A Minor Fender Bender

The boy and I were out and about this weekend. It rained most of the time. I was heading out to play a little racquetball since I won’t get a chance to play at my normal time for the next several weeks due to a scheduling quirks this year.

We were about 10 minutes from the courts when I took a left exit. This particular exit I’ve travelled many a time and it’s a bit tight. One of those exits where as it bends around the turn gets tighter before it finally straightens out to merge with the next road. I’ve never had any trouble with it before though, and I approached it like I always do.

I felt the front tires lose grip, so I immediately eased off the gas and started turning the wheel against the cars spin, in the direction I wanted to go. But the tires couldn’t regain traction and I continued to fishtail. In hindsight, I probably should have just thrown the wheel in the other direction to force a spin out, but at the time I was concerned because this particular exit is also a bridge so the shoulders are tight and there isn’t a lot of room.

The wheels never did grab, but the direction of the slide eventually caused the front end of the car to strike the barrier. The car had lost most of it’s momentum by then, and the impact caused the car to complete it’s spin. Fortunately, the cars behind me had plenty of time to react and slow down, otherwise I’d have been the first in a long pile up.

With the car stopped, I was now facing the wrong way. The engine was still running, so I tried putting it into reverse to start a ‘K’ turn. Right off the bat, it was obvious that nothing had happened to the engine or drive train, but there was something off with the steering. I got the car turned around without too much trouble, and pulled off the road at a convenient point to inspect the damage.

To my eye, it isn’t too bad. There’s the scuffs and dents on the front fender area where the car struck the guard rail, and the rim of the left from tire has a nick in it. The tire also got pinched, but it wasn’t compromised to the point of being flat. My guess is the wheel alignment is messed up, and that’s why it’s funky to steer at the moment.

After the brief assessment, we got back in the car, and that was when the boy offered a rather pithy assessment of the whole episode, “I didn’t like that.”

He handled the situation well. He didn’t get overly upset, though he admitted to being scared. He asked me if I was scared and I told him I had been; but, I stressed that we were OK and that the car was in good enough shape to get us home. He continued to ask lots of questions, I answered them as best I could and exercised a lot of patience. He understood that the car wasn’t completely right, but having no driving experience he didn’t quite grasp the details, just the basics that it wasn’t steering right. He also wanted to know more about how it happened. Was I going to fast? Why had the wheels slipped? Does it happen a lot? Eventually, he started asking hypothetical questions that I had to gently shutdown by simply answering “I don’t know” or some appropriate variation thereof.

Being close to the racquetball courts was a plus, since it served as a nice distraction shortly after the incident. He was able to shed some of his adrenaline, as was I. We don’t get to play racquetball together much anymore since where I play is a long drive. He still enjoys it though.

When we started heading home, he wanted me to drive fast so we could get home quickly. But I told him we’d be taking it slow, since the car was driving quite right, it was best to take it easy and make sure we got home without any more problems. That’s exactly how it worked out.

Being in a car accident isn’t something anyone wants a part of, especially when your child is in the car with you. It’s fortunate that in this case no other cars were involved and no major damage was inflicted on the car, nor were either the boy or myself injured in any way. I guess if it has to happen, that’s the most that can be asked.