Have you ever been in a car accident before, even a fender bender? I’ve been in several in my relatively short lifetime, including one that I caused. Below is a list of the all-time most memorable accidents I’ve been in.

1. The Bus Incident

This one cracks me up every time I think about it because it’s just so stupid that it even happened. In middle school, I rode the bus to and from school, as did many others. However, on our way from school, we also had to pick up the high schoolers who either had detention, or a late period. The busses were lined up around the “U” of the pickup zone. Just as the bus ahead of us began to pull forward and we began to follow, a fellow middle schooler chose that moment to throw away a piece of trash. This distracted the bus driver, and one of the sideview mirrors on our bus promptly smashed its way through the rear window of the bus in front. We wound up being delayed an hour before two substitute busses came to pick us up. I never saw that bus driver again.

2. The Illegal Passengers

This also happened in middle school, right about the same time as the Bus Incident. One Tuesday afternoon, on her day off, my mom came to pick me up from middle school to take me to my piano lesson. We were stuck in traffic, as always, since there was only one road that lead to the high school, the middle school, and the military base in our town. As we were stopped in front of the high school, my mom checked her rearview mirror; her eyes went wide. “Oh my God!” she yelped as she braced herself. Suddenly there was a loud thud; someone had hit us. I soon discovered that a high school kid two cars behind us had gotten distracted by other high school passengers in her car and had run smack into the car behind us, which had then slammed into us. Having just gotten her license, the poor girl was in hysterics as it was not legal for her to drive with anyone under 25 in the car. My mom’s car was in the shop for 3 months, but I did get out of my piano lesson for the day, so it felt like a win to me.

3. The Sideswipe Hit-And-Run

About a year ago, I gained employment as an Event Security Officer on my University campus. I technically work for the University of the Pacific Police Department, and report to the Department of Public Safety before and after every shift. For the first few months working there, I didn’t have a place nearby and was living out of town, so I would usually stay with my best friend whenever I had to work. One rainy night in November, I was heading down Pacific Avenue on my way to work in my impossible-to-miss Chevy Equinox, an SUV. I was driving in the center lane, knowing the right lane would eventually merge, when a car to my right decided to merge—without so much as a blinker, let alone checking to ensure a clear lane. I quickly slammed on my horn, but it was a bit too late, and the car sideswiped me. The driver immediately sped off, choosing to run rather than pull over and exchange info. Fortunately for the driver, I did not catch his license plate in the pitch-black rain, or I would have immediately turned him in once I got to work. Shame though it may be, my car is alright, and no one was hurt.

4. The Literal Fender Bender

I got my car, a 2012 Chevrolet Equinox, for my 16^th birthday, and passed my license test less than a month later. I had taken my driver’s test in my mom’s car, a tiny sedan, after having trouble making appropriate turns, braking, and accelerating in my dad’s literal 3-ton truck. Four months after getting my license, my family and I all took separate cars to my mom’s office: a small 5-room business office that she shared with a few other therapists and psychologists. I can’t remember what we were doing there or why we took separate cars, but my job was done before my parents’ so I decided to head off. While driving down a four-lane road, the driver ahead of me in the left lane decided to turn suddenly, slowly, and without a blinker. Impatient 16-year-old me decided to go around; but I forgot to check my blind spot. The car driving there smacked into me, leaving a dent in my fender and no damage to their car. We pulled over and, before I got out of the car, I called my dad. He calmly drove over, took care of exchanging info, and we were on our way. For two years, my dad refused to fix my car so that I would have the superficial damage as a reminder to drive safely. Finally, he relented to my persistent begging, and we got it fixed. A week later, someone sideswiped my car in the parking lot while I was at the bookstore. The then-newly-fixed fender is still damaged today.

5. The Attitude With The Clutch

This past Saturday, my dad was out of town on a fishing trip, so my mom and I decided to have a girls day. We were heading to the grocery store after a long day of shopping till we dropped, when we stopped behind someone at a red light. Suddenly I noticed that the car ahead of us was, unexpectedly, rolling backwards towards us. I pointed it out to my mom, who immediately honked and then laid on her horn, to no avail; the car continued to roll backwards before it inevitably hit us. Finally the driver noticed. When the light turned green, we decided to just drive to the grocery store parking lot, as it would be safer than staying in the street. We got out of the car, checked for damage, and when there was none, we looked at the driver and told him everything was fine. He came back with attitude, remarking, “So it’s okay for you to hit my car and just drive off?” Anger boiled up inside me as I shouted at him, “No YOU hit US! YOUR CAR rolled BACKWARDS into OUR CAR. Don’t get it twisted.” He scoffed, “Don’t get it twisted?!” I sassily retorted, “You heard me!” My mom suggested that I go into the store so she could chat with him; she was much less angry than I. As it turns out, the moron was “fumbling with something,” had his foot on the clutch rather than the brake, and didn’t react to the honking because he thought we just wanted him to move. He claimed to have thought we rammed his car so that he would move. My guess? The dude was high (his eyes were VERY red and he gave us a very blank stare), and was texting while driving (fumbling with "something" so much that you don’t react to honking? Only one thing that could be...), and decided to play victim rather than owning up to his unsafe, not to mention illegal, actions. My mother, who is relentlessly calm during stressful events, explained what actually happened to the 18-year-old, and we went on our separate ways. I was shaking in anger for an hour afterwards. The thing that truly made me mad was the attitude he had while getting out of his car. He clearly had no clue what had happened, and could have easily asked, "What happened? Why did you hit me?" Instead, he chose to be a jerk in a situation where we were all very frustrated. All's well that ends well though; my mom and I have been laughing at the kid's expense for the past three days!

There’s a lesson to be learned here; life can be funny sometimes, despite all the hardships, but it is imperative for your safety and your dignity to pay attention any time you operate heavy machinery. There’s a reason texting, making phone calls, smoking, and drinking alcohol while driving are illegal. Any distraction when driving a car or other vehicle can cause serious harm to yourself and/or others. While I’ve never been in a serious accident, 6 million car accidents, 3 million auto-accident-related injuries, and 40 thousand auto-accident-related deaths occur each year in America. Please be careful. Save others and save yourself.