My Honda Civic's minor collision

It's a bright sunny morning. You get into your car and drive off to work as usual. At the first T-junction, you patiently wait for two oncoming cars to pass from the right before you're can proceed to turn left. Just as you are about to take your foot off the brake pedal, the sound of grinding metal instinctively brings you to a halt once again. Your eyes train in the direction of the sickening sound, to find the front right hand side of your car in contact with the side of a white Perodua Kancil....

Unfortunately, a couple of weeks ago, "you" above was none other than me - barely 30 seconds out from my front gate!

Sigh. And I just got my new tires. Looks like my car too is affected by my recent "series of unfortunate events" aura....

Though I was well behind the intersecting road, and clearly on the correct side of the road, the driver of the other car did not keep to his side of the road when turning off the main road, thus resulting in the accident. The other car was definitely well into my side of the road, since there was room on the left for the van behind it to pass. It was a two lane road, one lane per direction! As I was stationary at that time, there was nothing really that I could have done in terms of taking evasive action....

I drove off to the side of the road, where it was safe, and alighted from my car to assess the situation, I noted the other driver was an elderly gentleman (in my opinion, he looked no younger than 70). My front bumper was knocked out and protruded slightly from the usual position. Fortunately (for the other guy), the main body of the car, tire / rim, headlight and fog light were all undamaged. Saved by the bumper indeed!

As I turned to the other driver, he was very apologetic and start giving lots of excuses (not working anymore, cannot afford to pay for my damages, etc.). It is entertaining to note that a majority of people seem to care about money first, and forget about other things that matter.

Trying not to establish a co-relation between the age of the driver and his competency, I gave him a short lecture about the correct way of turning off the main road (without "eating" into the other lane), and reminded him that he was "fortunate" to have knocked a civilized driver like myself. There would be dire consequences had he knocked a road bully or a lorry / trailer, or what if he had hit a motorcyclist or a bicycle instead?

As he appeared genuinely apologetic, and seemed to register my message, inline with the upcoming Ramadan month just around the corner, I let him off with a verbal warning and a handshake. I noted that my bumper had grazed the length of his car, and damaged the door AND the body, so I reckon that it would require more extensive repairs than mine.

A slight push of the hand and my bumper was back in position, just slightly out of place as the screws / clips that held that portion in place were broken. If it weren't for the damaged paintwork, you'd be hard-pressed to realize that there had been an accident in the first place.

The entire episode took less than 5 minute to resolve, which was good, as I had a meeting to attend than morning.

The 2 lessons to be learned here are :

1. You can do everything correctly, but due to the actions of others, accidents can still happen. As you cannot assume every other person on the road is as competent as you are, always be cautious of every other driver by default. Drive defensively!

2. You cannot control the actions of others. You only have control over your own actions and responses. Always be aware of the situation and what you do, otherwise you will be no better than others who act irrationally. And remember, irresponsible actions of others may affect us in an unfortunate way, so again - drive defensively!

My car has since been repaired; tell you more about it in a future post!