How To Destroy A Car ?

In just over 6 seconds...


I have asked for a day off from work in order to go to the Consulate of Guadalajara cuz i have some notary paperwork to sign in front of the authorized authorities. Sounds important but really takes like 3 minutes. I basically went all the way to Guadalajara to sign 6 pages and get a consulate stamp over each one of my 6 signatures. And i didnt even see the consul. But anyway.

I asked dear-beloved if he would be so kind to take me to the bus station that night to take the 1:30am bus. I'd make it around 6:30am, will have breakfast and then go get my sheets signed, hop in a cab and make my way back home.
But then he said, well, i dont work tomorrow so why dont we go by car so we leave at 4:30am, make it there at 9am, have breakfast, sign your papers and go back home?


I told him i wasnt sure my old car would make it all the way to Guadalajara and back but if he was up for the driving, sure, why not?


And off we were at 4:30am.


And i slept pretty much since minute one until around 7:30am.


We were then on the highway, and the scenary was beautiful, all green and luxurious thanks to the morning drizzle. 


And that's when it happened. Dear-beloved lost control of the car, we slidded on the right, then on the left and the second i thought cool i think he's got the car back on track, we actually "hit" another slippery spot and front-crashed the car on the median wall, did an awesome 360°, hit the wall again but with the trunk and ended up in the middle of the highway, right outside the curve we were in.


He asked me if i was OK and urged me to get out of the car. I obliged. And he ran to the entrance of the curve to slow down traffic. I couldnt stop shaking.


After 2 guys stopped to move the car to the emergency lane so traffic could go on at its normal pace, dear-beloved came back to me and that's when we realized how lucky we both were. We dont have a scratch, not a bruise to "prove" anything even happened. 
Apart from the destroyed car and pictures we took of it, we could as well have been taking a morning walk in the Jalisco's mountains. 


If only.


Ambulance got there in not even 10 minutes but received a call of another accident that just happened 1.5km behind us with casualties. And since we were just fine, they dashed. 


And we waited. And waited. And waited some more. For the crane to come pick up the car, for the Feds to allow it, for the insurrance car...


We were there, on the side of the road for about an hour and a half when a pick up truck did exactly the same little show off dance we had done an hour earlier. I was so surprised/in shock/in disbelief that i was completely glued to the ground, watching in awe an accident happening in front of my very eyes.


Dear beloved grabbed me and threw me away from the road, in the bushes, just in case the truck would flip over and come flatten us both. It didnt. It stopped a few meters away from us, pretty much exactly where our car had stopped earlier. But there was 4 people in that car, 2 of which injured. 


To make one long story short, since, as i said, we were the only non-injured people of all these accidents (we heard later that in 1.5 hours, there were 5 accidents over a 3km portion), we ended up spending 4.5 hours waiting on the highway to be taken care of. 

Car is dead, engine was split in two, the front axle was also split in two, one of the back wheel was parallel to the road, one of the back door couldnt open. We sold it to the junkyard for just enough money to pay all that needs to be paid on such a situation, got a ride to Guadalajara with the insurrance guy, got hosted by a friend of mine, went signing the papers the following day and came back by bus.


TWO things are coming to my mind after such "incident":
1) you can truly know what people are worth when you're in such a challenging situation - you have the people who pass the crash almost stopping their car to feed on their morbid glutony, people who dont think twice and stop to help right away, people who keep their cool, people who try to abuse you while in dispair and people who'd simply give their live to save yours.
2) there is NOTHING like health.


And if i had just one little piece of advice, it'd be: USE YOUR SEATBELT.
It's the second time it saved my life and/or prevented me from being seriously injured. None of the 4 people of the truck who crashed after us was using it and 3 got injured, 2 pretty seriously. You can buy yourself a new car. Not a new life.


And as dear-beloved reminded me on our way back home, i was right, the car didnt make it to Guadalajara.


Now dear Santa, here is what i want under the Xmas tree this year ... Dont disappoint me!