I drove up to Cheshire on Friday evening to stay with some friends, a four and a half hour drive from here. It was the furthest I have driven since the crash, without a back-up driver sitting next to me. In my previous life that would have been a no-problem trip; both I and Mr H are used to driving long distances, to Scotland etc.
This time, although I got there fine I really noticed a) how much more tired I got and b) once it got dark how worried I was that I wasn't at peak concentration. The motorway felt like a scary place but for me it was myself that was the risk, not others.
I have become very aware of the responsibilities involved in being on the road - the car and me both being in condition above reproach. That sounds like something that goes without saying, but for most people I'm sure it doesn't prey on their minds. It must come from all the questions I was asked after the crash even though I had done nothing wrong. I had blood taken and the van was examined for defects, and I was questioned about all sorts of things; I got the feeling that if I'd been driving in high heels that might have come up at some point.
So now I really think about what I could be held responsible for IF anything were to happen. So when I don't feel 100%, I'm really not comfortable about it...
But still, I had a great weekend!
Showing posts with label Driving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Driving. Show all posts
Monday, 26 March 2012
Monday, 25 April 2011
Stepping back from the edge
Just when things seem to be swinging along, something gets me down again.
I got an invitation to my sister's surprise birthday party, she's going to be 50. I probably won't go because there are too many difficulties including needing time off work and the fact that she lives 2 hours drive away... But just thinking about it stressed me out. Just my parents saying "I know they'd love it if you went". Nothing's that easy any more and I need to do things in my own time. And getting a lift with someone else would almost be worse - I'd be so tense by the time I got there, having driven the whole way in my head but without the controls!
I already have my first longer drive planned, and it will to see my brother and sister in law where things are relaxed, and if I suddenly got stuck on the way they would probably come and rescue me! Maybe a madhouse full of teenagers would work just as well, but.... I'm already making the excuses, I'm not going to go.
Even on my bike I've noticed my change in expectations on the road. I used to be much more casual but now I always wear my helmet and luminous top, even when it makes it a bit warm. Even when it's just 1.5 miles to work. The thing is, I've realised I wear them not only for the obvious reasons, but so that if somebody does knock me off my bike one day I can say "Yes I was wearing a helmet, yes I was wearing a luminous jacket". In the same way that now I can say "Yes I was wearing my seatbelt / sensible driving shoes / sunglasses" or whatever - don't try and pick up on anything to pin the blame on me.
I read that after a traumatic experience, a person's outlook can change from generally positive to generally negative. Obviously effects vary but that's kind of how I feel. Instead of somebody doing something stupid on the road being an outside chance, in my head it's now favourite odds, and it's up to me to anticipate it and avoid it. Maybe that is something do with the fact that there was "little or no chance" of me avoiding our crash (the coroner's words, not mine).
I'm attempting (not always succeeding) to pace myself physically and same applies psychologically.
Maybe I should get myself a T-shirt that says "I'm going as fast as I can...".
I got an invitation to my sister's surprise birthday party, she's going to be 50. I probably won't go because there are too many difficulties including needing time off work and the fact that she lives 2 hours drive away... But just thinking about it stressed me out. Just my parents saying "I know they'd love it if you went". Nothing's that easy any more and I need to do things in my own time. And getting a lift with someone else would almost be worse - I'd be so tense by the time I got there, having driven the whole way in my head but without the controls!
I already have my first longer drive planned, and it will to see my brother and sister in law where things are relaxed, and if I suddenly got stuck on the way they would probably come and rescue me! Maybe a madhouse full of teenagers would work just as well, but.... I'm already making the excuses, I'm not going to go.
Even on my bike I've noticed my change in expectations on the road. I used to be much more casual but now I always wear my helmet and luminous top, even when it makes it a bit warm. Even when it's just 1.5 miles to work. The thing is, I've realised I wear them not only for the obvious reasons, but so that if somebody does knock me off my bike one day I can say "Yes I was wearing a helmet, yes I was wearing a luminous jacket". In the same way that now I can say "Yes I was wearing my seatbelt / sensible driving shoes / sunglasses" or whatever - don't try and pick up on anything to pin the blame on me.
I read that after a traumatic experience, a person's outlook can change from generally positive to generally negative. Obviously effects vary but that's kind of how I feel. Instead of somebody doing something stupid on the road being an outside chance, in my head it's now favourite odds, and it's up to me to anticipate it and avoid it. Maybe that is something do with the fact that there was "little or no chance" of me avoiding our crash (the coroner's words, not mine).
I'm attempting (not always succeeding) to pace myself physically and same applies psychologically.
Maybe I should get myself a T-shirt that says "I'm going as fast as I can...".
Monday, 7 March 2011
KEEP CLEAR - Rant Ahead!
It's not really rocket science is it? But WHY do people ignore this written on the road??
On Saturday I almost missed my train because a woman had parked across the KEEP CLEAR entrance to the station car park while waiting for the level crossing. And yes I called her a 'dozy ****' etc. while I sat there waiting. I probably would have had time to get out of my car, go over and offer to pull forward those extra 3 feet that would have allowed me to squeeze through, since she was apparently incapable of interpreting my pointing.
Today there were road works traffic lights which caused a tailback onto the roundabout near my house. So naturally people stopped ON the roundabout and left a 'car plus 1/2 inch' space to get through, for those of us wishing to go straight across.
And when people stop across KEEP CLEAR marking, or obvious (to me at least) areas of road which are required for movement of vehicles, and there is space for them to move out of the way, they just glaze over or studiously ignore the person gesticulating to them to "Please, with all due respect, would you MOVE!". Gah!!!
I was thinking we should have KEEP CLEAR written on the road in front of our house, to stop people blocking the drive. But on second thoughts I won't because people would probably park there even more.
Sunday, 30 January 2011
File closure
The file is closed. I can throw away the police blood sample that I've been faithfully keeping in the fridge for the last 7 months!
PC Phil came to see me, complete with flak jacket and a crammed full lever-arch case file. After a lot of noise at the door, Django decided he was OK and after 2 minutes was his best friend. I was pleased to hear that I'm looking a lot better than last time PC Phil saw me, at the scene, not that I knew he was there.
Being traffic police, he's been through all this a million times and the most common question people ask is "Why?" just like I did, hoping for some tangible explanation. I suppose it's our need to categorise things, and also in my mind I wanted to have reason to think it was less likely to happen again.
The passenger was apparently asleep, and the two children were playing together in the back seat. In reality, she just failed to correct for the slight bend in the road and went straight on.
It was just one of those things. I now know all I'm going to know about it, and I can move on from it.
As PC Phil said, how long have I been driving? 27 years.
How many times has this happened to me? Once.
Yep, statistically I'd be damn unlucky if it happens again, or someone has got it in for me as he put it.
If only people were like dogs, we agreed - the average, well looked after dog doesn't worry about cause and effect. Life happens, then you go to sleep and wake up and it's another day. No expectations, no regrets, no worries; no 'what ifs', no 'if onlys'.
Maybe I should ask Django for some tips.
PC Phil came to see me, complete with flak jacket and a crammed full lever-arch case file. After a lot of noise at the door, Django decided he was OK and after 2 minutes was his best friend. I was pleased to hear that I'm looking a lot better than last time PC Phil saw me, at the scene, not that I knew he was there.
Being traffic police, he's been through all this a million times and the most common question people ask is "Why?" just like I did, hoping for some tangible explanation. I suppose it's our need to categorise things, and also in my mind I wanted to have reason to think it was less likely to happen again.
The passenger was apparently asleep, and the two children were playing together in the back seat. In reality, she just failed to correct for the slight bend in the road and went straight on.
It was just one of those things. I now know all I'm going to know about it, and I can move on from it.
As PC Phil said, how long have I been driving? 27 years.
How many times has this happened to me? Once.
Yep, statistically I'd be damn unlucky if it happens again, or someone has got it in for me as he put it.
If only people were like dogs, we agreed - the average, well looked after dog doesn't worry about cause and effect. Life happens, then you go to sleep and wake up and it's another day. No expectations, no regrets, no worries; no 'what ifs', no 'if onlys'.
Maybe I should ask Django for some tips.
Saturday, 29 January 2011
Schemas and their destruction
I was thinking about my post that I was (am) going to write, and thought you'll be fed up with me writing depressing posts and talking about the accident.. but it's because the last couple of weeks have brought it all back to me, right to the front of my mind. Over the 5-6 months after the accident I was concentrating more on my health and getting better, and not really talking about it. But now all the legal stuff has started and I'm driving, my leg is looking after itself and it's my thoughts that are distracting me.
Somebody asked me the other day whether I'd had any counselling. I should have answered "No, I write a blog", because this feels like therapy to me.
How many times do you hear people say "It's restored my faith in humanity" when somebody does something good or thoughtful? It makes it sound like the person usually goes around thinking the worst of everybody. All Humanity was bad but now someone did something nice so all Humanity is good again. Although I have my share of cynicism (that was an example right there), in general I think I have quite a lot of faith in humanity, and I'm sure most of us do.
Well, I realised today while driving across the Forest with Django (40mph limit, hurrah!) on a long straight road watching people driving towards me: I have lost my trust in people on the road. I know that is a generalisation in the same way, but statistics and logic play little part in emotions. It's not as specific as being scared of white trucks or tree-lined roads. After 27 years of driving I have finally discovered that yes, it can happen to me; and yes it may be totally unpredictable.
Most of the time, we expect people to behave on the road in a predictable way, we are not constantly on Code Red looking for danger. Obviously people don't always behave predictably - otherwise there would be no traffic accidents - but as far as basic driving skills are concerned we expect them to drive in their lane, stop at junctions, etc.. The fact that Ms.E (the other driver) did something so apparently random has sent my expectations crashing. I was watching those cars driving towards me today, and if they moved two inches towards the white line, I was slowing down and creeping nearer to the edge of the road.
Linking here to a post by Alexia about some youngsters recently killed in a car crash, we are in charge of these machines that have the power to kill, yet we treat it so casually. It's our right to be on the road, in a hurry to get where we're going, driving too close, having fun on the bends, going to the pub and 'one drink will be fine', thinking about problems at work and not bothering to really pay attention.
Watch people driving while you are out (preferably while you are a passenger!). How many are actually looking at the road and other vehicles? how many are fiddling with something, or looking out of the window at the view, or at their passenger while they talk; on the phone, or checking a map or looking as though they are on another planet, or doing their make-up. [A woman followed me once, spending most of the time looking in her rearview mirror doing her entire make-up while driving. I pulled over and let her past because I was spending too much time looking at her in my rearview mirror, wondering when she was going to drive into the back of me.]
I'm not saying I've never done any of those things, of course I have. We all get complacent, especially after a good number of years of uneventful travelling, and our minds wander. And I've always enjoyed driving, the skill of it, the fluidity of getting the line on the bends just right. I miss that enjoyment of driving, I hope it comes back.
On Sunday, PC Phil is coming to see me to go through the inquest report. I am hoping that I will find out a reason for Ms E's drift across the road, that there was some evidence that sets it apart from Complete Randomness.
Somebody asked me the other day whether I'd had any counselling. I should have answered "No, I write a blog", because this feels like therapy to me.
How many times do you hear people say "It's restored my faith in humanity" when somebody does something good or thoughtful? It makes it sound like the person usually goes around thinking the worst of everybody. All Humanity was bad but now someone did something nice so all Humanity is good again. Although I have my share of cynicism (that was an example right there), in general I think I have quite a lot of faith in humanity, and I'm sure most of us do.
Well, I realised today while driving across the Forest with Django (40mph limit, hurrah!) on a long straight road watching people driving towards me: I have lost my trust in people on the road. I know that is a generalisation in the same way, but statistics and logic play little part in emotions. It's not as specific as being scared of white trucks or tree-lined roads. After 27 years of driving I have finally discovered that yes, it can happen to me; and yes it may be totally unpredictable.
Most of the time, we expect people to behave on the road in a predictable way, we are not constantly on Code Red looking for danger. Obviously people don't always behave predictably - otherwise there would be no traffic accidents - but as far as basic driving skills are concerned we expect them to drive in their lane, stop at junctions, etc.. The fact that Ms.E (the other driver) did something so apparently random has sent my expectations crashing. I was watching those cars driving towards me today, and if they moved two inches towards the white line, I was slowing down and creeping nearer to the edge of the road.
Linking here to a post by Alexia about some youngsters recently killed in a car crash, we are in charge of these machines that have the power to kill, yet we treat it so casually. It's our right to be on the road, in a hurry to get where we're going, driving too close, having fun on the bends, going to the pub and 'one drink will be fine', thinking about problems at work and not bothering to really pay attention.
Watch people driving while you are out (preferably while you are a passenger!). How many are actually looking at the road and other vehicles? how many are fiddling with something, or looking out of the window at the view, or at their passenger while they talk; on the phone, or checking a map or looking as though they are on another planet, or doing their make-up. [A woman followed me once, spending most of the time looking in her rearview mirror doing her entire make-up while driving. I pulled over and let her past because I was spending too much time looking at her in my rearview mirror, wondering when she was going to drive into the back of me.]
I'm not saying I've never done any of those things, of course I have. We all get complacent, especially after a good number of years of uneventful travelling, and our minds wander. And I've always enjoyed driving, the skill of it, the fluidity of getting the line on the bends just right. I miss that enjoyment of driving, I hope it comes back.
On Sunday, PC Phil is coming to see me to go through the inquest report. I am hoping that I will find out a reason for Ms E's drift across the road, that there was some evidence that sets it apart from Complete Randomness.
Saturday, 22 January 2011
What the eye doesn't see... or does it?
I've had a couple of 'palpitation' moments in the car.... the first was yesterday afternoon when I was driving home from the sea in bright sunshine. The sun was behind me and all the cars coming towards me were really bright in the sunlight. I don't know whether it was because I knew they were driving into the sun and couldn't see so well, or that fact that they were glaring bright, but I felt nervous for the first time in the week I've been driving.
The second time was today when I drove to the railway station at 7.50am, it's in the next town so there is a straightish stretch of road, which is a 50mph limit but most people go faster. I really didn't want to go over 40mph, and that didn't feel slow to me, but as it was relatively early and the road was quiet, I made myself speed up to 50. Yikes it felt so fast!! and then cars were coming towards me, and some of them were white... I really noticed the white ones.
I didn't get upset or have to stop, but I was conscious of being nervous and my heart rate rising, and feeling very aware of the feeling of speed, and the white cars but not so much of the dark coloured ones. And it was a relief when I could slow down again without thinking someone behind me was banging their steering wheel and shouting "It's not a bloody 40 limit on this road you stupid old bint!!!" And yes I have been the person shouting that, in the past.
One of the women in my class today was telling us how she had been badly shunted in her car yesterday, someone drove into the back of her quite hard. She said she couldn't believe how shocked she felt aftewards, and hadn't driven today but had got her husband to give her a lift, . And one of my friends said that about 7 years ago her husband was spun several times on the motorway in very wet conditions when a car clipped the corner of his. She said that even 7 years later, there was a noticeable change in his driving and just the way he 'was', when he drove now in similar conditions.
Mr H phoned me just as I'd started writing this so I was telling him about my 'moments'. He has mentioned to me before that since the crash he's felt as though the roads/carriageways are really narrow, and he has no space. He also notices far more what other drivers are doing and their position on the road. It's interesting how he has been affected slightly differently by being the passenger at the time. I suggested that maybe he has taken away a feeling of being crammed into the verge/trees as I inevitably hugged the side of the road just before the impact.
I think it's safe to say that our eyes take in far more than our minds consciously remember.
The second time was today when I drove to the railway station at 7.50am, it's in the next town so there is a straightish stretch of road, which is a 50mph limit but most people go faster. I really didn't want to go over 40mph, and that didn't feel slow to me, but as it was relatively early and the road was quiet, I made myself speed up to 50. Yikes it felt so fast!! and then cars were coming towards me, and some of them were white... I really noticed the white ones.
I didn't get upset or have to stop, but I was conscious of being nervous and my heart rate rising, and feeling very aware of the feeling of speed, and the white cars but not so much of the dark coloured ones. And it was a relief when I could slow down again without thinking someone behind me was banging their steering wheel and shouting "It's not a bloody 40 limit on this road you stupid old bint!!!" And yes I have been the person shouting that, in the past.
One of the women in my class today was telling us how she had been badly shunted in her car yesterday, someone drove into the back of her quite hard. She said she couldn't believe how shocked she felt aftewards, and hadn't driven today but had got her husband to give her a lift, . And one of my friends said that about 7 years ago her husband was spun several times on the motorway in very wet conditions when a car clipped the corner of his. She said that even 7 years later, there was a noticeable change in his driving and just the way he 'was', when he drove now in similar conditions.
Mr H phoned me just as I'd started writing this so I was telling him about my 'moments'. He has mentioned to me before that since the crash he's felt as though the roads/carriageways are really narrow, and he has no space. He also notices far more what other drivers are doing and their position on the road. It's interesting how he has been affected slightly differently by being the passenger at the time. I suggested that maybe he has taken away a feeling of being crammed into the verge/trees as I inevitably hugged the side of the road just before the impact.
I think it's safe to say that our eyes take in far more than our minds consciously remember.
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