I don't really know where to start, or who to blame, but somehow I always blame myself for whatever mistakes or shortcomings which I exert against the surroundings of my endangered world.
One of the painful things which do not happen to me, is a car mishap. Notice that I used the word "mishap" rather than "accident" because an accident would evidently involve casualties or a great physical damage. What actually happened, in fact could have been avoided. And here goes another story of my life.
Just two months in the graduation from driving school, my life couldn't get any better. Accompanied with two years of driving military trucks, I'm sad to report that today I've really met with a situation that really caused me to once again doubt my driving abilities. God damn, I think its really a taboo to laugh at others' poor driving skills.
I mean sometimes, its just really not your day. In fact, I woke up today feeling restless and cumbersome that the world is on my shoulder once again and I'm still resting for my final ordure with my IPPT this coming weak. Let's not go into IPPT, because it will make this entry really really freaking long.
I've gotten an invitation to head out. In fact, it was an invitation which came so sudden and the destination was indeed uncertain and I was very clueless and may be even the possible lack of confidence to drive into uncharted locations of Singapore. The invitation inspired me to take on my driving which I've put on hold for the past 3 weeks. I din't know why I did not really drive for those 3 weeks but strangely, it just did not occur to me that I needed to be on wheels.
As such, after a 3 weeks break from the wheel, I touched it once again and felt a little weird. At first, i thought it needed to get used to again, then i started to realize that I've not done alot of things such as checking before i turn and sort, like as if something had gone wrong!! Nevertheless, i recorrected myself at that point of time when I dashed out of the slip road without checking.
If I've known, I would have picked an easier route to drive to CCK. But instead, I took the worst route ever which was under great renovation and construction. The roads were crazy and filled with sharp bends and unmarked roads. And this car mishap of mine, happened after i cleared all these road obstacles. I guess i was pretty much about to give a happy PHEW, before it really happened. I mean my turn was just on the next traffic light, but things had to happen.
I hate this taboo situation, I seriously do. So this is the part where I go greater into details. So there i was at the traffic light with three lanes in front of me. One was the inner fast overtaking lane, the center lane and the left slow lane. After the traffic light, I was in the queue in the center lane. Upon seeing the left slow lane which was so empty, I was pondering like how interesting it was that no body was in that particular lane. I mean bus lane does not take effect on a public holiday, so yeah, NO BODY?
I decided that queuing for another 5 minutes was a waste of my time. AND YES for your information, I was not even in a hurry to reach my destination, just that this inner emotion surfaced in front of me, telling me.. "Like hey? Left lane is empty yo?". So yeah, i changed lane for the left outer slow lane and continued at 60km/h.
It was great, there was no car in front, there was nothing! In fact, it was like a straight horse race where everything just seems so smooth. And yes, life isn't as smooth. Shit happened. I mean what i saw at that point in time was 3 lanes, and I was in a lane which seemed rather narrow. I was approaching this scenario at 60km/h, with little time to think. On the left of my car, was a kerb, near a shop house. On the right of my car, was the middle lane where cars were queuing crazily.
I had a split 5 seconds to make a decision, 3 decisions in total:
Decision 1: Stop my vehicle by jamming brake, because I doubt the kerb?
Decision 2: Carry on and try to squeeze through that narrow road, because it looks fine
Decision 3: Move a little into the middle lane, and rush hitting the taxi at the side.
Ok Decision one seems like what others would do. I did think of that, but then i realized what's the use of stopping when there's nothing infront of me. There was no hazard, just a plain harmless looking kerb. The road looks narrow, but I thought judgment that roads on construction are always looking real narrow.
Decision 3 is totally out of the topic. Decision 2 was what i chose, because decision 1 was over ruled due to the lack of presence of any harmful hazard. I saw the kerb like maybe a few inch away. But I think I really made a bad decision at that point in time. I literally drove and mount the kerb at 60. The shock was intense, and both left front and rear wheels went up the kerb and poof, all is lost.
I managed to drag my car all the way to my old army camp. Just freaking excellent. I cleared up the mess and made a god damn guilty story. And I guess that is the end of my driving for this whole damn year. I need to pay off my debts.
There's nothing much to say about this whole incident. I went home and checked out Google Map and realized that that road i was travelling on was a merging road. I did not see a single sign probably because I was too happy and engrossed at the "straight horse run". The lane which i was travelling on was a 0.5 lane, not meant for driving through. It was simply for the shop houses to park their bikes. And it is a motorshop too! If it wasn't peak hour or a public holiday, I would have seen different, but naturally, shit happens at the wrong time, and as usual it started to drizzle. How more emo can this get?
Tow truck came in 45 minutes, drizzling and the estimated cost is about 700$. Though the insurance is going to cover it, I'm still going to work my ass off to pay for this shit. Its because I'm too guilty of my lie, a necessary lie to continue driving on my own. The only issue is that I feel I'm having the lack of practice, and my parents are not giving me the proper guidances to gain my confidence in driving, as such i have to sought to driving secretly on my own or just driving out alone on my own with their knowledge but not their approval. The strangest thing is that my father wanted me to learn driving, so yeah I got my license, but the control of the car seems to be restrictive.
But I can't blame him either. I feel terrible now after the lie, but I guess there are many take-homes for today, and I'm definitely not touching the vehicle till next year.
"There is always a reason why some road lanes are empty, its because regular drivers know what shit is up ahead, thus they tend to keep to another lane for safety" - frostdude
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