It was 1988 or '89, and I was driving my first car, a white boxy Talbot Horizon that had been originally acquired on 23F, the day a civil guard broke into the Spanish Congress and popped a few bullets into the ceiling. I was going to my favorite comic book store, and was about to get my monthly fix; I was in an T-intersection, where I had to yield. Peeked left, peeked right, nobody's coming, and went right ahead, since I couldn't see a thing. But that was enough to crash into the midsection of a car that was coming from my left.
The thing could have stopped right there. We descend, produce insurance papers, maybe yield at each other "Where are your eyes?" "Why are you driving so damn fast in an intersection?", and we part in different directions, never to see each other.
Maybe that's what the other driver wanted to do, but he got his pedals mixed up, and instead of braking, he sped up. Which was not the right thing to do, since he wasn't facing ahead, but a little bit to the right. He crashed into the back of a car that was parked at the other side of the intersection. That car was jerked from his position, and lurched forward towards a person that was starting his motorbike in the space between it and another car. That person had just enough time to jump and avoid being crushed between the suddenly animated car and the other, stopped car.
All in all, 5 vehicles involved. Nobody was hurt, and we signed what we had to sign. The problem was that, since I had just bought the car, I hadn't transferred insurance from the old owner to me, so it was not clear at all if I would be covered or not. Eventually I was, but for a couple of months I was mentally adding up the tab. Instead of sleeping.
Since then, I haven't been involved in anything so bad. And I've made sure I was insured.
Tags: A novel in a year
