Driving Me Crazy

I've never thought of myself as a "bad" driver. I've never been pulled over for speeding nor have I ever been in an accident with another driver. However, I can't say that my driving record is perfect either.

For example, last night I hit my husband's (company owned) truck. Yep. I was pulling into our driveway and didn't gage my turn correctly and all of a sudden.... "What in the world was that crazy noise?! No! Did I really just...? How could I have...? Oh crap. I did." I snagged the back left corner of his truck and pretty much scraped up the entire right side of my *new* van. And that folks is what you call an "Epic Fail".

After mourning the injury inflicted on my beautiful van and a fatherly lecture from my husband about "driving being such a huge responsibility" and how "I shouldn't take it for granted", I began to reflect on my driving history. And thats when it occurred to me that with the exception of one major run in with a curb in a strip mall, all my accidents have been in my own driveway.

Accident numero uno was when I was still learning how to drive. I was 15 or 16 and driving a bunch of my sister's friends to our house from school with my mom in the front passenger seat. I eased our minivan into the driveway and to a stop behind my dad's work van at which point I should've put it in park. Instead, I took my foot off the brake BEFORE putting the van in P and we rammed the back of my dad's van nice and hard. (But hey, I was still a rookie driver, so its excusable, right?)

Accident number two was also with my dad's work vehicle (though not the same one as before). This time I was 21ish and living with my parents to save money for my wedding. It was around dinner time and I was in a hurry to meet some friends. I jumped in the car, threw it into reverse and floored it backwards, right into the side of my dad's van. I didn't even stop. I was too embarrassed because I knew my entire family had witnessed what had happened from their seats around the dining room table. Instead I called them on the phone and asked about the damage to dad's van. His van was basically fine. My little Toyota Tercel however, wore a dent on the right of it's trunk until the day I sold it.

And I already told you about accident number three from last night. Hopefully that will be my LAST accident now that my driveway accident trifecta is complete.

People joke about watching out for crazy female drivers on the road, but in my case the roads are perfectly safe. Just don't park in my driveway.