Irony

Some may detect a touch of irony between this post and the previous post about my driving. I was in a car accident today. After an amazing day of white water rafting, I hydroplaned Brian's truck on the drive back. We rafted in Montana and it was a 2.5 hour drive home. Driving in horrible rain at that. For those who knew me when I started driving, within one month of turning 16, I hydroplaned less than 2 miles from my high school and went of the road into a ditch. I have not had an accident since that day, well one in a work car 10 years ago, but a lady slammed into me out of nowhere, so it does not count. So this was my first accident, caused by me, since that day. Same conditions, pouring rain, but this time I was going 55-60mph on an interstate.

I must preface this, as the accident was inevitable. The morning began with Brian driving us to Montana and he is a fast but good driver. We were caravaning with the Prizemans, Kipps with us. Brian had gotten a good way ahead of Todd - we love Todd, but he is not known for fast driving. Brian was not even really speeding and Todd had fallen way back. Well 90 minutes into the drive, Todd caught us and we were shocked. Shocked to the point that we assumed Todd's brother had to be driving, no way Todd would speed like that. Upon arriving at the rafting place, we were giving him a hard time and Todd said he decided to throw caution to the wind. More jokes followed. Hours later, time to leave, the rain starts and I am driving since Brian had a post raft beer. I was driving quite slow, like 55 or 60 in Montana known for fast driving, speed limit is 75. Sometimes I was driving below 50 mph because I do not like driving Brian's truck period, but particularly not in the rain and so I go slow. Well I was getting ridiculed for my slow driving and flashing back to our picking on Todd, so I sped up, not a lot but a little. An hour into the drive, there was an 18 wheeler that would not leave me alone. I despise driving next to one and this guy kept ending up next to me. SO I decided to finally pass him for good, we were still only going 55-60, but as I got next to him, I felt the draft of riding next to him and I was not driving in the lane like I should since I wanted to be away from him. Well before I knew it, we started to hydroplane, being not comfortable in Brian's truck I was afraid to overcorrect and flip us, so I just went with the slide and we ended up going into the grassy median/ditch and came out at the emergency vehicle crossing. Brian said I was saying sorry the whole time. All I could think was I hope we don't hit another car or go off the side. I felt horrible that I had two set of parents in the car and I did not want 4 kids to be orphans. I am pretty sure I also said a quick prayer and it worked. We did not flip and drove away from the accident after Chris worked wonders with the demolished tire and wheel well. The car is going to need some serious work, but not a scratch on any of us. Thank you God!!!!

I will NEVER drive Brian's truck in the rain again. I may not drive his truck for a few months period. I keep second guessing myself and thinking I could have avoided the accident or pulled us out of the skid, but at the end of the day, no one was hurt and that is a success in my book. Now to call insurance - uhhhh.

You can see where we went off the road and all the grass we took out.




Thanks to Chris's handy work, we drove out of there.