Notes on crashing your car

Moving home is always stressful, but I like to distil all the worry and menial labour that comes with trading domiciles into one super-woeful trip. By the time I’m finished packing the car resembles one of those impossibly difficult 3D jigsaw puzzles that menopausal women buy for adolescents at Christmas. This is not only a time saver, it also provides opportunity for a Viking funeral should you crash on the way to the new house. If ya gotta go, you may as well go surrounded by all your stuff, I say.

What it really means is that driving requires a little more care. Things that would normally not present much of a problem, something like a particularly sharp bend or a spot of sudden braking, now become more interesting challenges. Too much swerve on the corner and suddenly you’ve got half a leather office chair in your lap. Lots of people drive like they were taking part in a rally, but to my knowledge no rally racers fill the back of the car with mirrors and frying pans before setting off.

This all makes me a bit nervous, because I consider myself quite a careful driver. That statement sounds reprehensibly self-righteous, but it is born out of hard lessons and deep disappointment. A couple of years ago I had my first car crash, and since then I have been much more careful on the roads. You might think that this is a case of shutting the stable door when there’s an elephant in the room, or whatever the phrase is, and you’d be right. But if we learnt the lesson before we made the mistake, the mistake would not have been made. Probably.

If you tell someone that you have been in a car crash, they will immediately say: “Are you all right?” This, society teaches us, is the correct response to any tale of physical misfortune. Unless you are telling the story from a wheelchair or in a full neck-brace they can probably see that you look fine, but the statement has an implication of sympathy that is also required. (If you were telling the story from a wheelchair they presumably would have noticed, and begun the conversation with “Are you all right?” To which you would have replied, “Nah, I was in a car crash.”)

The conversation will then continue with further questioning, as your companion attempts to discover the particulars of your unhappy accident. At some stage in the proceedings enough of a picture will have been painted to allow the apportion of blame. This is the crucial step in the whole process, as it determines what course the rest of the conversation will run. If blame rests fully or partially with the driver being quizzed, then broad sympathy of the ‘what a bugger for you, on the other hand, it could have been much worse’ kind is in order. If blame can be completely attached to parties not present, then sympathy coupled with outrage is on the menu instead.

Here’s the thing though. It’s ALWAYS your fault, buddy. Let’s have a look at some of the most fundamental requirements of driving a car:

Number 1: You’re supposed to arrive at some sort of destination. This is the purpose for which cars were, in fact, designed. If you just drive around and around until you run out of petrol and have to stop you are technically driving, but it’s not really what the manufacturer intended.

Number 2: You aren’t supposed to hit anything. Anything at all. Ever.

So having a car crash contravenes at least these laws, and probably more besides. In fact there’s a pretty solid argument that’s says while involved in one, you aren’t really driving at all. You’re crashing, aren’t you.

No one likes to be blamed for anything, and for men in particular crashing your car is a basic failing. As previously mentioned driving is a masculine activity, and failing to drive effectively makes you look like a big sissy girl. And so most tales of automotive accident told by men allow for a certain amount of wiggle room, and other men respect that. Few blokes just come out and say. “I didn’t mean to crash into him… but then I crashed into him.”

My accident was the result of some scary driving from someone else (see, wiggle room). As I was pootling home one autumn evening someone overtook on the blind bend in front of me, nearly hitting the car immediately ahead of mine. The person ahead drove on for a few seconds and then suddenly emergency-stopped, which threw me completely off. My final thoughts ran something like this:

“Cor, that was close. Could’ve caused a nasty acci—OH MY COCKING CHRIST I’M GOING TO CRASH MY CAR!!”

I was not afraid; I can say that with absolute conviction. Instead I was angry, luminously angry at the world and myself. I knew in a split second that my little Italian car would be a write-off. It had crumple zones. Not just lines of weakness, or areas where crumpling might potentially take place- whole zones, dedicated solely to providing maximum crumplage. It was destined to fold up like a Ferrero Rocher in a lorry driver’s back pocket. I swore, fluently and eloquently, and then got out to see if the other driver was ok.

Police called, car moved, details taken, I did what everybody does after a stressful situation: I called me mum.

*CLICK*
“Hello?”
“Hi Mum, it’s me.”
“Hello, you. What’s up?”
“I’ve been in a crash, Mum.”
“Oooh, no! Was it an accident?”

(Only my mother needs to confirm that I am not intentionally ramming people with my car.)

“Yes, Mum.”
“Hmm… was it your fault?”
“No, see, there was this guy overtaking coming the other way…”

Wiggle room, see? What, you thought just because I wrote it I was exempt? Who am I, Jesus?