It was a wet, miserable morning. Rain came down in a perpetual downpour with the constant breeze of the wind; mist sprays from the wheels of cars as they drive in front of us. My dad was sitting in the passenger seat; my brother, in the back sleeping. I reached a red blinking light, I stopped, looked both ways, and then drove on. BANG, I drove right into the side of a car driving perpendicular to me, as he spun off the road in slow motion. Pieces of plastic and glass flying in all directions like a merciless hurricane hitting a house. I rolled at a steady five miles per hour for another ten feet or so. I finally stopped and realized what I had just done. Trails of debris, in all directions and thick steam emitting up from the hood helped me to realize, this was not a dream.

I started to freak out. Am I going to jail? Is he alright? My dad gets out of the car to make sure the man is okay. To my relief he was perfectly fine. I was still sitting in the car shocked with what had happened. I about totalled my dad’s car, and I demolished the side of this random guys car. It felt like years waiting there for the police to show up to take the report. Every second I was there waiting, made my anxiety rose just more and more.

First the “police officer” showed up, we were out in the middle of nowhere, I looked around the intersection and down the roads, all I saw were trees and long lengths of power lines for miles. Instead of a police officer coming, it was actually an off duty fireman. The man was really calm; he made sure that my car wasn’t going to explode or anything and he checked to see if it would be able to make it to wherever we were going or if we were going to need a tow truck. Luckily for us, the damage wasn’t too bad; 90% of the damage was just external, the engine block was fine, there were a few leaking pipes, but it was driveable.

I remembered back to a long long time ago. We were on an icy road, and I was six at the time. We went down a huge hill and when my dad pressed the brakes to stop, nothing happened; we slid right off the road into the dark ditch of ice and snow. I thought back to another time, when my mom hit a deer. It was late at night; she was driving home from my grandma’s house and we got a call from her. She was on a long bendy road and she came around the corner and a deer ran across the road right into the front of her car. This about totaled her car, if it had hit the side or came through the window it could have killed her.

Eventually his family showed up, and lucky for me, they were all very understanding of me being a new driver. His mom gave me a hug; she told me they were planning on getting him a new car anyway, which made me feel a little better. My dad and them talked for a little while, and I just walked in circles and kicked at the ground. My dad decided to get a picture of me and my wreaked “prize” so he could post it on Facebook.

After our encounter with another car, a firefighter, and some friendly people we decided to finally make the rest of our journey to the camp. This time I decided that maybe my dad should drive. We had just another twenty minutes or so until we would reach camp, but after five minutes we knew something was wrong. Smoke started to billow from the hood once more and the “Check Engine” light came on.

“That can’t be good” says my dad, and I jokingly tell him “I wonder what could have happened. You just got this car.”. That did not impress him and did not award me any brownie points, just a gibb slap.

We stopped for a second to let the engine cool down a bit, then put our blinkers on and cautiously drove on some more. We finally arrived at the camp. Luckily for us, they had saved us some dinner.

For days to come this is all I could think about. I could have died that day. My dad every once in a while would just come up to me and hug me and I would feel a little better. Later this all kind of became a family joke once the situation had cooled down. My brother would tell everyone we talked to, as soon as we saw them, that I couldn’t drive; as the people finally left I would kick him hard and precise, right in the butt. Life soon began to move again at normal speed.

Because I didn’t truly understand at the moment what would happen next I was still kind of freaking out; this memory taught me a lot of valuable lessons with driving, especially to watch for other cars and pay attention to signs and how other cars are moving; this lesson was painful but is an important part of my life now and could potentially save someone else's life as well as my own someday.