All week I was looking forward to spending NYE with some dear friends down in
Charm City. The weather report predicted light snow the morning of Dec 31 down most of my route between Ithaca and Baltimore. I thought about leaving a day earlier but figuring that I am a Chicago girl who knows how to drive in winter weather and with hope of maximizing my academic productivity, I decided to just do the 5 hour drive on NYE morning.
As I turned out of my neighborhood late Thursday morning I found that the roads were a bit slushier/slipperier than I was expecting. In good weather it takes about 45 minutes on rolling country roads to go from Ithaca to the nearest entrance for interstate 81. I figured that this first stretch would be the hard part. If I could make it through the 3-4 intersections with stop signs and traffic lights onto the highway without any major swerving/skidding, the rest of my drive would be a bit slow but relatively easy.
The snow was still falling when I got to 81 S and took my place in a slow-moving stream of cars in the right lane. Around Binghampton traffic got a little tighter so I moved over to the left lane. I was going along at 45 mph when I saw a big suburban two lanes over changing lanes in a really odd/sudden way. It took me second to realize the car was actually out of control and heading perpendicular to traffic towards my lane. It was too slippery to swerve or stop quickly but thankfully i was able to slow down enough to ensure that the impact of my much smaller Nissan Sentra with this massive SUV wasn't likely to be physically threatening to me.
As we collided, I listened to what has become for me an unfortunately familiar sound of crunching metal. In my mirror I saw the styrofoam pieces of my front bumper scatter into the other lanes of traffic. Thankfully the car behind me was far enough back to avoid sandwiching me. I was able to pull on to the small shoulder as the Suburban came to a stop several yards behind me, pointing against traffic.
I sat there for a minute or so before calling 911 and starting the formalities of meeting the other driver and reporting the incident to police and insurance. The potential danger of the situation didn't register at all. All I could think about was how angry I would be if my insurance rates went up and how disappointed I was that I wasn't gong to get to wear the cute New Year's outfit that I had assembled a few nights earlier. At least my front bumper with its ugly peeling paint due to a previously poorly completed post-accident repair was very likely going to be replaced. I wonder if such post-accident thinking is "normal" or somewhat unique to my slightly less than normal path in recent years. Not to sound morbid, but bad things happening to people around me (and less often to me) is pretty much what I've come to expect..
Dave the tow truck driver gave me a ride back to Ithaca. I sat in the front cab of his truck with my battered Nissan trailing behind. About 30 minutes into the drive Dave starting telling me about his co-worker who was recently released from prison. The coworker had gone into a physical rage against his ex-wife and her boyfriend when he discovered the boyfriend had been molesting his child and the ex-wife knew about it. Dave transitioned into his own story of getting custody of his son after his 4-year-old explained to the judge what his mommy's boyfriend was doing across the room with a spoon, a candle and a syringe. Both stories were permeated by Dave's laughter - a sound that was a bit hard for me to reconcile with their content. Still I managed to insert a few comments/questions along the way - to give the impression that I understood - even though I knew I did not.
Dave had overheard me saying something on the phone about my upcoming trip to Haiti. He asked about it so I gave him a two sentence overview of my work there. All I got from him in response was silence. No comments. No questions. After several minutes of quiet the talk went back to directions to Ithaca and the current road conditions. Unlike me, at least he didn't pretend to understand what I was talking about. I had to respect him for that.
