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So I drove to the airport with mom to send off some relatives earlier today and we were almost flattened by a trailer due to my incompetency.
Drove up to the junction and stopped to turn into the expressway. Mom was saying how I should look carefully coz the cars waiting to turn the other way is rather tall and we couldn't quite see what is beyond them. Oh like I don't know that... All the cars had cleared and there was a period without any cars coming through so I looked. The cars on the other side are stopping at the light a distance back so I thought I was in the clear and made my turn. And I saw a pair of headlights coming towards me. O_O
I was stopping and mom gripped my arm and told me to quickly go through and I froze. I was a little hesitant coz I'm pretty sure there's enough space for the trailer to maneuver past but she kept telling me to go through so I floored it. Trailer horns blaring and we managed to cross in front of it and avoid a collision by a hair's breath. If I had accelerated a fraction of a second later, I would definitely not be here writing this. O_O
Now, I have to explain. I would usually wait til the green arrow appears coz that particular junction is really horrible but I guess seeing the car beside me go through made me think I was really in the clear so maybe that why I did what I did and went for the turn. In my defense, the trailer was pitch black. All I could see was a pair of headlights. We should lobby for all heavy vehicles to be sprayed with reflective paint on lime green or something. O_O
Mom also was a bit puzzled as to why she told me how dangerous it is and to watch out for oncoming traffic. I've driven through that junction dozens of times and she's never said a word about it before. O_O
So we got up the expressway and still feeling jittery, I almost missed our exit so I quickly looked and decided to cut across 2 lanes of thankfully rather empty traffic. Sliced across the little triangle road markings and ran over some bumpy light reflectors on the ground. Heart was pounding like mad! If the cars behind suddenly decide to speed up, I would be bumped from behind and I might not be here writing this. O_O
Got to the airport on frayed nerves, had some time for my heartbeat to return to normal and parked, chronicled my terrifying drive to buddy from work who had some first-hand experience of my terrifying driving skills (albeit on a smaller, less catastrophic and very much less fatal scale), fatboyho and bro, sent relatives off and all that. Buddy told me to not drive ever again. fatboyho asked for details. And bro didn't even reply.
Got back in the car and set off home. This time I'm taking it real cautiously and on one of the S-bends leading up to the expressway, I'd come to appreciate how well dad's Honda Accord handles. It's a rather wide bend and I was going rather slowly (~60km/h), I admit, but the steering was brilliant. I managed to turn real smoothly through the left and right hand bend at a speed that is "legal" on most road--that means no one will blast their horns at me for going too slowly. But other than that, I think I took the "taking it cautiously" a bit too far. Third outer lane and I'm going 70-75km/h when the speed limit was 90km/h. But I slowly rolled on while they overtook me left and right and finally managed to cut to the inner lanes when I get the chance.
Got home safely. Tried to park the car but almost hit the front of some idiot Nissan driver who parked its nose too outside and there was another car coming up so I had to shift and park at another lot coz I take a long time to park. Phew. I had to burn some joss sticks to thank my gods and ancestors for looking out for me today. This is the worst bit of driving I've ever done since I got my license 3 years ago.
Even worse than that time where I drove to grandma's house without turning on the headlights.
Even worse than the pickup truck I drove around base freewheeling instead of using engine brake (I thought I was quite OK, seeing as how the last time I drove a manual car, it was for my driving test, but buddy from work was real panicky and him being a good driver and all, was able to pick out all my bad driving skills so if I were him, I'd panic too. Lol!).
Even worse than that time where I rear-ended the row of concrete blocks in the company's car thinking that there wasn't anything there (Since it was an automatic car, buddy from work let me drive it but we didn't even get out the gate before we realize there wasn't much fuel left. I turned us around and while I was reversing, buddy went all panicky and asked me what I'm doing and then *bump*. Whoops. Too late. I didn't even realize there was a row of concrete blocks lined up there O_O).
...Now I wonder if that fatal-accident-that-almost-is wouldn't have happened if mom did not mention how I should watch out for oncoming traffic. I might've just continued to wait for the lights to turn red and the green arrow to appear like I always do.
Or not.
O_O
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