Alright, so here’s what happened with my car! (I wanted to share it with a few people first, before I posted about it here.)
On Wednesday April 18th, I went to Iowa to visit family. I knew it was supposed to snow, and had stuff with me to spend the night, if the weather looked too bad to travel.
But, I decided to go home that night. I wanted to spend time with Steven and the kitties before I left early Friday for my trip to Dallas. So I left Iowa just before 8:45 pm to make the four hour trip home.
I felt alert and awake. The drive through Iowa was rainy, but easy, and I was glad there weren’t many people on the road.
A bit after I got in to Illinois, the rain turned to slush. I was actually grateful to be driving through lots of construction on the highway – we all had to slow down anyway, might as well slow down to drive in that crap.
But I was relieved when I got to the edge of the Chicago suburbs and the roads were obviously treated differently and felt less slick. The previous part of the drive had been draining. Just an hour left to home!
Yeah, you know where this is headed.
I was a half hour from home, on our eight lane highway (four lanes each side) when I went in to the left lane to pass someone. Note: I was NOT driving like an ass (ha, I feel like I need to say that – I drive aggressively out here, like everyone else, but I am not an idiot in bad weather).
And my car started swerving. To the right, to the left, then all the way in a right circle, having me face traffic.
YAY!
I was surprisingly HELLA calm during all this. Saying things to myself like “don’t overcorrect the steering,” “don’t slam on the brakes,” and also, “Oh! There goes a semi. Phew, he didn’t hit me. Oh good, that car didn’t hit me either.”
I could tell my back right corner was going to slam in to the median. “Okay Kim, maybe try the brakes now, to minimize the impact.”
CRUNCH.
Ugh.
I ended up facing traffic in the left shoulder. Hey, good thing that all happened near the shoulder, because my car wouldn’t move. The engine would turn over, but I’d press the gas pedal, and nothing. While I couldn’t tell how bad the damage was, I thought for sure I should at least be able to drive it a bit or get more in to the shoulder.
But I couldn’t.
So the actual scariest part of all this was sitting on the highway, facing traffic, hoping someone didn’t hit the same slush/ice as me, and run in to me.
I called Steven right away (he had left his phone on since I was driving so late, thankfully!) then 911. Then I realized I told 911 the wrong highway (94 instead of 294 DUH KIM) so I called them back.
And waited for the police to show up. Hoping no one would hit me, as my windows started to fog over and I couldn’t see out of them because the electronics were failing in my car.
THANKFULLY, a plow came by, stopped on the other shoulder, then drove over and blocked me. THANK HEAVENS FOR HIM.
Then the cop showed up. And we were all confused as to why my car wouldn’t do anything when I pressed the gas pedal. Ugh. So I continued to sit in my car, waiting for the tow. The plow left, but the cop stayed there, and I hoped with his lights on, people would give him space, and not hit either of us!
After what felt like an eternity (maybe forty minutes?) the tow arrived. He took my car, and the cop took me to an oasis, where Steven met me.
Funny thing: I had a zillion bags in my car, because I thought I might spend the night. So I asked the cop if I could bring all that stuff with me, and he said yes, but he didn’t have much room, so I was sitting in the back of his car, cramped in with all my crap, ha! Note: use a suitcase next time, Kim, geesh.
The cop was great. The plow guy was a LIFESAVER (maybe literally?). I was so glad Steven had his phone on, and could come get me.
Steven and I got home after 2:00 am and fell asleep around 3:00. Then were up in a few hours. Yay! I called Geico immediately and they’ve been AWESOME! While I was on the phone reporting the incident, the rental car and inspector people were already calling me. Top notch service from them. [not sponsored]
We were shocked when Geico told us they were gonna try to fix the car. We knew, as a 2005, it wasn’t worth much anymore. But hey, yeah, please fix it.
Oh! I almost forgot to mention – the day before this trip to Iowa? We had just put $1000 in the car for maintenance stuff. Ha!
I went on my trip to Dallas, and came back, and got a call from the body shop that they found a lot more damage. We were not surprised. Then we got a call last Tuesday that yes, they were declaring it a total loss.
Ugh.
Geico made everything super easy for us. We picked up the check for our car on Thursday, then visited it to get stuff out of it.
My poor baby. We weren’t supposed to part this way.
This was my first “new” car after college. We treated her well and she took care of us (obviously). She had just hit 200,000 miles and I knew she had a lot more in her. Since my new car is basically a replacement of what I had, I expect the same.
So yeah, long arse story about an accident! Oh, and I was fine! My neck was sore for four to five days, but it feels better now!
Emotionally though, the effect was a longer. It was a roller coaster ride, not thinking they would fix it, then them saying they would, then them saying they wouldn’t, then the rush to get a new car, when we weren’t in a position to. And there was some guilt for not telling some people until things were all worked out.
But yeah. All better now!
And I was extremely lucky I walked out of this fine and no one else hit me. It’s a good thing it was late at night and there weren’t that many vehicles on the highway.
F*cking April snowstorms.
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