that someone could have been severely injured or even dead. Our insurances were not exchanged through mutual consent and then we quickly hit the road again. I apologized to my mother an innumerable amount of times for crashing her new car, but she was completely aware of what happened and took the blame, because she told me to go. This was an experience in which I learned that any sign of doubt should be an indicator to be sure with yourself. I knew that the situation did not seem correct but decided to listen to my mother any way. I also learned that nobody is always perfect. My mom had told me a mistake which I went along with, an unfortunately I got to learn this lesson the hard way. I will now for on go with my gut, and do what seems intelligent and safe. Perhaps the most important lessoned that I learned in this experience was the responsibility that one has while driving. I got more insight of how the twitch of a wrist can destruct many lives all around. This crash made me much more thankful for how little damage occurred to myself, my mom, the young couple, and their baby. I now view driving as a much heavier responsibility that I previously did, and will do whatever it takes to keep everybody safe on the roads.