Courtesy of OJO Images
On July 26, 2011, the unthinkable happened: I became the victim of a hit-and-run accident.
This was the first time I was involved in an accident where I was the driver. After 16 years of driving, it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. And I guess it was bound to happen, even though I wasn’t speeding and I wasn’t distracted. Someone hit my rear driver’s side, damaging it near the gas tank, bumper, and trunk while my daughter and I were on the way to the library, rode up to the red light, and took off after the light turned green. (There were lots of witnesses but the person was not caught.) We weren’t hurt, and the car didn’t look totalled to me. When the car was towed away after the accident, I didn’t know that I’d never drive it again.
I got a little emotional when I was notified and asked to clean out my car’s contents. After all, I’d put well over 150,000 miles on my girl Monica, my Mazda 6 (yes I name my cars!) and she was as dependable as they come. Monica had been my faithful transportive vessel since the fall of ’04. Suddenly, I started seeing Mazda 6s EVERYWHERE. Then when I got a rental, which was picked out for me–a Chevy HRC–I started seeing HRCs all over the place, too (and so did my daughter). And when I bought a new vehicle, a Nissan Murano, lo and behold–Muranos were coming out of the woodwork!
Where did all those cars come from? Did they suddenly just get on the road in the last weeks? Of course not. They were there all along, but I didn’t notice because I wasn’t focused on them. I may have seen them, but I wasn’t paying attention to them.
