Crash (no, not a computer) (NJM5)
Okay, so – I know, I didn’t post yesterday. I could make all kinds of excuses, but the truth is it was one of those nights when I climbed in bed with my laptop intending to do all kinds of things (including an entry) and fell asleep. So I figure, I’ll cheat and pretend it’s yesterday, and backdate this, and post twice today, and all will be well.
Daughter had a car accident last night – she’s okay, and nobody was hurt, but the front of the car she was driving is toast. We have a 2005 Pontiac Vibe that has soldiered on through the early driving of our two youngest. Personally, I love this car – it has been a little workhorse for our family, and has put up with a lot of crap a car it’s size shouldn’t have to. This is it’s third serious accident – I rear-ended somebody in an SUV three years ago and bashed the hood, middle son went over a Belgian-block curb and destroyed the undercarriage two years ago on Halloween, and now it’s had it’s nose ripped off in the latest mishap.
Daughter had pulled up to a stop sign at a notoriously bad intersection in our town – there are five branches to the intersection, with three stop signs, and one major road going through the middle. She was pulling out from the stop sign when a car coming up the major road from her left slashed across the front of the car – the accident was at night, and she thinks the car was either driving with lights off (which I don’t think was the case) or going too fast (which I do believe, because the speed limit there is 25 mph, and everybody drives way too fast) – because she didn’t see it until it was in front of her lights.
There are literally dozens of accidents a year at this intersection, plus it’s right in the middle of the neighborhood where three of our local schools are – so during the day there are a lot of kids crossing the streets there. There have been several petitions to the town asking for them to put in a traffic light, but the main road is a county road – so they say the county would have to pay for it, and they won’t.
Our town spent hundreds of thousands of tax dollars last year "rehabilitating" the downtown (which is just the area around one stoplight). This consisted of replacing the concrete sidewalks with more attractive block (which you can only see if you stand on it – from the road, it looks no different), putting up "historic"-style streetlights that look like old gas lamps (except that because they are modern streetlights they are about sixteen feet tall, and way out of scale for what would have existed then), and worst of all, ripping out all the old trees that were in the sidewalks and replacing them with new saplings. The tree one I especially don’t understand – they literally took out dozens of beautiful twenty-plus foot high trees, and planted new baby trees in the exact same places. I’m sure they thought it was necessary to remove the trees in order to rip up the sidewalks, but to me it’s still killing a bunch of our perfectly good green brothers.
In any case, for a lot less money – they could have put a stoplight at this intersection and made our town a safer place. I’m glad (of course) that everybody in this accident was uninjured – but I can’t help but think if my daughter had pulled out a little sooner or a little faster that car would have been going through the driver-side door instead of into the nose of the car.
So the car will be okay – like I said, it’s been through this sort of thing before. We have Geico for insurance, and I have to say I love working with them. With all the claims we’ve had, everybody I’ve ever talked to has been polite and helpful, and they process everything very quickly and efficiently – the best part is they have a really good website, so you can pretty much do everything there and almost never have to get on the phone with somebody. They aren’t the cheapest, but I’ve avoided switching to somebody else because every time something like this comes up I have a good experience with them.
Anyway, we’re down to one car with four drivers in the house – so until that one comes back there will be a lot of shuffling about. But, as accidents always remind me, it could be worse.
In the words of the inimitable Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted "Theodore" Logan – "Dust. Wind. Dude."
The DiaryMaster
P.S. – in respect for honesty and transparency, I decided against backdating this, since it’s not yesterday anymore – but I’m still going to label it "NoJoMo 5" and post another later today.
Glad that your daughter was unharmed anyway!
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I’m glad she’s ok. Accident’s are scary no matter if someone gets hurt or not. My own son was in a t-bone accident last week and is still in the hosptial with some serious injuries. I don’t think people relize speed limits are set for safety. My son would still be hurt if the car that hit them had been going the speed limit, but not as badly. Even that 5 or 10 miles over makes a difference.
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glad she is ok
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Glad she’s ok!
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Wow, I’m glad she is ok! I can’t believe that the county is too cheap to pay for something that will prevent serious injuries and potential casualties! But I bet it will take a serious accident for them to do anything about it.. and that is sad. So you like Geico? I have State Farm and they are expensive. I’ve been thinking about switching but don’t know anything other than State Farm so I’mleery…
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Wow, glad she is alright. We have an interesction like that in my home town. It has ONE stop sign that hangs from a wire (waaaaaay up in the sky) across the intersection. Yeah.
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are we suppose to be numbering our posts? during this thing? wow glad she’s ok that was a frightening call to get late at night *hugs* yea I hate those kinds of intersections why they think 5 roads need to all come to one point I will never know! espeically with one having no stop sign at least!
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Ah, we love honesty. 🙂 There are several studies out that show round abouts solve all sorts of traffic problems like this one. You might suggest it to your local gvt rep.
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Glad your daughter wasn’t hurt. But the car… ouch!!! PS your so honest…
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Your daughter was lucky ! It could have been worse than that.
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I’m glad your daughter is ok. I agree that the renovations they did sound like a waste of money. It’s a shame to have taken out the mature trees. (Unless their roots were a threat to the building foundations and/or the sewer system, etc.)
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glad to hear it wasn’t worse. i hate it when they spend money on things that are cosmetic when safety needs to be addressed first! hope they pay attention. the city i used to live in finally incorporated the area around the bad intersection into the city and put in a light…that helped a lot. good luck!
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Glad your daughter is ok! And that’s crappy that the county won’t pay for a light at a bad intersection where people have gotten into accidents. I’m sure it’ll take a serious accident/someone getting killed and they’ll do it.
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phew, good to know she is fine!
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I had an accident on a road that sounds about like that several years ago. That road also had dozens of accidents a year. It was dark, with stop signs, a curve not far from the intersection – I, like your daughter, didn’t see the car until it hit me. Now, they still don’t have a stoplight there, but they do have a series of street lights, so at least you can more easily see what’s coming up.
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That’s always scary. I’m thankful nobody was hurt! Interesting to hear someone say that Geico isn’t the cheapest. I’ve seen several commercials from other insurance companies claiming that they were cheaper than Geico, though I’ve not done any personal research. Hmmmm.
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Glad your daughter is okay. I completely forgot to post yesterday’s NoJoMo entry also, so I’m going to cheat and backdate it anyway. 🙂
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Glad she didn’t get hurt. 10/22 I was in a car accident and will be recovering for a long time for someone rear-ending us going at least 50 mph at a stop light while we were completely stopped. Hope you have a good day 🙂 ♥
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Intersections like that are scary, and there are far too many of them. Glad your daughter was unhurt.
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i am very glad your daughter is okay. too bad about the car, though. take care,
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Thank goodness your daughter is okay and nobody was hurt! That’s the most important thing. 🙂
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I’m glad your daughter wasn’t injured.
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Bureaucrats and politicians never cease to amaze me. Glad your daughter is okay. Wonder what they would think if you filed a lawsuit against the city for negigence, citing all the accidents and near-accidents and their failure to do anything about it. I’ll bet there are one or two lawyers who would love to get their hands on a case like that.
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Yikes. That sucks that the town is more worried about cosmetic looks than safety! Glad your daughter and the other driver are both unharmed!
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Oh, wow. Must have been so scary for your daughter. I’m glad she’s ok. I’ve had a similar accident back in 2003. Nearly totaled the car and I still cringe when I need to cross the stupid intersection.
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Glad your family is ok. I wonder, if someone were to research how much the light would cost, and then if people did a fundraiser type thing to raise that much money, the town/county/state/whatever would then be almost obligated wouldn’t they? Just a thought.
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Are you sure you don’t live in my hometown? It sure sounds like it, horrible intersections and useless revamps and all. Of course, my hometown is in Wisconsin and has no traffic lights…
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“Yes! Like the sands of the hourglass, so are the days of our lives!” – So-crates
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Glad she is ok, I have noticed a lot of cars around here driving without lights at night lately, I don’t know what it is….. But speed is also a major issue…
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Glad she wasn’t hurt!!
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Put up enough of a ruckus and they will change the traffic light. Too many people don’t get involved in local politics. Glad your daughter is okay. We have an intersection like that. We call it suicide corners. We also have the four corners, which isn’t AS bad, but is still pretty bad.
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The most important thing about this entry is that your daughter was not hurt…..I’m so glad to hear that!!
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I’m so glad you daughter is okay. We have an intersection two blocks from us that would generate screeching and crashing noises once or twice a week and I’d see sparkly glass dustings all around there, constantly. There always was a traffic light, but no turn signal. Well, they finally put a left-turn light in and the accidents all but quit.No more confusion about when you can turn.
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Glad she is ok xxx
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What a ridiculous traffic situation. Maybe once one of the county representatives gets bruised up at that intersection they’ll decide to commit the funds.
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I’m glad your daughter is ok. I hope the car gets fixed soon. By the way…you made me want to watch Bill and Ted lol.
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Such a relief that your daughter wasn’t hurt! And I’m with Georgette on roundabouts. We have dozens of them in our city; and almost no accidents of the type your daughter had. (Yes, I know the two things may not be related – but it’s a lot more difficult to go through a roundabout at the wrong time than through an intersection.)
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It’s good to know that if my Vibe ever took a beating, that it would hold up. haha I hope the car is repaired sooner rather then later!
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Cars can be fixed….I’m glad she is OK.:)
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We have something like that. a 6 way intersection. It sucks on the weekends when everyone is out. I’m glad she’s okay!
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re: LOL and yes eww. I’m glad your daughter is alright! thats the most important thing. Around where I live there this one road that everyone gets acdients on the “made it wider” and it didn’t work. I say people are stupid drivers.
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Glad your daughter is okay! I totally did the laptop-in-bed thing TWICE this week, for the first times ever, and feel dead to the world asleep. What the heck.
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RYN: Yes it was, somebody got ahold of my password. I think I’ve taken care of it though, so I didn’t really see the need to inform the staff. If it happens again though, I definitely will. Thanks. =]
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That is so scary…I’m so glad she is okay! My husband was in an accident where, if it had been going just a little faster he would have been rammed instead of just the hood of the car getting hit. I hope they do something about that – it’s really outrageous that they will spend money on cosmetic changes but not safety (although I guess that was the town, and not the county?).
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for honesty and transparency… HAH. alright then. glad noone was hurt in the accident.
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hahaha i did that with my entries yesterday. i did not even think about back dating it though. lol im glad your daughter is ok. sounds like they need to fix that intersection. start calling city and state officials. your poor car is only 4 years old! lol i have geico to and the 1 accident i have had they were great!
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You and I are never going to make it all way through nojomo. I think its because we feel like we have to write and its a chore to us instead of fun. I know I am about ready to call it quits. I am so thankful your daughter was not injured. Cars can be replaced .
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I forgot to mention we have those same stupid ugly lights in our town and new side walks and all the nice trees removed and they replaced ours with little squares of flower beds. New is not always better and Stop lights are just as hard to get installed here.
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My friend and I were hit the exact same way. Although we were hit more toward the rear. Point is, if we were a second slower I’d been smashed into her side of the car. Glad everyone is okay.
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It took a kid getting run over at the intersection by the school before they 1. put in a stop light and also 2. put in a crosswalk over the road for the students to walk on so they never had to actually cross the road again. Maybe they’ll foot for something like a cross walk over the road…kind of a bridge thing going on for people
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Thank goodness she is okay. Speeding drivers have a lot to answer for.
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Glad your daughter is okay.
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Glad to hear that your daughter is ok.
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Yikes! We have a “five corners” too. And you’re a good egg not backdating your entries. *smiles* I’m pretty sure I’d have to put “Cheater” in my title if I ever tried to do it. *grins*
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