“Serving overseas as a small-town boy from America is intense, stressful and humorous! Enjoy a light-hearted story with me from our last 20 years overseas!” – Matt
By: Matt’s Mishaps
Most traffic accidents happen near your home. Maybe it is because we become less vigilant for potential problems when in familiar territory.
When visiting some overseas workers that we supervise, I passed through a large city that had been established back in Roman times. At one intersection, I laughed and started counting traffic lights for all the different and jumbled lanes of zig zagging incoming and outgoing traffic. When I got to twenty different traffic lights, I stopped counting! When what I thought was our traffic light turned green, I took my turn and zipped through, certain that I’d get hit by somebody before I reached the other side of the intersection. To our relief, we were not hit. We breathed a sigh of relief, and then tensed up again as we had another dozen tricky intersections to get through before getting out of that city.
Later that day, I chuckled as I remembered what happened several months earlier in our small Indiana town. I was sitting in our family room that faced the main street and my son came running in the front door, yelling, “Dad! Mom and brother have been in an accident and don’t know what information to get from the other driver.” I threw on shoes and walked a block down to the four-way stop (we have no traffic lights).
What had happened? It seems my son was heading towards town and arrived first to the four-way stop. He stopped and then proceeded ahead and then felt a jolt at the back corner of our long white van. A gal had run into the back corner. When asked why she drove into the van, she told the following story. “I have just gotten my car washed as it was so dirty. As I pulled out of the car wash and pulled up to the stop sign, I couldn’t see any cars through my wet windows, so I decided to pull on through.” I thought to myself, “Why didn’t you use your windshield wipers!?” We exchanged information. She was a real nice gal who meant no harm, and we had the dent fixed a few days later.
I guess that accident proved that a sleepy four-way stop near home is more dangerous than a chaotic urban intersection in a distant place in the world.
Something similar ever happen to you? Contact me and let me hear your story!
mattsmishaps@gmail.com Matt’s Mishaps, PO BOX 114, Grabill, IN 46741
