I witnessed an intense car crash yesterday. I was in the car with my family. We were waiting at a red light at a freeway underpass. I was sitting in the back of the car, staring at the underpass wall. All of a sudden, my Dad screamed “WOAAAHHH”.
As I turned my head toward my Dad, I saw a black BMW T-bone a red SUV at full speed. The crash made a loud sound. The red SUV was coming off a freeway exit. The black BMW was driving straight towards the freeway underpass.
The momentum of the car crash drove the red SUV into a traffic post. Before the SUV hit the traffic post, it did like a summer sault in the air…most likely because it had hit the sidewalk ledge.
I was shook. My entire family was shook.
I saw two girls step out of the black car (they looked relatively young…probably still in college). Thankfully, both looked alright, but as soon as they came out, I saw one of them just start to cry. I could tell that she wasn’t crying about her car because she was hugging herself while walking away from her car. She was most likely crying out of shock.
Our light turned green. We started turning left to go to lunch. As we drove by the accident, I could see a guy come out of the red SUV. He looked unscathed as well; however, his car’s passenger side was just completely caved in.
Question about change
My Dad’s dashboard camera caught what had happened. If I had to take a guess, the driver of the black BMW was probably distracted while driving, which is something I am guilty of. Even though I know that I could get into a car accident like the one I witnessed, I still allow myself to get distracted by my phone or other things.
During lunch, I found myself asking this question about change in life:
Why do we wait for something bad to happen before we take action to improve ourselves?
I often hear about alcoholics or drug users who changed their life around because they overdosed themselves. They didn’t start treatment when they were casually drinking – they only started when things got really bad.
Similarly, the only times I really changed a bad habit were when something went horribly wrong. For example – when I tore my labrum when rock climbing, the doctor said that if I didn’t do any PT, I could incur permanent damage to my shoulder. I immediately changed my work out habits to accommodate PT at least 4 times a week.
Is it possible to start this process of change before things get really bad? If so, how? How can we teach that to ourselves and to others? So many questions now…when I just started with one haha
At the very least, I’m making a commitment to not be distracted by my phone when driving. We all should.
