I was going to write about this for a long time but never had time to put the post together, so I’ll try my best right now. Here is what happened.

I was driving home in the right lane at around 11pm on a dark and empty road that was going through a quiet neighborhood. Suddenly, something or someone jumped right in front of my car. I reacted and swerved hard to the left to avoid hitting that someone. Unfortunately, the road was slippery, it just stopped raining, and the road was quite bumpy. So, the car spun and all my efforts to regain the control over the car were futile.

As a result, my car ended up hitting the curb of the opposite lane with the both right wheels then jumped over the curb and crashed into a tree. By the time I got out of the car, whoever/whatever jumped in front of my car was long gone. The car was barely drivable but I made it to the garage (this happened 1.5 kilometers from where I lived). The next day I reported the collision and the car was taken in for repairs. Well, the repairs cost me 9,500 dollars.

I called the insurance company and described what happened and was told that what happened did not really matter. Since the accident is a single vehicle accident I was 100% at fault. I asked the insurance company manager I was talking to if it would have been better for me to hit and probably kill that whoever jumped in front of my car. I did not really get an answer so I added that they just created a killer because from now on whoever gets in my way when I am driving properly will be hit, period.

A couple of months later a friend of mine and me went to have a dinner together. He was driving. It snowed hard and the roads were very slippery. On the way back from the restaurant a drunken guy was trying to impress the girls that were with him by jumping in front of the cars trying to make the cars swerve and skid out of control. So, the guy jumped right in front of my friend’s car…

I heart sunk. We were driving at approximately 30 km/hour and it was absolutely not possible to stop or avoid that person. To my surprise, my friend did not even try to avoid the person. In fact, he did NOT even slow down. He kept on driving straight. The drunken guy jumped away the very last moment thus avoiding being hit.

I turned to my friend and saw no reaction on his face. I almost screamed WTF were you doing, you could have killed the guy! His response amazed me. He calmly said that the guy would have been charged if he would have hit him…

That time I did not agree with what my friend did. But I kept thinking about both my accident and the incident on the road with the drunken guy and I came to a conclusion that my friend was right. If someone is stupid enough to endanger his life, then why should this become my problem?

WHY DO WE HAVE TO PAY FOR SOMEONE ELSE’S MISTAKES? What do you think?

Nikolai

1. Hmmm, that’s one way to look at it. Although I think the “natural” reaction would be to try to avoid what or whoever jumped in front of you, as you did. Not saying your friensd isn’t normal, or am I?

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