Stupid People Behind the Wheel.

Three years ago I was in a pretty bad car accident. I was sitting at a stop light when a 1996 Ford F-150 hit me in the back going 55 miles per hour (at the point of impact). Every single moment of the car accident still lives fresh in my mind. I was 19 years old, had only been driving for a few months, this was my first car accident, and it was a bad, bad car accident. I remember not knowing exactly what had happened when I got out of the car. I was disoriented, shaking, and the only thing I knew to do was call my Dad. I remember standing on the curb, waiting on my Dad to get there, looking at my car that no longer had a back end, and still trying to piece together what exactly had just happened. My Dad insisted that I go to the hospital. They put me on a back board, strapped a neck brace around my neck, and wheeled my outside to the ambulance. I remember telling the paramedics that my purse was in my car, and to make sure my Dad got it out. As I laid there in the ambulance, I was beginning to understand a bit more of what happened, but still it wasn't all clear. To this day, I still remember how I felt, when the panic and trauma started to set in. I remember feeling like a victim, and being angry, scared, and sad all at the same time. I remember how my body felt, how my head felt, and how everything looked different to me after that accident.

I get pretty tense after I get behind the wheel of a car now, and I get nervous every time I get around alot of cars. I passed a wreck today that involved about four or five cars. It looked like a pretty serious car accident. I couldn't even tell what two of the cars were, there were 2 ambulances and a couple of fire trucks. Traffic was backed up for a couple of miles, and when I finally got to see the damage of the cars involved...a wave of panic came over me. I started to shake, and cry. I didn't know any of the people in that car accident, but I knew how they felt and all at once the way I felt that Monday morning hit me again. I said a prayer for the people involved, and tried to calm myself back down.

I know it sounds like I'm whacked out or something, but it's something that I can't help. People just don't drive like they used to. They take serious chances that they shouldn't take. Not too much further down the road, past the wreck, a BMW veered into traffic almost right into me. I had to slam on my breaks to keep her from hitting me. I laid on my horn, yelled some obscenities, and wished that she had seen that wreck just a couple of miles down the road. People are in a hurry, and instead of waiting a couple of seconds on a car to pass, they pull out into traffic, expecting the rest of us to stop for them. People don't use turn signals, or when they do, it's after they've come to a complete stop in front of the road they are turning down. People drive too fast. Today, I also witnessed a man pull into a turning lane who had a green light, and then pull back into the lane that had a red light, and jump in front of everyone else. Why? He didn't feel like sitting at a red light.

I feel like I should do something about the way people drive. I want people to see what they're doing, to see how they are driving, to see how many lives they are putting in danger just because they can't be patient. I have enough going on in life to stress me out, and make me angry...driving doesn't need to be one of those.