Cause Essay
Some days are better than others, but some days just really suck. I just bought a brand new car. A shiny red car that would vibrantly stick out from the rest. Well, so I thought. One of the worse days that I had encountered was on September 7th, 2011. My husband and I were already running late for work. On this morning, we never would have realized how much a few minutes running late would impact our day. Coming up on a corner, we realized that the school buses red lights were flashing. As we slowed down and came to a stop, my husband saw that the tractor trailer behind us was not going to stop. before he could say anything, we were flying across the road in into an embankment. What happened? It was all I could wonder and why I didn’t hear his brakes? Was he sleeping or maybe texting? Maybe we shouldn’t have tried to avoid him and he could have gone around us? Or maybe I should have not slept in that extra ten minutes that day? Any of these could have been the culprit of our disaster.
I understand why the State had enforced a much stricter law on texting and cell phone use. It’s been amazing that our accident rates have dropped from drunk driving, yet increased on texting and driving. With the same outcomes, accidents and deaths. And I understand why truck drivers lack sleep. It’s a money driven business with time based appointments and deliveries. So, there would be lack of sleep, normal sleep anyways. this young driver could have been guilty of either or both. It was early in the morning, so he could have either been up all night or had just woken up from a nap. Drifting back to sleep would be possible. Or maybe he was texting his girlfriend to say ‘Good morning’. Both would had kept his eyes off the road.
I often wondered if we had made the right decision of trying to ‘get out of the way’, when in fact, I felt that we made it easier for him to smash into us. I have asked my husband over and over, but I didn’t want him to feel guilty. I understood his point. Okay, so to be sandwiched between a log truck and another pickup, didn’t sound so pleasant either. And there was no time to really think, it all happened in seconds. We couldn’t have gone the opposite way, as there were children waiting in a van. It was a chance. But I still often think of what we could have done different.
The biggest issue that I had with the whole thing was I had believed it was all my fault. I am not the greatest morning person and that morning I gave myself an extra ten minutes to sleep in. Doesn’t sound like much, but I believed that if I was on schedule that morning, we would not have had to stop for that bus. Therefore, we wouldn’t have been creamed by that log truck. My husband told me that if it was meant to happen, then it still would have happened, somehow or another. I kind of believe that, but I still feel that running the ten minutes later than normal, changed everything that day.
I understand that bad days happen and I have to say that I have had a difficult time trying to make sense of it all. In my mind’s eye, these are what I have come to conclusions on. We never did find out the whole investigation. All that we were told was that the truck had some faulty brakes and they received a summons. I like to call it ‘no brakes’, as there were no tire marks at all. I remembered the huge crashing sound of the truck’s grill and the car. That sound will forever stay with me. And even though it was a horrendous day, we were still able to walk away alive and well.
No comments:
Post a Comment