Mocha With Linda hosts a weekly meme called Flashback Friday. She’ll post a question every Thursday, and then Friday we can link our answers up on her site. You can visit her site for more Flashbacks.

The prompt for today is:

Thinking primarily of your growing-up years and your early years of driving, have you ever been in an auto accident? Were you a passenger or the driver? Were you injured? How badly was the car damaged? Whose fault was it? What was the attitude of your parents toward “fender benders” and tickets? Were minor dings and scrapes a big deal? Have you ever received a traffic ticket? If more than one, ‘fess up: how many? Any warnings? Has a family member or close friend been seriously injured or killed in an accident? Have you ever witnessed a bad accident and stopped to render aid or give a statement? What role, if any, did seat belts and car seats have in your early years?

Thankfully there were no car accidents that I remember from childhood. The closest we came was when my brother fell out of the back seat of the car while my mom was making a turn. I can’t remember if most cars didn’t have seat belts then or if we just had an old one without them. Thankfully he was fine — we were going slowly and he didn’t get caught under the car — but we were pretty shaken after that. When I had my own children I remember chafing a bit at all the regulations involved with car seats and such, but I did appreciate the fact that they had to be and could be strapped in. I was the oldest of six kids, the youngest born when I was 17, and there was always a toddler standing just to the right of the driver in the front seat. The potential for disaster makes me cringe to even think about now. Even though my own kids were always in car seats when they were little, it is still instinctive for me even now to fling my right arm out when I stop suddenly.

The very first time I drove as a teen, I backed over the mailbox. 😳 My dad had pulled the car out to wash it and decided to give me an impromptu driving lesson by asking me to pull it back into the driveway. He got in with me and gave me some preliminary instruction. I began to back up, and suddenly he yelled, “Hit the brake! Hit the brake!” I said, “Where’s the brake?!” 🙄 My dad had a pretty quick temper and I was waiting for it, but thankfully this time he laughed. I think he realized he should have given me a little bit more instructional. Or taken me out driving where there were no obstacles.

There were no other problems with my driving until my senior year of college. It was a Sunday night and Jim had let me borrow his car to take a group of girls to church. On the way home, a white car swerved into my lane and hit me and swerved back into his own, never stopping. Thankfully the Lord put it in my head to press neither the break or the gas — I just drifted over to the shoulder. None of us was hurt, but I was pretty shaken. A staff couple from college was right behind us and saw it happen, and it was a huge blessing to have them with us to handle everything with the police and then to take us back to the dorms. Jim was in a different car with a group of guys, and they usually went back to school another way but decided for some reason to come the way we had. They saw an accident had occurred — and then Jim was shocked to see his car had been hit. They stopped and he was able to handle getting the paperwork for the policeman. I didn’t get a ticket since it was a hit-and-run. The car was totaled, so he had to scramble to get another one. But he said at least we got the whole, “Honey, I dented the car” thing out of the way before we married.

In my only other accident, I wasn’t even in the car…..we had borrowed some chairs from a friend when we had some folks over, and I was returning them to her. I had parked the car in her driveway near her door to get the chairs out, and when I came back to the driveway to pull the car around to the back and park it….the car wasn’t there. She lived on a busy street, so I must have wondered at first if the car was stolen — I can’t remember now. The driveway had a pretty steep slope, and the car was at the bottom of the slope crashed into a tree. I don’t know if I left it in drive instead of park, which was likely (I don’t remember looking to see — I think I just jumped in and moved it) or if someone did something with it. I had to call Jim, and thankfully he took it very patiently. I can’t remember for sure what shape the car ended up in — I don’t think it was totaled. I do remember we had our insurance take care of payng someone to come and attend to our friend’s tree. Though she protested it wasn’t necessary, we wanted to make sure there was no long term damage — we didn’t want it to die and fall on her house or have her have to have it taken out.

The only ticket I’ve ever received in my 36 years of driving was a few years ago. One of the roads beside our subdivision connected two more major roads. The speed limit on it was 35, but it easily could have been 10 more as it was a straight, wide road with few houses on it. There was a fire station down the road where a little police car sometimes parked, and one day as I passed the station and stopped in the turn lane at the red light, I saw flashing blue lights behind me. “Oh no,” I thought, “I need to figure out how to get out of his way.” It didn’t register that he was after me. When the light changed all I knew to do was go ahead and turn and then pull over to let him pass, but he pulled over behind me. Still not getting it, I thought, “Well, okay then, he’s stopping here so I guess I’ll go on.” I started to pull away, and then he flashed on his siren. Then I realized — he was stopping me! I was pretty upset but managed to hold it together. I think I was doing around 50 in a 35 mph zone. I don’t remember what the fine was or how many points I got, but he did cut them in half since it was my first. I went home and told my two older sons: one laughed and one put his arm around me and said, “Awww.” My husband asked if I was driving that fast because I was angry; I said no, I just coasting along not thinking. Thankfully, patient man that he is, he again didn’t get angry (at least not visibly…) And the rest of the time we lived there it was instinctive me for to slow down at that section of the road!

So we’ve been pretty fortunate not to have any serious major accidents. My husband has had one accident that I can remember since we were married when a lady backed out in front of him. When he was in college, there were two carloads of college students who rotated driving from Idaho to college in SC and back, about 2,000 miles, to and from school and home a few times a year Christmas and summer breaks. I can’t imagine how nervous that would make me as a mother if it were my child! Once after we were married and living in SC and no longer making those drives, we had just been commenting that out of all those trips there hadn’t been a major accident, when the very next time there was a serious one involving the whole front of the car being torn off. I can’t remember the details and I don’t think anyone was seriously hurt, but it was sobering for all. None of my kids has had an accident except for one time when another teen-ager ran through a stop sign and hit Jason, flipping his car around. Thankfully, again, no one was hurt and there was no major damage. Mittu had an accident before she and Jason were married: they were on the phone (though she wasn’t holding it; it was on speaker-phone) when Jason heard the crash and then the phone went dead. We didn’t hear anything else til the next morning: that was a very long night. At that time he didn’t have her mother’s number or anyone else’s where she was. She had hit her head but I think otherwise was okay from what I remember.

We’ve known various people involved in major accidents. Both the ones that come to mind involve teens. When we lived in GA, friends of friends whom we’d met once or twice had three sons. The two older ones were on some outing and racing home so they wouldn’t be late: they had an old car with no seat belts in it, but they were on order. I don’t remember what caused the accident, but they were both killed. Our mutual friends had our church pray much for them: it was devastating to have 2/3 of their children wiped out in a flash. That has really given me pause when all of my kids have been in a car together. When the older two were commuting 30 miles to college and rushing out the door early in the mornings, I’d often tell them it was better to be late and safe than race to get there and have an accident. The other accident that comes to mind was several years earlier when two young people from church, a brother and sister, were driving in the rain and hydroplaned and had an accident. The brother was killed. We prayed that family through for a long time as well.

There have been so many times God has protected me from my own foolishness. There have been other times when I have passed one way, such as to get the kids from school, and in just a few minutes coming back the same way there has been an accident. So many times I have thanked the Lord for not letting us be in that spot at the wrong time. Sometimes I wonder if we’ll find out when we get to heaven just how much He did protect us from that we never knew about.