What's new with Janey
14 February 2006

Car Crash

We just left Manchester hotel, I decided that being so shattered I would lie down in the back and sleep all the way home. So I propped a pillow in the back seat, made a wee cosy bed, strapped on my seat belt and snuggled down. I was tense, yet tired; I hate trying to sleep in the car and made an effort to relax. I was listening to radio 4, there was a guy on saying the worse stress he ever suffered was when his car crashed and he looked at the shock on his wife’s face and I wondered how my husband would react in that situation. I could feel the engine purr along, the car stop and start through city traffic and then…BANG, I was thrown forward, my head hit the driver’s seat and then I slumped back, glass shattered all over me and I sat straight up to see a bus behind us all mangled at the front….a fucking big bus!

Husband had stopped at the entrance to a roundabout to check for on coming traffic (as you do, ramming onto a roundabout without checking is known as suicide) there were traffic lights in the approach to the roundabout, maybe three bus lengths behind the entrance onto the actual roundabout. The bus saw them as green…looked right to check for traffic as he came up to the roundabout…strangely enough he never looked in front of himself and crashed straight into our stationery vehicle!

The bus was busy with passengers, I jumped out of the car and my head was numb with the bang it got, I checked myself for any cuts and watched husband walk over to the bus man who shouted “You were stopped there on the line and those lights back there were green, so this is your fault”
Husband looked at him and walked away and came over to check if I was ok, as he came near, bus driver came with him “You must be in shock mister bus driver, to assume that you can crash into stationery vehicles and be annoyed that they were in your way is just nuts” I spoke quietly.

Our insurance people quickly assured us that we are in the right, the roundabout was indeed not governed by any lights and in any case if it were and we had stopped at a green light and were stationery as the bus approached (as we were) then it’s the bus drivers fault for not looking in front of himself. That did not stop the panic and shock settling in.
I had a 5am rise tomorrow, a BBC drama audition, a party to attend and a flight to make…WHY ME?

We drove home in a back windowless car, it rained inside the car, which was an experience…we were shocked and shattered but above all safe. I will post a pic or a link to it here soon as possible._
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