The Costly Little Mistake

I was still looking for a car to buy. Keeping the rented Pontiac till I buy a car, will be a costly affair. That's when my colleagues suggested this guy named Nazar who rents ‘not so good’ old cars for $250 a month. He gave me a very old Volvo car and I managed it for few days to commute to office. Then it started misbehaving... Sometimes not even moving! So got it replaced with another old Nissan car. Things went fine until this Monday morning. I was pretty comfortable in driving; no matter it is service road or free ways. My boss (one who gave me initial lessons on driving here) was back in town and he was too surprised to see that I was confident to pick him from his hotel for a ride to office.

On Monday, it was a long day at work. I was coming back to room through the usual roads. Instead of keeping on the usual left lane, this time I was on the right lane. Somehow I got lost in thoughts for few seconds and when I realized that, I was on a signal controlled junction. The lights have just turned to Orange. Not wanting to wait there for some more time, I rushed across the junction bit fast to beat the Red lights. Not knowing that by the time the right lane had divided into two lanes, one that goes straight and the other (which I was on) that turns to right. The road was ending there and it was a long curb after the junction. My car went over that long curb all way long, making such scary bumping sound. I didn't know what was going wrong, till the curb ended and the car landed back on the road. I stopped the car and got out to see what had happened. All the four wheels were completely damaged, thanks to the rough curb with some metal debris on it.

I really don’t want to write a big story out of this small incident, but wanted to tell you one thing. I will never be saying again that I am confident and comfortable, when it comes to driving.

I had to wait two hours on the road, in that chilly weather, with a mobile whose battery lasted just to make a call to the rental guy and my friend here. The towing guys came and returned saying that they cannot tow a car with all four wheels damaged. My friend finally got the voice message I left in his battery drained mobile, and picked me up.

Since there was no insurance, I had to pay 375$ from my pocket, for the damages. The next three days, I was without a car but my colleague helped me to commute to work.

Now I am back with this old car, driving to office through the usual roads again. And my driving is now... (no no....) just ok...!

Later on I realized that, I was not the only one who made the same stupid mistake at the same place. Even more, I was happy to realize that I lost only 375 dollars and nothing else.