How to wreck a courtesy car in the first half hour - it was all my husband's fault
Well it was my husband's fault really, because it was he who broke the light pull cord in the bathroom. Not just that the cord detached, but that the whole thing needed replacing. Things being what they are even in those days, it took a trip in the car to a DIY place - in town on the basis that of all their local branches this was the biggest. So it was his fault I was in town on that day.
But no, they had none in stock, but Allenton did, so back in the car and along London Road to an island approached via two lanes - inside for left or straight on, and outside for straight on or right. But not outside lane to turn left, even if there are two lanes once you have done so, and ESPECIALLY not if it means trying to turn left through my car legitimately pointing straight ahead. And should you have the indecency to so do, you should under no circumstances compound it by failing to notice that your bull-bars have wrought havoc on my offside wing, mitigated only by me braking sharply upon your impact on my car, and least of all should you then fail to stop, except at the traffic lights just around your newly achieved left turn. Which gives the enraged person you just hit time to get out and run after you and demand not only an explanation but your insurance details forthwith. So I didn't get to the other branch for the light switch, and if the town branch had had it in stock, I'd have been turning left too. So that was Wilko's fault. Or my husband's for breaking the light switch.
I went home, phoned the insurance company, and went out again, to a depot in town (again) where they relieved me of my battered Volvo and offered me something small, red (never liked red cars) and with, they stressed, a mere 13 miles on the clock. Well, from that moment on it was doomed, I tell you, DOOOOOOMED. I went in seconds flat from dead impressed at the speed and efficiency in getting my car in for repair and a courtesy car provided , to a nervous wreck totally sure something bad would happen to the little red VERY NEW courtesy car. So what happened next was their fault for giving me this particular car. Or the insurance company for being so prompt. (Or Wilko's for not having the light switch, or my husband's for breaking it. )
The yard was a nightmare of tightly packed cars with a couple of inches either side , and they let me struggle to get it out. I figured this was critical, the ideal time for a scratch or scrape, but no, I left there feeling fully acquitted. I think by now I'd had enough, because I have no recollection of getting the wretched light switch, it was freezing cold and raining and I wanted to get home.
The A52 was not pleasant in heavy rain turning to snow. I shouldn't have overtaken that Sainsbury's lorry however slow it was going because in my distracted state I'd left it a bit late to take my exit leaving me with a fast decision required, take it or carry on to the next. That indecision cost me vital seconds and a last minute veer towards carrying on after all sent the keep left sign bouncing down the road in bits and in slow motion the car turned on its side, like they do in films. This was when it got surreal because time slows down, I had time to think that since I couldn't steer there was nothing I could do and how unreal it all seemed. In fact the first thing I thought was, Donna was right, OH BUGGER!! but after that came the sense of acceptance that there was nothing I could do except wait for it to stop sliding along on its side, and the notion of it being a long way which it wasn't when I saw it later. So when it did slide to a halt, and I was still in one piece, it was with a sudden jolt I realised that the A52 is a very busy road as well as fast and the next thing to happen might well be mincemeat if another vehicle was to run into me hard (or at all for that matter). How to get out? Undo seat belt. It is very strange to sit strapped in a car at 90% to the road. It is equally hard to figure out how to do the simplest things the wrong way up, like undo a seat belt. Then the problem of getting out before I got mangled. I am considering this, also in slow motion when a man's face appears above me, in the opposite window. I'd landed with me on the down side I should add. In more ways than one. He turned out to be the Sainsbury's lorry drive who I'd overtaken and had seen my car turn on its side and had, bless him, halted his lorry to block the traffic and then run to help me get out. Up til now I was concerned not to be flattened by another vehicle but when he mentioned the possibility of leaking fuel, my legs turned completely to jelly as he urged me to get out FAST. Trying to stand up inside a car on its side is not easy, and the implacable logic of it all allowed me to think "now I've really done it" when doing so broke the side window. The logic thus far was that the car had been in one piece up til then. So long as you ignored the bits which broke off hitting the keep left sign, and the entire side of it scraping along the road for a distance, but largely in one piece until I broke the window standing on it.
The the matter of how to open a door upwards - and then how to climb out through it. Not recommended at all. None of it. After that it all became a blur, cold, shaking, shock, the time to piece it together coherently taking time (and maybe this version is just what I put together afterwards), the gratitude to the lorry driver, the awareness that one mistake can have such consequences in a vehicle, how close I had come to total disaster. Joking apart, until you have an accident you don't realise how sobering it is, and from then on I would NEVER EVER overtake unless I was sure I didn't need to take the next exit and became extremely cautious about where exits were. I knew I had been very lucky not to be hurt and that other people who made just one error of judgment were not always so fortunate. That's the nature of an accident, though, something you didn't intend, which only hindsight reveals could have been prevented. It's about being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and - back to the anecdote - it was my fault I crashed the car, it was the garage's fault for giving me a brand new car which meant I was just waiting for something to happen (little did I realise what!), if the insurance company had been less efficient I wouldn't had had a courtesy car too soon, if the idiot driver who tried to drive through me hadn't done so there would have been no accident and no courtesy car, if Wilko's had had the light switch in stock I wouldn't have been going where I was, and if my husband hadn't broken the light switch I wouldn't have even been in town in the first place.
So it was all his fault anyway.