Arab News, August 1, 2015
[from FB post: May 14, 2014]
Am I worried about MERS? no. I am worried that I live in the country with the highest number of fatal road accidents per year in the world. My colleagues and I were in an accident this morning -- no one was hurt and the car had only some damage. However it was only because the car that hit us at a SUPER HIGH RATE OF SPEED gave us a glancing blow rather than a direct hit (I am sure we would have all perished). It was a very scary, very sobering experience.
I have been in three car accidents in my life:
One time was on a family trip to the Smithsonian in DC - I was quite young, the early years of elementary school, and barely remember it. My brother explained that my Dad made an illegal turn and we were t-boned. No one was hurt, but I guess we all were shook up and the car took heavy damage. While we waited for my "motorhead" Uncle Ray to drive down from Pennsylvania and rescue us, I think Mom and I took refuge in a nearby restaurant where my garrulous mother struck up a conversation with someone. After that, I got small gifts and was sent cards by my "Washington Grandmother". I have no clear recollections of that as I was just a kid. I only recall I was excited to get gifts in the mail and thrilled to write messages in thank you cards and post them back. Oh, when life was simpler....
My next accident was much later in the Milford years, near the end of one of those tedious drives home from New York City. It was late winter and already night as I reached the long, sloping S-curve on Rte 206 in Jersey that took me through a sliver of the Delaware Water Gap Park before crossing the river into PA. I was tired and just wanted to get home. I hated that drive, especially after a full day in the City. As I came to the intersection just before the bridge I notice a sea of shining orbs on the road ahead of me. It was surreal - like a shotgun blast of huge fireflies. Then I realized |I was heading straight into a herd of deer! Luckily, I was not going too fast and I swerved gently to the side and brushed the guardrail and then came back on the road. I had avoided the deer. I hoped that damage to the side of the care wasn't too bad.
I arrived home to see I had indeed heavily damaged the whole side of the car. Shit! It was no scratch, the metal had peeled away like a can of tuna. I called my insurance agent who told me to get an estimate. I went to a place in town that he recommended and got a quote. It was going to be expensive - not that I was surprised. Should I pay out of pocket or submit a claim? My insurance agent insisted I should use insurance because we had never had an accident. No worries, our rates would not go up at all. HA! Famous last words. Our next insurance bill came and our rates had jumped dramatically. I called my agent, "Well, you can't submit such an expensive claim and expect your rates to stay low". After that, I never trusted a single insurance agent again. What happened almost seemed illegal.
My last and scariest accident was in Saudi Arabia as per the above FB post.. That should come as no surprise - Saudi Arabia has one of the highest traffic accident rates per capita in the world. My friends and I hired a Pakistani guy who worked as a guest driver at the Abha Palace Hotel and did moonlighting as a personal taxi. He picked us up and dropped us at the university each morning and usually fetched us and brought us home too. The guy was very reliable and through him we got to know a few other Pakistani drivers. They were all equally reliable, but our main guy was Mohammed Adnan, a big Pathan guy. | really liked him a lot - just a steadfast, hard-working man who was working abroad to support his family.
Adnan picked us up one morning and while making a usual U-turn (a legal one) near our apartment, we were almost t-boned (shades of my childhood), but at a very high rate of speed. One of these young Saudi drivers in a Toyota Hilux came out of nowhere and gave us a glancing blow. Had it been seconds later and we would have been fully t-boned and I believe it would have been a far more serious accident. Poor Adnan's car took heavy damage, but he was a stoic guy and told us to find another way to university and he would deal with the accident aftermath. Luckily a passing colleague spotted us and we were rescued. Later, we all chipped in and gave Adnan some money toward the repairs - there is no compulsory insurance in Saudi Arabia. Adnan was truly touched. I think we were all relieved we survived and paying Adnan almost seemed like some kind of religious offering to thank God for having spared us.
As I have mentioned in the past, driving in Saudi Arabia is really akin to participating in a demolition derby each day. Everyone has accidents and many of them are quite bad. We passed wrecks on the way to school and often whispered amongst ourselves things like, "no one survived that". I lost students to car accidents each semester. It was "normal". I shudder when I think about the five years of risk-taking just to go back and forth to work.
I am now 60 with three real accidents under my belt - I hope I have met my life quota!!