I'm going to KILL him.

My husband nonchalantly mentioned in our phone conversation this morning that he was in a car accident.

Before I commence frothing at the mouth, let me say that I am happy and relieved that neither her nor the person in the other car were hurt. The reason I get so worked up about his driving is that I worry that someday his carelessness will get him into an accident that will get him killed. His carelessness is unfair.

Now for the rant.

I'm a "retired" professional driver. I drove 18 wheelers OTR (cross country) for almost 8 years. By myself. I averaged 4-5000 miles a week, and never so much as scraped a bumper. I'm constantly on the lookout for what other drivers are doing and I leave myself an out. I don't participate in dangerous behavior like tailgating, speeding, or not using indicators. Like in the trucking world, to me there is almost no such thing as an accident that wasn't entirely the driver's fault. I have seen so many accidents over those hundreds of thousands of miles that resulted in people being hurt or killed, when just a little caution would have prevented the accident to begin with. It's such a waste.

I bought my car new in 2002. Nothing fancy, a nice silver little Ford ZX2. I haven't exactly babied it, but I have tried to take decent care of it. It just rolled over 30k miles last week. I've never put a scratch on it. Shawn took it to work one day a few months ago, and wrecked it. As he was coming up a hill with 4 lanes, he knew he had to be one more lane over to his right. There had been a cargo van there, and he claims that since he saw one that looked exactly like it go by in the far right lane he thought the guy had moved over for him. So of course when he moved right, BOOM. A second-long glance over his right shoulder to check the blind spot, or hell - even a look in the mirror would have prevented this. 2 months and $2500 worth of repairs later I get my car back. Thank goodness we kept full coverage on both our cars after they were paid off.

Today, he's sitting in a turn lane wanting to turn left. He swears he had a green arrow and that the lady coming from the opposite direction didn't stop for her red light. My question, and what gets my blood boiling, is why the hell didn't he think to himself, "wow, that lady's moving awfully fast, perhaps I should postpone my turn until I see whether or not she's going to stop". Nope, just pulled on out there and tore up the front of the Honda pretty good. Again, thank goodness for full coverage. But at what point will his carelessness cost us our insurance policy? We're already paying $200 a month on cars that have been paid off for a couple years. His nickname back home is Crash Lorrain for a reason, and I've worked hard to get his safety record up and our insurance rates down. Mostly by me driving everywhere we go together.

I need to take some deep breaths before I pop his head off when he gets home. I love him, but sometimes I wanna hurt him.

Just have one set of keys, and keep them in YOUR pocket. Tell him to get his own car as well as his own insurance policy for it.

Fortunately my wife is a very good driver, if on the aggressive side at it. You DON'T want to try to infringe on her right of way!

I've only been in two car accidents, and both, in my opinion, were unavoidable. First one was when I was driving down a road and someone pulled out of a parallel parking space alongside the thoroughfare right into me. He must have started his move when it was right alongside of him because he caught my passenger side quarter panel with his front bumper. My suspicion is that he didn't even look before pulling out.

In the second accident, we were sitting at a stop light and some airhead didn't notice the red light, nor the traffic stopped at it, and plowed into the back of us.

I wonder what the statistics say about the frequency of fender benders since cell phones became popular? Seriously, most people don't have enough of a broadband attention span to be dividing it among talking on the phone and driving. Used to be you could tell drunk drivers easily, because they would be weaving all over the road. Nowadays, it could be a drunk OR someone talking on their cell phone.

So many states have laws (which are regularly ignored) about talking on cell phones without a hands off device. "Texting" is worse, IMO, as it requires much more attention to type the words in...attention that SHOULD be devoted to the roadways.

Originally Posted by hhmoore

So many states have laws (which are regularly ignored) about talking on cell phones without a hands off device. "Texting" is worse, IMO, as it requires much more attention to type the words in...attention that SHOULD be devoted to the roadways.

I agree 110%. I've seen people doing some crazy things in their cars over the years.

Originally Posted by hhmoore

So many states have laws (which are regularly ignored) about talking on cell phones without a hands off device. "Texting" is worse, IMO, as it requires much more attention to type the words in...attention that SHOULD be devoted to the roadways.

I agree--I almost rode right through someone's yard while sending an email at 50mph. Methinks they need to make bigger buttons.

Sounds like someone needs to be grounded! No car for you, mister!

LMAO! You've made me smile, Mark.

His poor Honda is the same year as my Ford, and looks like it's been to hell and back with all the bumps and scrapes and dents on it. He's already been to several driving classes and nothing sticks. Unless I want to drive him to work every night at 11pm and then pick him up at 7am I can't take his keys though I'd like to. I'll just keep henpecking him until he gets the gist I guess.

He's already been forwarned that this means a new snake for me. He owes me for the grey hairs.

Originally Posted by MagickalMorphs

He's already been forwarned that this means a new snake for me. He owes me for the grey hairs.

You're reading my mind!

Wow Shadera...

Being in a car issue myself, I sympathise very much with you.

Pop him one good

Originally Posted by hhmoore

So many states have laws (which are regularly ignored) about talking on cell phones without a hands off device. "Texting" is worse, IMO, as it requires much more attention to type the words in...attention that SHOULD be devoted to the roadways.

I actually saw a guy on a MOTORCYCLE talking on his cell phone once. In town, crawling along, coming up to a 4 way stop, and he dang near lost it because apparently he didn't want to let go of his phone long enough to use the clutch lever...

Morons.

Originally Posted by Cat_72

I actually saw a guy on a MOTORCYCLE talking on his cell phone once. In town, crawling along, coming up to a 4 way stop, and he dang near lost it because apparently he didn't want to let go of his phone long enough to use the clutch lever...

Morons.

He probably would have needed to put down his newspaper and cup of coffee first in order to do that.