I should probably start listening to my wife. She says a lot of things that I don’t really want to hear, but she’s usually right, doubly so if snow is involved.
Stress and nervous tension are now serious social problems in all parts of the
Galaxy, and in order that this situation not in any way be exacerbated I will now reveal that I was not physically injured in any way. And now, on with our story.
Twice a week, I leave my cozy office and drive off for a consulting job in the Hinterlands. On one of these weekly commutes, I make it a point to call my mother and wish her a good
Shabbos. My new car has this great Bluetooth feature that allows me to talk at the dashboard while it disconcertingly replies in my mother’s voice. The conversation usually revolves around complaints she has concerning either my daughter or my sisters, but this is a big improvement from when they were mostly complaints about me and how I never call her.
Last Friday, as we concluded our chat, I couldn’t help but notice that, as I sped down the highway, it was snowing heavily all around me and the other cars. Generally I’m not a big fan of talking on cell phones while driving, but this is about as safe a way as it’s going to get. To attune myself better to the road conditions, I switched off the iPod and turned on the AM radio to listen to the weather and traffic reports. As an aside, if you throw in sports, that amounts to the entire programming content of Milwaukee radio.
Despite the heavy, wet, and sloppy snow, there was little traffic around noon on Friday, maybe because most people were smart enough to stay off the roads. My wife, in one of those prescient moments, had advised me earlier in the morning that perhaps I should skip the afternoon session. “Nonsense!” I had declared. “This is Wisconsin! It snows here!” There was a sense of
deja vu there.
Plus, I told her, this new car has all kinds of fancy-shmancy safety features, like traction control and antilock brakes. I would be perfectly safe on the road. After all, I’ve been a driver for 24 years and I’ve never caused an accident.
And so, concluding my weekly call, I continued down the highway to my destination. The radio, between commercials, informed me of the status of the “storm”, noting that the snow would cease falling some time after sunset. Scattered reports of accidents began to come in, but traffic remained light, although there was one now developing at or around my destination. I shifted my concentration entirely to the road, which, while becoming increasingly white, was still relatively open.
As the exit approached I saw no evidence of traffic. I took this as a sign that whatever mishap had occurred was now cleared. Jarringly, my dashboard rang, and I pressed the talk button on the steering wheel.
“Where are you?” It was my wife.
“I’m almost at the exit. I’ll be at work in 5 minutes.”
“So you went out there after all? I’ve been shoveling and shoveling! I thought you would come home instead.”
“Don’t be silly; the drive is fine.” Not to mention, this consulting job pays me by the hour, unlike the practice of medicine, which is a crap shoot at best.
“Well Shabbos is at four; don’t expect to be home in 15 minutes. Leave early.”
“I will. See you later.”
I pressed the “hang up” button and made my way through the exit ramp and to the first light. No sign of trouble. Good.
After the light there is a very wide street that needs crossing, and then a small hill, at the bottom of which is a left turn signal leading to a narrow road which winds through an industrial park. Twice a week I make it to that light uneventfully. Not this time.
As the light turned green I found myself behind a large truck that struggled to gain traction and make its way across the broad intersection. Gradually it built up speed and rose to the top of the hill. I followed slightly behind, it never being a good idea to brown-nose a truck going up a hill. We reached the summit and I saw the left turn lane, and signaled to move into it.
At the bottom of the hill I saw two SUVs waiting to make the left turn. There was about a half a block distance between the front end of my car as it entered the lane and the rear end of the second SUV. I was going not faster than 10 or 15 miles per hour at this point as I had followed the truck through the prior intersection.
This is where things happened. I applied the brakes. The brakes weren’t interested. I could hear and feel the antilock braking system engage. The car was not stopping. I found this to be mildly distressing. I watched as the gap, initially 4 or 5 car lengths, began to close with no sign of the car stopping. I had a few seconds in which to observe. The car was not traveling very fast at this point. But it continued to move forward. True to the ABS system, the car did not swerve, either. It just continued to plod forward.
Realizing that the ABS was engaged, I thought I should try something else. I took my foot briefly off of the brake and started to pump it lightly. Again I could feel the shuddering, grinding sensation of the antilock effect. I applied firm pressure. It seemed to make no difference.
I watched the rear end of the first SUV loom nearer. 3 car lengths. 2 car lengths. All this time I was thinking, “it’s going to stop. It HAS to stop. It’s going to stop…now.”
It didn’t stop.
A fraction of a second before the impact I recall thinking, “I can’t believe it’s not stopping.” Followed very quickly by, “hmm…maybe I should have switched lanes—too late!”
Like stock footage from a crash-test, I watched in slow motion as the front end of my car crumpled forwards, and then my hood tented up and began to approach the windshield.
And then—it was over. No glass breaking. No horn blaring. No airbag deployment. No screams of horror. No sirens. Just me sitting there thinking, “Damn it! Why didn’t it stop!”
I watched in a kind of stupor as drivers started to emerge from the SUVs, first the one in front of me, and then the one in front of her, and I realized that the impact had been enough to drive the first SUV into the second.
Eventually I got out and after profuse apologies and a sincere sense of appreciation that no one was actually hurt, we moved our vehicles out of traffic and into the first parking lot in the industrial park, where I waited for several hours for a tow truck while my car became progressively buried in snow and my cell phone battery slowly drained.
All of this was, as my mother would say, “
nerve-racking,” as I sat in the lobby of the building and wondered how long it would take AAA to send a tow truck on a day when there were 30 or more snow-related accidents and the driving was slowly worsening. And if they would agree to take me all the way back to the body shop near me. And if my cell phone would finally die before it came. And if I’d end up looking for a motel to spend Shabbos in the middle of
Yenemsvelt. And how long it would take to get my car back. And what the cost would be. And what I was supposed to drive during this time.
So we spoke to the police, and I called my insurance agent, and several towing companies until one finally did come, and even fielded a few surrealistic calls from the hospital, and eventually the other two SUVs drove off (they didn’t look damaged to me) and left my beautiful new car sitting in this parking lot looking like a boxer who had taken a really nasty blow to the nose. A snow-covered boxer.
As the tow-truck made its way back over the hill with me in the cab and my car out back, I noticed a news camera set up on the corner next to the highway entrance filming the intersection. I was not relieved to find out that there had been 5 other accidents there on that day.
And with all this I made it to shul the next day and said a blessing for delivering me from harm. I began to get increasingly angry about the whole affair. It still seems to me that the car should have stopped. I didn’t feel it skid at all. I suspect that, had I been driving a car like my old Geo, which does not have antilock brakes, that I would not have hit that SUV. Maybe I’m going through a little denial. Maybe I’m upset that my video-game enhanced reflexes did not allow me to escape the collision. I wish that I could have just backed up those five seconds and had a re-do.
So I’m back in the Geo again, thankful that we decided to keep it around for the kids to drive. They are no doubt upset that it won’t be available for their use during the forthcoming school vacation. Maybe, as my mother-in-law (who picked me up from the body shop 20 minutes before Shabbos) said, “it’s
bashert.”
The Geo isn’t what it used to be. It’s noisy now, and it shudders, vibrates, and groans as it makes its way along the snow and ice covered streets. It sounds like an old man with emphysema and a bad cough. Maybe it’s better if the kids don’t drive it too much.
As I write this, it is now five days since the accident and I still haven’t gotten an estimate from the body shop. Were it not for the intervening Holiday, I would have taken this as a bad sign. I’m hoping that the damage isn’t as bad as it looks, new cars being made to crumple to absorb impact and yada yada yada. And I am truly grateful that I emerged from this completely uninjured.
I just wonder if maybe G-d doesn’t want me to have a new car. Six months old and this is its
second stay in the body shop. Well,
Geo still loves me.
I should probably start listening to my wife.
For complete details, see here.
