Monday, November 14, 2011

Bad luck with Cars

Sometimes I am convinced that we are cursed or have the worst luck in the world. My husband helps me to take a step back and realize things aren't that bad, and they could be worse. He is right. But when a lot of bad things happen at once, I can't help but feel overwhelmed and stressed. Thankfully I have an amazing husband who does not feel the same way.
We have terrible luck when it comes to cars. We have lived in our house for almost 5 1/2 years. In that time, we have gone through 6 vehicles. Or I guess more accurately we are on cars # 5 & 6. When I was pregnant with Trouble (number 3), we traded in our SUV for a minivan. This was March of 2009. My husband still drove our Jetta. We bought the Jetta right after we got married, our first couple's purchase. We loved the Jetta. He had two freak accidents in the Jetta. In the first one, my husband was driving down the road, and all of a sudden there was a big log in the middle of the road, that he didn't see until the last second, and he hit it. It did a lot of damage to the underside of the Jetta. The log had fallen off a truck further up the road, who obviously didn't have the lumber secured correctly. A few months later, another freak accident occured. My husband was on the same road, driving to work. He had Pirate, who was almost 2 at the time, in the backseat. He was going to drop him off at my grandmother's before work. He drove over a manhole where the cover came up off the ground and hit his car. The manhole cover totalled our little Jetta. The best part of the luck there is that the State of MD claimed it was not their fault, nor the fault of the State Highway Administration, and the insurance claim was up to us. In retrospect, we should have fought harder or gotten a lawyer or something, but we didn't want to put money into a fight on top of finding a new car. But for the record, how can a loose manhole cover coming up off the ground be the fault of the driver? So, we bought a new car. This was in April of 2009. In November of 2009, the day before Thanksgiving, coincidentally the day before my 30th birthday, I had my first car accident. I took the three kids in their cute matching Christmas outfits to get Christmas pictures taken. We were driving back from the photo session, and I ran a red light and hit another car. The other car was turning left, and I hit them head on. It was the scariest thing I ever experienced. I wasn't speeding. I saw the green turn arrow, and mistook it for a green light, and continued through the light. I was convinced the other person ran their red light until I realized what had actually happened. The van was totalled. Thank God no one was hurt. Trouble was only 5 months old at the time. We ended up buying a new van that December. We purchased 3 vehicles in one year. Not the type of statistics you really want. So, since then, we have been lucky and careful drivers, and haven't had any major problems. We sold my husband's car and he bought a cheap used car with cash because his car is only used to take him to and from work. We were looking to save the money of a car payment. Two weeks ago, he was driving to work, on the same road as the other two freak accidents, when another freak accident occurred. The rear driver side tire of the car in front of him flew off of that car and smashed into the front of my husband's Jeep. He said if he had been in his old car, it would have gone through the windshield. After 5 days, the insurance company of the other driver finally accepted liability, and the jeep is currently at a shop to be fixed. However, the damage isn't too far from totalling it, so it could still go that way. We could potentially be on our 7th car. Fun stuff. In the meantime, my husband had to drive the van to and from work while the insurance stuff was being negotiated. I used the van to take my daughter to Girl Scouts one night, and as we were driving home, the tire light came on. I told my husband and he came outside to meet us when we got home to check out the tire. I had a flat tire on the front passenger side, and a nail in the front driver side tire. Apparently I ran over a bed of nails that evening. At one point we were down to zero cars and two sick kids. It was a lovely time. I couldn't do anything but cry and ask why so much bad stuff happens to us. In the end the tires were fixed the next day and didn't cost us an arm and a leg, which was good news, or good luck. Most importantly out of everything I just wrote about, no one was ever hurt in any of these accidents. For that, we are truly lucky.

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