Besides a minor accident where I kind of scraped up against a parked car, I’ve only been in one other crash.
This happened a couple of days before my 22nd birthday. I was waiting to turn left into a parking lot. There were two lanes of oncoming traffic, and the lane nearest me was backed up waiting for a red light. A guy in a van had nicely left a gap, and was waving me through. There were a couple of other cars behind him, and I couldn’t see if anything was coming in the far lane. He kept waving impatiently, so I stupidly assumed the coast must be clear and made the turn. As I passed in front of the van, I saw a small pickup truck heading straight for the passenger side of my car. There was nothing I could do to avoid being hit. The woman driving the pickup hit her brakes, but couldn’t stop in time and crashed into the passenger side of my car. Luckily, no one was in the car with me. The impact shattered the passenger window and smashed in the whole side of my car. The pickup suffered a small dent in the front bumper.
No one was hurt, and I just had a small scratch on my nose from a flying bit of glass. The police came, but I wasn’t ticketed. It was my fault, but I still bear a slight grudge against the driver of the van, who of course didn’t stick around. My poor car, which was a Pontiac Fiero, was totaled. It was my first car and I loved it so much, I cried and cried when I found out the insurance company had declared it totaled. :( At that time, my dad still paid for my insurance (I was in college) and he handled all of the paperwork and dealing with the insurance company.
Darn it, I’m still sad about that car, and it’s been almost 14 years!