How to Avoid a Car Crash
Posted: Thursday, October 27, 2011
by Jack H. Schick
I seem to have a serious flaw in my performance, in my behavior, in my luck; I might rather like to say. Others might call it something else. It’s a dangerous and expensive flaw. I have a tendency to smash up automobiles.
The main reasons for car wrecks, I’ve read, are: drunken driving, inattention, inexperience, overconfidence and poor equipment. I’ve wrecked cars for all those reasons. I’ve been fortunate that no one was killed or even seriously hurt in any of those crashes. Several of them totally destroyed the vehicles. I did spend a day in the hospital for the first one, but otherwise, I ‘walked away from’ them. Reviewing and reliving those incidents (as I have in my mind a thousand times over the years), I realize that I really should be dead.
Way back in the year of the Summer of Love (1968), when I was a hansom lad of sixteen, I took my dad’s station wagon to a Boy Scout meeting. I decided to take the long way home on a country road to rack up a few more ‘experience’ miles. I got the lumbering old boat up to nearly seventy miles an hour up the straight-away. I came into the first corner way too fast and, with the old style steering and my inexperience behind the wheel, I had no chance of keeping it on the road. I swung wide into the ditch. The last thing I remember is a telephone pole appearing in the headlights.
The next thing I remember was a woman’s voice asking if I was all right and a shadow moving around outside the car. I was able to tell her my name when she asked, I think. Seat belts weren’t commonly in use back then. I was sitting on the floor leaning against the passenger side door. I looked up at lights sparkling around the shattered hole my face had made in the windshield. I faded out and woke up again when the door opened behind me and I fell back into a medic’s arms. I don’t remember the ride in the ambulance or much about the ER or hospital until the next morning.
My face was badly swollen for a couple weeks. The tops of my lower teeth were sheered off. I had twenty-five stitches in my mouth and face to close a serious laceration that split my upper lip such that I could never grow a moustache. The pole had been hit a couple weeks before by another driver so it didn’t break off, just leaned over in the still soft dirt. My dad’s car was totaled. I probably should have been dead, but in a few weeks I was fine again.
Drunk driving, inexperience, overconfidence:
My wife, who was seven months pregnant at the time, and I decided to take a drive from Rawlins down to the Lumber Jack Festival at Encampment, Wyoming. Instead of just taking the main highways the 60 or so miles, we took a gravel road south and tried to get there through Battle Mountain Pass over the Sierra Madre Mountains. The pass is closed in winter. We were new to the state and didn’t realize that early June is still considered winter in the Rocky Mountain high country. After a couple of hours of bucking snow drifts and getting out to shovel a path at least a half dozen times, we decided to give up and head back the way we came.
I, of course, like a good Wyoming Cowboy, had been drinking beer since we left home; and doing all the driving. We were frustrated that we failed in our attempt to get to Encampment and were in a hurry to get home. I was driving too fast on the gravel road; and my response time, my rationality and perception were dramatically diminished (I was drunk). I hit a section of washboard road (small ridges across the road that look sort of like a washboard that are the result of grading and erosion).
As we bounced over the washboard at an excessive speed, the light, rear end of the pick-up truck swung to the left. I turned the wheels to compensate. The rear end then swung to the right. We skidded on the gravel and off the left side of the road. As we went down off the shoulder the truck rolled over, driver’s side down, onto the roof, back onto its wheels then on over onto its roof again. As I looked out the smashed windshield, upside down, the cab roof slowly collapsed under the weight as the truck settled in a cloud of dust.
Neither of us was hurt. The baby was fine. My, almost brand new, four wheel drive pick up truck was destroyed, though. The police asked me how much I’d had to drink. I drastically underestimated (I lied). It was a different era and no tests or repercussions followed. Perhaps they should have. Perhaps I could have been spared the 30 years of alcoholic stupor I was just embarking on.
Inattentiveness:
We were driving up a steep, narrow gravel road to a remote county park on Casper Mountain in Wyoming. I was grumpy and short of sleep (I was hung-over). My wife was in the front seat carrying my two month old daughter in a plastic baby carrier. My two year old son was in the back seat of my Blazer in his space capsule like child’s seat, belted onto the back bench seat of the vehicle. Our golden Labrador retriever was loose in the back.
There was crying and complaining. There was griping and snide banter. The dog was anxious and jittery. I had a head ache and needed a beer. It looked like it was going to be a typical family outing. Suddenly the dog started to vomit. The first burst went onto the floor in the back, but then she stuck her head between the front seats. I yelled at the wife to do something.
When the dog started to wretch again, I leaned over and grabbed a piece of newspaper off the floor at my wife’s feet. With the baby in her lap she hadn’t even seen it. I quickly put it on the console under the dogs mouth to catch the puke. During my maneuver I’d inadvertently turned the steering wheel to the right a little bit. I had my eyes off of the road for at least fifteen seconds while I was trying to avert a messy disaster. I’d set myself up for a worse one.
When I looked up, we were headed off the road. We were only going about thirty miles an hours, but it was too late. We were headed right off a thirty foot embankment. I knew there was no hope but I spun the wheel to the left as hard as I could. The front wheels dug into the soft dirt on the shoulder, but we continued down the slope and rolled over. We hit some small trees with a horrible crash. The vehicle continued over and onto side, and landed driver's side up.
I retained consciousness and my grip on the steering wheel through the entire event. When the vehicle came to rest, I found that I was the only one still in the car. I climbed up and out through the side window. I spotted my daughter still in her carrier face down in the mud crying. I snatched her up. My wife came staggering out of the brush with a huge lump on her cheek under her eye. In shock, she sat down just staring at me. At that point I noticed my son’s capsule lying a few yards away. He was crying too and had a small lump on his head. Thirty feet above, on the road looking down at the devastation, I saw the dog. All were present and accounted for.
The Blazer was, of course, destroyed. No one was seriously hurt. My wife had a black eye for a couple of weeks. The dog got half a dozen stitches in a laceration on her front leg. I was sober at the time of the crash, but certainly was not attentive. Some how, we’d all survived another one.
Poor equipment, overconfidence:
I was much older and had been sober for a few years. I hadn’t had a car accident in decades. I was driving back from Deer Hunting Camp in the Allegheny Mountains. I was loaded down with hunting gear, camping gear and my gun dog Riley. I crossed a hundred and fifty miles of Pennsylvania in snowy conditions with little trouble in my old Jeep Cherokee.
I got off of Interstate 80 at Lock Haven and headed for Williamsport on I-380. It was snowing harder. There was about half an inch of slush on the road. I was going a little fast for conditions—and for the balding tires I had on the rear. I’d driven thousands of miles in winter conditions during my dozen years living in Wyoming and have way too much arrogance about my foul weather driving skills.
When I hit the bridge across the West Branch of the Susquehanna River at McElhatten I lost it. I felt the rear end begin to slide to the right. I quickly turned the wheel. It began to slide the other way. I turned again. It slid back to the right. I was gripped by a hopeless panic. I realized there was no way I could regain control. It seemed like slow motion as the jeep spun around, then around again.
I watched the center barrier spin into view. I slammed into it with the driver’s side headlight corner of the vehicle. There was a terrific crash. The air bags exploded in my face. Riley, who was sleeping on the front seat, jumped up and dove into the back. The vehicle went around again and impacted a second time on the passenger side rear. Acrid smoke from the air bags filled the car, burning my eyes and throat.
No one was hurt. After a tow to the nearest garage to clear the highway, I was able to pry stuff out of the way, cut things loose, get back on the road and limp home in my wounded vehicle. It was another narrow escape and another expensive repair.
So, what can I say that you haven’t heard before? Each one of my accidents could have been avoided. I don’t speak from textbook knowledge. I speak from real life experience: Do not drive drunk (under any circumstance), pay close attention to your driving and to the road at all times (even if the dog is puking), realize there is danger if your are a new driver (you do not have the skills or foresight yet), never consider yourself to be a great drive (you’ll take too many risks), and keep your vehicle in good and safe condition (there is too much danger without adding that to the formula).
Happy motoring. Be safe.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Not all accidents can be avoided, but we can prevent being the cause, as you know. Thanks.
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