[Xist]

I have rear-ended three vehicles in twenty-two years, sideswiped a teenager in a bus, and knocked another teenager (I hope!) into two other vehicles in another bus (I hope!).

What would be the odds of me hitting the same teenager twice in the same bus?

1. I was distracted (and stupid).
2. I was distracted (and stupid).
3. I was distracted (and stupid).
4. I was accelerating from a stop sign and the teen ran a stop sign on the wrong side of the road. I did not have time to react.
5. The teenager actually knocked me into oncoming traffic with his pickup. I knocked him into two other vehicles when I swerved out of incoming traffic.

I do not know what happened immediately before I was involved in the pinball game, but I must wonder how hard his 3,500-pound vehicle hit my 30,000-pound vehicle, and how we ended up with three vehicles in two lanes.

Consequences:
1. The guy got out, looked at our bumpers, got back into his car, and drove off.
2. The bolts in my vanity plate gouged her bumper cover and I had my insurance pay for it. Having a dealership replace the bumper probably would have been cheaper. I would not have known how to look up a body shop back in 2002. I barely had a cell phone back then and the crazy thing didn't do anything besides place and receive calls!
3. The guy said it wasn't bad enough to worry about.
4. The police did not cite me.
5. The police did not cite me.

Two different people broke mirrors on the same side of my Civic. I looked up the part and the lady wrote a check for $50 more and then I installed one from a junkyard. The second one dragged it out as long as possible. At least thirty e-mails went back and forth, he asked me all kinds of irrelevant questions and I kept telling him "I gave you the part number. Pay for my mirror!" He finally ordered me an aftermarket one for about what I paid for the used one.

Then there was the full-sized work van that rear-ended me on the freeway when I stopped for the SUV in front of me. He replaced the bumper cover himself, but I am not impressed with his work.

I almost forgot, when I was in high school I must have started the car with my foot on the accelerator instead of the clutch. All that I knew was that I was suddenly on a curb and everything was wrong. I blew the tire and bent the frame. It turns out that changing tires is self-explanatory.

Also, I was hit by an elk while driving under the speed limit. I never saw him coming.

Edit: One time a woman pulled into my lane and scratched my car while both of us were turning left. I pulled over, she kept going, I called 911, and they said "You waved her on."
"I absolutely did not."

Another time some guy freaked out and flipped me off when I came to a full stop at a stop sign. A block later there was another stop sign and he rear-ended me. I pulled over, he yelled at me and drove off, I called in his license plate number, and they told me to wait for an officer. Half an hour later someone showed up and said "You got the plate wrong."
"Did you try..."
"Yeah, we tried."