Crash, Bang, Uhoh

I realize that every accident that Hubby and I have ever been in involved me. I also realize that I brilliantly even managed to get my Mother-in-Law’s car in an accident only 3 weeks into my marriage. I know all this but I also know that I am not that bad of a driver. Please stop laughing. Please?! I’m a good driver! Ok it took me a few days to get the hang driving Trinity, our manual, 6-speed Toyota Matrix. And I know it took me a few years to get the hang of driving – period. But I’m not so horrible a driver that my license should be taken away (or that I should be banned from driving pretty, new, keyless start car that belong to generous parents).

All that said, I have once again managed to become involved in a fender bender. *sigh* Before anyone worries, everyone involved is fine, myself included. No one was hurt other than my pretty Nissan X-Trail, Storm, whose passenger side front bumper is all smooshed. *double sigh*

Here, for the curious among you, is the low down… First off I should note that our driver Peter was behind the wheel as we tried to peek around the corner coming out of the Sarit Center. I should also explain that much like India, driving in Kenya is survival of the most aggressive driver.

That said, Peter and I were coming out of the plaza and attempting to turn right (like having to left in the States), across two directions of oncoming traffic. I say directions rather than lanes because there are no lanes around here. There was a lane and a half going in one direction and another lane coming the opposite way. And in the middle were the people trying to get into the Sarit Center.

Have I confused you yet? Good.

We were halfway into one lane of traffic and waiting for our chance to squeeze past lane two and finally into traffic so we could leave the shops behind us. One genius trying to get into the mall created a literal logger jam while all the drivers around him shook their heads and wondered at the person’s sanity. More cars passed by in both directions rather rudely not giving us space to inch forward.

Finally it was our turn. The guy on our left and the guy on our right both smiled, stopped, and waived us through. Yay. So we drove past them were about to ease into the empty lane when BOOM! Oh yeah. An accident.

Some eejit decided that he didn’t want to wait in traffic and that it would be more advantageous to him to pass on the left – you know, illegally. Moreover he was speeding down this patch of road when our car, which had barely moved 5 meters, caught him in the act.

When the police officer finally showed up, Peter and I quickly realized that he was friends with the driver of the other car. Lucky us. The bare scratches on his car, we were told, were completely our fault. Excuse me? But, the officer continued, we would all need to come out to the police station in about an hour.

After a detour to obtain a hug from Hubby, Peter and I went to the station (a half hour early, thank you) only to be told that we needn’t have come today; tomorrow morning would be better. But if we wanted any information about the other driver for our insurance company, we would have to buy a form from a different police station. Since our friendly neighborhood cop naturally sent us to the wrong station, it took us about an hour or more to finally obtain this 200KSH piece of paper, which we promptly returned to the first station to have filled out.

Now are you confused?! Good!

Long story short (Too late!), we’ll likely have to make the repairs to our car ourselves, although we hope that won’t be too bad (fingers crossed). Lucky, lucky us. Although, as Hubby as pointed out a few times, the really lucky thing is that nobody was hurt.

Except for my car. *pout*