Car Troubles...

The last post that I wrote about was my grandmother passing away. Less than a week after her death, I was in a car accident. What happened, you ask? To be honest, I'm not totally sure. It was like the world stopped. What I think happened is that the lady in front of me stopped at a yellow light, and I tried to go through it but then realized the car in front of me was stopped and I couldn't stop fast enough. I tried to avoid hitting her straight on by going a little bit into the other lane, but didn't have time to see if there was anyone in that lane that I might have hit, so I ended up just hitting her back driver's side with my front passenger side. My niece, Rylee, was in the car with me, and her parents and siblings in their car behind us. They were far enough behind to not get in the accident and close enough to pull over and help. There was also a police officer somewhere nearby who immediately pulled up behind me and redirected traffic and called the police and fire department since there were car fluids everywhere. They arrived within minutes. It was the most frightening experience of my life, but with everyone where they were, it was the best scenario to have happen. It happened almost a month ago and I am still freaked out by driving!

Here is the damage that was done.



After seeing the damage to the car, it was amazing that Rylee and I received minimal damage. I got some scrapes from my necklace being caught under the seat belt and Rylee got a bump on the head from a table in the backseat.

These little marks eventually scabbed over but looked like hickeys for the first few days. It was so funny to go to school with them and my students would look at them, then at my face, then at them again, but NO ONE had the guts to ask what they were, even though I have been asked straight up if I've ever had a hickey. I told my classes after the first day since I needed to answer my phone during class if anyone called me. They were very understanding and I think relieved that I finally told them about the marks on my neck. :)

And I'm grateful for good insurance! They paid for towing the car to an impound lot in South Jordan, then from there to a body shop in Provo. I can only imagine how expensive that would have been!

You can see that the crushed fluid containers if you enlarge the picture. The firefighting crew was so fast cleaning up! After everything was taken care of with the police, we went to Tammy's car with our stuff. By the time we could flip a U-turn, the intersection was back to normal!


The bumper of my car attached to the bumper of the other car and had to be forcibly removed after the cars were moved.

So, for the past couple of weeks, Tim and I have been car shopping and talking to our insurance. It has been a long process so far, and it isn't even finished yet! On Monday, October 4th, we purchased a 2009 Toyota Corolla from Carmax. Tim drove it the first two days we had it while I was at an FCCLA conference in Layton, and I have been driving it since. It is so nice!! It is just like the rental car we had, and we couldn't be happier with our new car!