Saturday, November 19, 2011

The Death of the Honda

October 25th was a normal October morning here in the DC metro region.  I woke up late, the sky was clear, the air was crisp.   The leaves left on the trees were glowing shades of orange, red and yellow.  I left for school, and headed down my normal route, 28 South to the Dulles Toll Road.  At one point along the way traffic always backs up from people merging off of the Dulles Greenway and on to 28 South.  Unfortunately the Virginia Department of Transportation hasn't bothered upgrading the interchange to accommodate the amount of traffic that passes through it on a daily basis, so those of us coming from the north are met with sudden slow downs, and delays.

Every single morning I pass through that area, my thoughts have been "Is today the day I'm going to get rear ended".  After several close calls, October 25th was the day.  I was changing my radio station to our local News Traffic and Weather station just to hear what I could expect on the rest of my trip down when the car behind me decided the traffic back up did not apply to him.  He was traveling about 35 miles per hour and slammed into the back of my 1999 Honda Accord, so hard, in fact that he pushed me into the car in front of me, seriously damaging both vehicles.  The damage pictured doesn't look like a lot, but it was well in excess of $7,000 to repair a vehicle that only has a market value of $6000.  My insurance company determined they were better off keeping it.

I, fortunately, was not injured.  The responding police officer mentioned that if I had not had my head rests adjusted properly, I very likely could have had serious neck or back injuries.    The moral of the story is this:  your head rests may not be comfortable, but the closer it is to the back of your head, the better for you it is.  Always adjust them accordingly.

Earlier this week I purchased my replacement vehicle.  I will post on it within the next couple days, but for now my boss is waiting for me to get back to work.

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