High school has taught me a lot of valuable life lessons, some of which are more painful to learn than others. One of these, in my experience, was how long the consequences of some mistakes really are.
A mistake I made back in my junior year — nearly two years ago — that now has come back to, for lack of a better explanation, bite me in the ass.
On Sunday, Mar. 15, 2015, I was trekking up the 12 miles from my home to Folsom to visit my best friend on her 17th birthday because I’m just that awesome of a friend. I’d had my license for about ten months at this point and had only been actively driving places for less than five, as my family didn’t have a spare car for me to use until the spring semester. Mar. 15 was the first day I tried driving somewhere alone other than school. It was big.
Then, right as I came upon the last intersection of my long drive, I was faced with the stressful decision of whether or not to proceed through a yellow light.
I can’t remember everything exactly in those last few moments, but I’m sure that my exhaustion from driving for over half an hour to a new destination was a factor in my decision. Additionally, I’d spent most of the drive feeling nervous, as driving gave me all kinds of anxiety in those first few months I spent behind the wheel alone. It was yellow, I told myself, so I could still make it.
And I made it — right into the side of an SUV traveling in a direction perpendicular to me.
In those final moments before the collision, when I recognized what was happening, I slammed on my breaks — probably saving myself from being slammed into by the SUV on the driver’s side. That wouldn’t have been very good for me.
But I managed to avoid that, rerouting all the damage to the front of my car. A green Toyota Camry passed down from my Tagalog-speaking grandparents who’d affectionately called it the “green machine.”
I closed my eyes at the moment of impact, assuming the worst. My body tensed up in my attempt to brace myself. I expected pain, or to lose consciousness or even worse.
Then I was surprised when I opened my eyes and found myself, from what I could gather, unharmed.
A large crack stretched across the windshield. I could see the hood of the car scrunched up, obscuring some of the lower corners of my overall view. Surprisingly—perhaps, miraculously, given my small size and closer proximity to the steering wheel than the average driver—the airbag had not deployed.
I was still in the middle of the intersection when I looked around. I quickly recognized I had to get out of the way of traffic and managed to urge the green machine forward, to the side of the road. It scraped against the ground in a wail of pain. I tried not to cringe.
After parking and getting out of my car, everything kinda passed in a blur. I talked to the other driver, who was concerned and also had his young son in the car (both of whom were fine), I stared at the surprising lack of damage on his SUV (JUST A SCRATCH!!!!). I called my parents, who called my best friend and her mother, a girl from the grade above me at my high school pulled over after she passed my destroyed car and recognized me, the cops showed up… it was about as dramatic as you’d expect.
The days following that experience, I was sore all over from whiplash, but at least I’d been spared from a concussion. My friends and family were all there for me, quickly offering support whenever I needed it, whether it be carrying my stuff for me at school or just buying me a cookie at lunch to cheer me up. The green machine was formally announced “totaled” within a few days, so we wrestled with the insurance company to sort through everything and get the money handled, which led to the purchase of a new car that my dad and I still both drive (and my sister will be learning to drive on as well).
Legally, the accident mucked up my driving record as it was recorded as my fault. Due to the scary nature of it, it currently resides on my license as a “point.” Should I get many more of these wonderful points, I’ll be out of the driving business for a long time.
Which brings us to the present day, nearly two years later. I haven’t been in an accident since then. My life is completely independent of that fairly traumatic point now — or so I thought.
Enter the college scene, circa September 2016, when I’m trying to register for an on-campus car rental service called “Zipcar.” Depending on where you need to go, it can be cheaper and more convenient than Uber, so I sign up, type in my license and credit card info, and wait for my official “Zipcard” to arrive in the mail. Nothing comes.
Then some of my friends have a traumatic ordeal with Zipcar after dealing with a faulty car and getting in a minor accident. Apparently, customer service isn’t their strong suit. Oh, well, sounds like the company’s a bit of a disaster anyway, so I figure my information gets lost in processing.
Once January rolls around and I’m trying to register again for an upcoming event my friends and I want to go to, well, as I’m waiting for my verification email, my eyes lock onto something on their website: “checking driver’s record.”
Oh.
That step is listed under the other steps the company takes to process and approve my info. It’s “in progress.” I eventually get an email the following morning with the promise of verification with just one click of a link, but, as I’d expected, I get nothing in return.
An event that I’d believed to be far in the past still had its hold on me; I’m not sure if I’m more amused or irritated. Turns out these little friends the DMV calls “points” on a person’s record are here to stay for 39 months.
Yep, you read that right. Totaling my car in my junior year of high school has left my legal driving abilities limited until the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college.
Who knows what I’ll be doing in June 2018? Maybe I’ll be working at an internship down here in LA, or preparing to study abroad, or something else.
I do know one thing’s for sure: I still won’t be able to rent a goddamn Zipcar.
So, to all my friends, please drive carefully, not only for your own safety, but to protect yourself against the 39-month long curse of the DMV’s points-of-doom system.
