Cars 0, Me 2
posted in General, Rantings |I’ve done it again.
By which, I mean, I’ve walked away from an accident bad enough for the insurance company to throw up its hands and shout “Don’t bother fixing it! We surrender!” Yes, the kids are alright. Yes, so am I. But the Kia is cooked. For those of you on I-5 southbound on Black Friday (Friday after Thanksgiving), under the Morrison bridge, about noon, I apologize.
What happened? Well, I went from highway 30 to I5 and then foolishly tried to change lanes. There’s always a traffic knot at the exit to I84, so I went into the left lane to go ’round, then back into the center because eventually I needed to turn right. On the second lane change, I hit a puddle or something on the road, began to fishtail, spun perpendicular to the traffic flow, and eventually into the concrete divider under the Morrison bridge.
You see that first point on the map? That’s where I pulled over and made Miss B sit on her butt. We were listening to rocking Christmas tunes and singing, and she was dancing- but I made her sit down (she had been sitting on her feet in her chair in order to get more bounce).
And the kia? I’ll upload some pictures. The scary thing is that I hit the concrete barrier at something close to freeway speeds and the air bags didn’t explode. I probably hit it kind of sideways (You can see sideways scratches on the front of the car) but the impact was hard enough to jar me, give Ms B a minor strap burn on her shoulder, and Toddler K bit her tongue hard enough to bleed. That’s not a little love tap. So if you read these statistics, take them with a little bit of salt, because my stupid air bags didn’t do anything. Of course, I did walk away from the accident (and promptly jumped back out of traffic).
Furthermore, I was really sucked in by Les Schwab. The weekend before Thanksgiving, I spent 2.5 hours and $350 at Les Schwab (and the kids were awesome), and bought completely new tires and had them siped because I was (and still am) paranoid, and their demos made a lot of sense. Well, the siping didn’t stop the hydroplaning, and I don’t think they helped when I was sliding perpendicular, either. Maybe I was expecting too much?
Well, we’re ok. And I’m out one newish car (2003), which has a positive side. But now, I’m looking for a car with decent mileage, good reliability, seats four (with 4 doors preferable), and I would really like to seat more (some sort of mini-van or something) in order to transport wood / building supplies / the neighbor kids. And my budget is kind of small. I was going to bid on one on ebay, but I can’t find the listing now (it already ended).
