|
|
You Rear End My Jeep - YOU LoseAug 22 '00 Write an essay on this topic.Sunday while I was driving over to my Mom's house, minding my own business, completely stopped at a red light -- and I saw her coming behind me. I knew she wasn't going to be able to stop. WHAM! The 1993 Ford Escort slammed into the back of my 1998 Jeep Cherokee, my head and shoulders jerked involuntarily forward. But not too much! It was a hard hit, and I saw in my rear view mirror that the hood of her car was completely buckled. Steam was coming from the radiator. "Idiot driver, I know my Jeep is wrecked," was my first thought as I jumped out of the driver's seat to survey the damage -- I wasn't thinking about the guilty driver, who was still behind the wheel. Amazingly, I couldn't see anything amiss on my Jeep. Barely a scrape on the bumper! I was incredulous, and I was in a hurry. Then I really got a look at the young lady -- she was hysterical and crying! Of course, my heart melted. I am a mother. And I was a teenager. And furthermore, I rear-ended a Volkswagen myself in my 1979 Chevy Monza -- fortunately with no damage done to any human involved. "Are you okay?" I asked her, leaning into her trashed car. "Get out of your car," said a young man who had been behind her, "turn off your engine". Good thinking, I should have thought of that. She could not turn off her ignition, the car kept sputtering. The front end damage was all but total, and yet barely a scrape on my Jeep. "This isn't my car!" she cried. "And I live in Hooterville, I have to get back because I have to start college tomorrow!". I looked at her license plates, it was Hooterville County indeed. "How old are you? What's your name?" I asked. She told me her name, and her mother's maiden name, which I easily recognized. One of my nephews, and my niece were close to her age of 18. I asked her if she knew them. "Yes, I know them very well," she answered, a little bit more relaxed that we had some common ground. Furthermore, my sister had been at their house the day before hooking up their computer to the Internet. She tried to call her parents on her cell phone, getting a busy signal. "Well, I'm sure they're on the Internet," she said. "That's easy to fix, do you live near my sister's house?". As a matter of fact, she did. So I called my sister on my cell phone, and asked my niece to go to the girl's house and tell her parents she got in a fender-bender in Omaha, and could not drive her car -- and to get off the Internet and call her. It worked very well. This young lady was driving the car that was to go to her brother, who was about to turn 16 in a couple of weeks. The car she was driving to college out of state the next day was in the shop. "Tell your parents you need a Jeep," I suggested. "I'll bet they'd feel a lot better knowing that if you get rear-ended, you'll probably be just fine." "I have been wanting to buy an Explorer," she said, smiling a little now, but still distraught. She had been paying for her own car and insurance, plus saving money for school. "Your brother will just have to be patient while they fix this Escort for him," I said, "and your parents will just be happy that you weren't hurt." Even though she was following me a little closely, I had had to apply my own brakes pretty quickly to stop for the red light, and all the cars that had stopped for nearly two blocks. I know how hard she tried to stop because she laid 20 feet of rubber before hitting me. I'm glad that Ford has decided to make their SUVs safer if they are in a crash with a smaller car. That's good for everyone. But this is the second time I've been rear-ended by a small Ford! The first time was in my 1988 Jeep, that time at a stop sign. Roads were icy, and that driver half slid into me. But his grill and hood also were destroyed, and the impact was not as strong as it was in Sunday's mishap. Fortunately, I haven't hit any driver, or any other object, since I have been a Jeep driver (12 years). However, I've come out strongly on top both times I've been hit. When my daughter begins driving, it will be in either my Jeep or my husband's. I feel good about that. Not only because Jeeps are solid protection in many kinds of accidents, but because you never see anyone trying to drag race in one!  |
| Read all comments (4)|Write your own comment |
