Michel's point of view on the accident (inverted, naturally)
Ah, my hubby. Already excited about getting something new, so glosses over the fun details of my little adventure. It was a fun ride, though I don't recommend trying this - it's a rather expensive ride!
It was dark outside when it happened, about ten till 6, on my way to a yoga class before work. I was in the middle lane. I was behind someone going about 45-50, who was behind a big truck, and I'd been there for a while. I wanted to go a little faster, about 50-55. I thought about going around to the left, but the left lane didn't have the tire tracks that the two right lanes did. There weren't any cars to the right, so that seemed a MUCH safer move.
I put on my blinker, looked over my shoulder, started drifting towards the right. The unfortunate thing was, I was starting to cross over a bridge. The bridge was entirely ice (no tire tracks). So, in about half a second my back wheels slipped to the left and I was sliding over the bridge, heading towards the median. ("Oh, right. That makes perfect sense. Turn right to go left. Yes, thank you! Or should I say No, thank you, because in Opposite World, maybe that really means thank you." Lightning McQueen)
I mainly focused on staying relaxed, knowing that drunk drivers walk away from all kinds of bad wrecks because they don't react to them. I left off the accelerator, kept my hands on the wheel, didn't brake - wouldn't do any good and might make things worse - and actually sort of enjoyed the ride. I figured I'd end up in the grass of the median, maybe need to turn around, and I could be on my way again. Then I saw I was going to hit the guard rail...bummer, there would be some damage to the vehicle. Then the hit. Not a big hit, really, kinda like bumper cars. But it was enough to get the vehicle tipping, driver's side. It was enough to tip it over, driver's side, and one more tip, to the roof. It was like "tip...tip" with a second or so in between. Suck.
Can't really drive away when the vehicle is upside down. The engine was still running, and no windows were broken. I didn't think hanging out upside down was a good idea, so I unbuckled and fell to the roof of my X. Absolutely no injury. I had a teensy bit of soreness in the shoulder - to be expected - but because #1 - God took care of me and #2 - God made me the type that doesn't freak out and tense up when something crazy happens (I get more upset about sleeping in late than about flipping my Xterra over - ask Jonathan if you don't believe that)- I can honestly say that I've had worse injury from sleeping on my pillow funny. I was able to open the door - no squished metal making it hard to open. Before I crawled out, I set about searching for my cell phone. Another motorist saw it happen and stopped to see if I was ok. His name was Ralph. He ended up giving me a ride home. While he was standing there and I was getting my things, another vehicle spun out and hit the guard rail on the right side of the road. Ralph said "this probably isn't a safe place to stand."
Anyways, curious about the first thing I said? While searching the phone, I saw my coffee cup on its side. I could use a sip of my coffee. I picked it up, tipped to my mouth, and got nothing. "Aw...I spilled my coffee!" Another bummer.
A positive: the police officer said no citation. It was the conditions. Cool beans. That should help insurance rates NOT go up!
Oh well. I said I'd keep my X until it died. The towing did it in. The engine was still running (I turned it off), there was no broken glass...the pics from after towing paint a different picture. They mangled the hell out of it righting it and getting it on the tow truck. My poor X. Now, whenever I see a like Xterra, I will probably utter a little whimper. I loved my Xterra.
But now, since we have the Armada (aka "The Beast") for all our muscles and roomy capacity needs, I'm looking for something with better gas mileage for my commuter/grocery getter/take the family & dogs to the park ride. And it has to be AWD/4WD - there were many mornings this winter when I wouldn't have made it to work if I didn't have the 4x4 capability. So that capability is a must for anywhere there's a real winter - which has included our last three assignments.
So what am I going to get? Don't know, yet. I'm trying to keep an open mind, I'm not stuck on SUV - but I want a hatchback-type vehicle so that if we want to take the dogs somewhere, we aren't limited to the Armada. I want to be comfortable in my ride - I drive 17 miles to work everyday, then back again. We will buy this vehicle to keep until it dies, like all of our vehicles (some just die in more dramatic fashion than others). I like to get used, 2-4 years old, because you can save a lot of money, but a lot of the vehicles we like are redesigns for 2010, which means new. Maybe if we wait until Sept or so they will be looking to offload them, or even have some used ones. We're not in a hurry. We aren't the type to make decisions such as these based on emotion. In true nerd (me) and geek (him) fashion, we have jointly developed a spreadsheet to enter all of the things that are important to us, developed a rating system with equations and formulas for analyzing our inputs, and we're going to dealerships looking at vehicles then coming home to enter the data into the spreadsheet. We have looked at lots of vehicles so far: Nissan Rogue & Murano, Kia Sportage, Toyota RAV-4, Venza, and Matrix, Subaru Impreza, Forester, and Outback, Audi A3, Volkswagen Tiguan, Honda CR-V, Acura RDX, Jeep Patriot, Mazda CX7, Mitsubishi Lancer Sportback, Hyundai Tucson...we've looked at even more online, including minivans, for about 10 seconds (hey - we can say that we looked). Many vehicles are ruled out because of gas mileage (most of the American vehicles we were initially considering fall into this category, by the time you include AWD/4WD). I want to get better mileage than the Xterra (otherwise, I'd just get another one!) which got a bit better gas mileage than The Beast. We haven't test-driven anything yet. That'll come in the near future. For now, we're seeing what's out there, and physically taking a look to see if we can eliminate anything. Quite a few have fallen off the list for a variety of reasons. If you have any suggestions, feel free to bombard Jonathan with emails! ;o) And what a great hubby I have. He didn't get mad at me that I killed a vehicle. I suppose if this was a habit of mine, it might be different. Instead, he mainly got excited that I'm considering an Audi. I think that's his top choice. But knowing that I'm going to be driving this 90% of time, it's mostly my choice. Great hubby!
posted by Jonathan @ 10:12 AM
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