what scares you?

[sorraia]

Thankfully I have never been in a car accident... I am so scared of it that I am nearly 21 and have never had a drivers license. The first time I tried driving a cat ran out in front of me and I hit it, it ran off but it still didn't help my issues.. my heart pounds when I am riding in the car and people are driving too fast in the next lane, or is too fast coming up on an intersection or out of a driveway next to the car I'm in. It would be a whole lot easier if I didn't have to have my mom drive me 45 minutes to and from school, but the thought of getting behind the wheel makes me sick.

I felt exactly that way and didn't want to get my license because of it. Then I ended up getting my license at 16 any way out of necessity so I could get a job (actually started working at 15, but had to have my dad drive me)... And so began my life as a commuter...

First year I had my license I was at fault for two accidents, one where I rear-ended someone on the freeway (though I think the brakes failed, because I kept thinking "This car is going to stop", but it didn't), and another where the front end was clipped as I pulled out of a driveway because someone else (who then left the scene) stopped and waved me out. Fortunately neither accident was so serious it raised my insurance rates... Since then, I have been rear-ended by other people 3 times, and was T-boned by one driver who ran a red light. The worst accident I was in as a passenger, car in the lane to the right of us (ex-boyfriend and I) decided he had to make a left turn RIGHT THERE, and hit our car. I'm not sure exactly how it all happened, and my ex-boyfriend thought he was in control of the car the whole time, but we went through the intersection one way, then the other way, up over the curb (he later said he was trying to pull along side the curb, and no he wasn't drinking that night...), into a palm tree. Palm tree got sheared off at the base, and fell ON TOP of the soft-top convertible, mostly on passenger side. Only thing that saved me was sliding under my seat belt into the floor space (no air bag thankfully!). We'll just say the accident was bad enough that when the paramedics pulled up they were about to pull out body bags. Miraculously both of us actually walked out of that crash, a little dazed but nothing more.

I'm sure that doesn't help your fear any! But on the bright side... as a commuter I do a LOT of driving, and those are the only accidents I have been in (still not very comforting...) and none of those accidents resulted in injury (well... except for the palm tree accident, that hurt my shoulder from the seat belt grabbing). I see some of the worst of the worst when it comes to driving, but being on the road so much I've also learned to read and anticipate other people's driving habits, and that allows me to adjust my own driving to prepare for the inevitable sudden stops or people cutting into the lane or whatever other stupid things people do. I drive a minimum of 60 miles 5 days a week just to get to and from work, sometimes more, which amounts to hundreds of miles a week. Best advice I can give is be alert, and although you need to watch the road and what you are doing, also learn to be attentive to what other drivers are doing. If you can learn to watch everything around you at one time, you can learn to recognize the behavioral signs that mean a driver is about to do something stupid, and that can potentially prepare you to avoid an accident.