Wrexis nexus

While I'm sending out positive vibes, I'd like to send a few out to New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, for whom casting my vote was one of my last official acts as a New Jerseyan. I never saw a wreck on the Garden State Parkway that wasn't horrific, mostly because everyone, including state troopers, will pass you like you're standing still if you're driving 80 mph. Compared to the wrecks I used to drive by, he came out lucky.

My own luck with cars has been about as good as my luck with pets, so I always have a special empathy for car crash survivors. Those dreadful car insurance commercials in which the people having some sort of banal conversation in their car get sideswiped are quite disturbing to me. Take a look at my roster of vehicles:

Car #1: 1994 Plymouth Sundance
As a stupid 16-year-old, I made the error of letting an unlicensed 15-year-old friend borrow my car for a drive to the store less than a tenth of a mile away. She promptly backed into the car behind her. Knowing the parental ramifications of letting someone else borrow my car, I said I was driving and took the blame for that accident. God, I hope my parents never find this blog. The car was repaired, but three years later, when I was a sophomore in college, I totaled the car when I sped into the back of a truck at 50-something miles per hour on I-45 in Houston. That wreck gave me nightmares for quite a while.

Car #2: 1998 Plymouth Breeze
Less than a year after I got this car, I T-boned an uninsured woman on Westheimer in Houston who had suddenly decided to make a right turn from the left lane. It was a pretty minor accident, but it put my car out of service for a few weeks and it was never the same again. The axles were off, I think, so I managed to get eight flat tires in the course of a few years. I finally sold it.

Car #3: 2005 Nissan Altima
This was another car that lasted about a year. Pretty much the same thing happened as with the Breeze, save this was a lost Pennsylvania tourist who made a left turn from a far right lane and that this one was at about 60 mph on the Atlantic City Expressway. The car, again, was totaled. My insurance payoff--from the woman's insurance, not mine--on this one was pretty sweet, actually, and eventually helped me finance my move to New York.

Car #4: 2006 Nissan Altima
This one actually made it until I moved to New York, whereupon I gave it to my parents.

So, to keep count, that's four accidents, three of them bad enough to deploy airbags, two cars totaled and one trip to the hospital. Amazingly, my only injuries were a few deep cuts from the airbag in the second wreck and a sore chest in the fourth. That unbreakable Bruce Willis character has nothing on me. But I should also point out that only one was really my fault!