As many who have ridden with me know, driving is not my thing. In general driving gives me a lot of anxiety so to combat that I usually overcompensate by driving really fast and aggressively, which doesn’t always work out in my favor. However my worst driving moment by far happened in August 2016, about a month and a half after I got my license.
It happened when I was driving home from my volunteer shift at Carle Hospital. Carle’s parking garage is already really cramped and dark so I’m always really nervous when I have to drive there. However because I’d had my license for almost 2 months with no accidents I was starting to get really confident, blowing off the incredible danger and immense responsibility that driving a car entails. Anyway after I left Carle I was super jittery, but as I was headed west down University Avenue I whipped into the left turn lane so I could get onto Lincoln. The problem was the car in front of me, an excessively large black SUV, was going straight and I turned too close to it and hit its rear bumper with the corner of my hood. I was a pretty inexperienced driver at the time, so I wasn’t 100% sure I actually had hit it, but also my fight or flight response was to pretend like nothing bad happened at all, so I just kept driving. That obviously wasn’t okay with the car that I hit however, because they turn into the turn lane and start following me. Meanwhile I’m going into super survival mode and just keep driving, but when the SUV starts laying on its horn, I turn onto a side street and park.
The car follows me and I see the driver get out of his car, so I get out too. I know this is what you’re supposed to do when you hit someone, but in retrospect it seems really creepy that 16-year-old me has to get out of my car and talk to some rando dude on a hidden side street as it’s approaching dark. Nevertheless, the guy comes up to me and simply says, “You hit me.” I, 40 levels deep into my own personal hell, could barely manage a “Really?” The guy could probably tell that I was freaking out, which is why he just went over to look at the damage I did to his car. As we looked I start rambling about how I was 16 and had just gotten my license not 2 months before, which I guess is when he decided to tell me that he was the Chief of Police at Parkland (off-duty, of course). At that point I sort of went numb all over, except for my brain which was just doing the mind-scream thing.
Luckily that day God took pity on me, because there wasn’t even a scratch on the officer’s car. Mine had a big scrape on the front, but if you’ve seen my car you already know that I didn’t care. The officer then made his wife get out of the car so she could confirm that theirs had no damage, and when she was satisfied, that’s when I started to get lectured. I don’t really remember most of it, but I think the general gist was “Kids these days are so reckless with driving be more careful or you’re going to get your license taken away before you’re 18.” I was almost crying at that point, but I remember his wife was really nice and told me “Everything’s fine, we’re not mad we just want you to be more careful,” which did absolutely nothing for me but was a kind thought.
After that was pretty much nothing. They got back in their car, I got back in mine and drove away. I knew I was too shaken up to drive all the way home, so I stopped in the McDonald’s parking lot and had a small panic attack. After that I drove home. I told my parents because I was worried the police officer would call them or report it or something, but they just roasted me for not being careful and also didn’t let me drive my brother around for like a year.
This event happened a long time ago and while at the time it was the worst thing I had ever experienced, now it’s just a distant and slightly cringey memory. It was a good wake-up call when I needed it and I’m just lucky nothing and no one was damaged because of my recklessness. I’m a lot better and more careful driver now, at least when I need to be.
