The Incident

We're heading up to Sainsbury's on a Friday night at around 7pm to get some drinks to take to a party later that night. My housemate's driving, my friend visiting for the weekend is in the passenger seat and I'm behind him, in the back.

On the way there's a slightly awkward junction that doesn't have much visibility, where you turn out of a small road onto a busier road. There's a slight curve to the road here and a building on the corner so you don't have much visibility even from the front - you just have to go when your view is clear, and usually it's not a problem because the traffic on the road is obeying the 30mph speed limit and you'll be safely out of the way before it reaches you.

We're turning right, so we have to cross a lane of traffic. We see nothing coming from either direction, we pull out into the road.

A small car comes screaming around the corner to the right, it's travelling at at least 50mph, maybe 60, before it brakes and even though I'm looking in its direction I have only the shortest moment to even register its existence and then... BANG... a blur of totally incomprehensible noise and light and movement.

I don't remember the next few minutes too clearly because I was in total shock. I was only barely aware of my environment, I understood that we'd been hit but I had no idea how badly. I remember crying out... my senses were totally confused. I couldn't see anything and I could barely speak coherently. I was aware that the guys in the front seats were asking me if I was injured, and the scariest part of the experience was that for a good few seconds I was so completely stunned that I didn't know the answer. I had no idea at that point of the extent of the damage to the car, and the shock was so intense that I couldn't tell if I was hurt or not. Even now it unnerves me to think about that.

Someone told me my glasses were on the seat next to me and I grabbed them and put them on. I stumbled out of the car feeling very dizzy, I could just about stand, and I knew that it was a good sign that I was able to get out without pain. Even with the glasses on my vision was blurry, all I could really see was starbursts around light sources - I think my pupils must have been massively dilated from the adrenaline or something. I became aware of bystanders and people coming out of nearby houses and people saying I was okay but in shock. I knew we weren't still in the busy road. I tried to coherently say that I thought I needed to sit down... I opened the front passenger door (not sure why) and tried to feel for the seat because I couldn't see it, but my sense of touch was pretty confused as well. I think I found it though because I must have sat down for a minute or two, while the shock wore off.

Someone had gone into their house to bring me a chair and a blanket, but when they came out with them, I didn't need them. My balance and my senses had by that time returned to normal, and I thanked them for what they had done but said that I was feeling better. I looked around and saw what had actually happened...

While I'd been out of it, my housemate had called the police and had checked on the inhabitants of the other car - there had been no serious injuries. Our car was sitting in the side road opposite the one we'd turned out of, and was pointing back the way we'd come. We had been hit in the driver's side rear wheel area, opposite where I'd been sitting, with force enough to spin us 180 degrees and put us right across the road. If there hadn't been another road opposite, we might have ended up landing in somebody's wall.

The other car had sustained massive head-on collision damage and had spun but remained in the same lane in which it had been travelling. It was partially blocking the main road. It was almost certainly a write-off and looked much worse than ours, those inside it looked lucky not to have been injured.

Our car had absorbed most of the force of the impact through its rear axle. The back wheel was impacted into the car and at an angle, the axle was bent and there was some damage to the bodywork, but it was clear that we had been very lucky that we hadn't been hit further forward, in one of the doors, which would have crushed inward far more, probably showered us with safety glass, and absorbed much more of the force which, as it actually happened, instead spun us and put us across the road.

My housemate had the most serious injuries, he'd hit his head hard on the side window as we spun, but he was okay. I'd scraped my knee somehow and had some friction abrasions from the seatbelt (had I not been wearing it I would have certainly been thrown laterally across the car with some force). My glasses were bent and later snapped in two. Otherwise I was fine.

The police asked questions for about an hour before they towed the vehicles, and we went back to the house. A ton of paperwork and phone calls later and we actually made it to the party, although we arrived a little later than planned.

I was still pretty shaken that night and didn't sleep very well, but felt better the next day (yesterday) and slept very soundly last night.

I'm comforted by the fact that nobody was seriously injured and that it could have been far worse in so many ways. But it's troubling to be in a situation when one second you're in a car with friends and everything is perfectly normal, and then literally one second later your entire world is upside down. There was no opportunity for me to react, and only the slightest chance to even register that it was about to happen. That's what scared me, aside from the shock - the suddenness, the total unexpectedness. It certainly jolts you into a high level of awareness afterwards, awareness of how quickly things can happen. And I'm certainly quite aware that if that was only a moderate accident, I've no wish to know what it's like to be in a serious one.

But the bottom line is that we're all okay, physically and psychologically. Thanks to all who have expressed concern.