A Sudden Accident On A Highway Going Into Town
An unexpected and unwelcomed surprise coming at a not-so-great time
We had to get an important package in the suburbs of Buffalo today
I don’t know how else to describe today except for how I just explained it in the title. I was traumatized, surprised, scared, shocked, and confused all at the same time. It started when we had to drive to the UPS Store in Williamsville, NY, about 15–20 miles away from the travel center today. The drive, according to Google Maps, takes about 25–30 minutes normally.
The drive is also further into more suburban and city traffic so there can definitely be delays. We hit a few of those delays today so the drive was closer to 40 minutes in 80-degree weather. The heat and the traffic weren’t even the worst part of our trip. I can handle that on most good days. I mean the stop-and-go traffic certainly didn’t help the optimal performance of the engine but we didn’t get stranded or anything on the way there.
The traumatic thing happened on the way there
The traumatic thing happened early on in the voyage. We were just cruising along Highway 5, also known as Main Street, in this part of the state, and driving right around the speed limit of 55 mph. That’s when it happened. Thwack!!! Oh, shit, panic, horror, confusion.
The hood hadn’t been secured down properly and it hit our windshield. Yeah, that heavy hood that we normally had tied down with ratchet straps and hooks flew up in front of us in traffic in the middle of a highway.
I proceeded to slow down. I was trying to stop in a safe area and alert the cars behind us of our predicament. I was just trying to pull over and get out of the way so that I could get to a place to address the situation and make sure that we could tie it down again and assess the damage.
Stopping to check the damage, secure the hood, and continue our long journey
Luckily, Mike in the passenger seat saw that there was a business right next to us when the hood was up and I literally couldn’t see anything in front of me at that point. I just trusted him and pulled over off of the road and right into a parking lot luckily. We checked the windshield and the damage was less than it could’ve been and luckily we were both alive.
The window is still damaged right down the middle and Mike is going to try to fix it with epoxy for now since we can’t afford a new windshield right at the moment but it was definitely a scary moment for both of us. Mike blames himself because he thinks that he didn’t check everything before we had to make the long trip.
He’s always so thorough with his checks that I can’t let him blame himself this time. Things like this happen sometimes and we’ll just have to deal with it when we can. I think that I’ll have enough saved-up money after we come back from camping to address the issue myself even if we have to find a cheaper alternative than getting a new windshield to replace it.
The damage wasn’t as bad as we thought it could possibly be
The windshield is damaged but luckily the cracks didn’t go all the way through the window and shatter holes into it. There were a few scrap glass flecks on our side but nothing too big and the cracks on the outside are near the middle not within my sight and at the bottom underneath the windshield wipers.
The hood bent up the attached truck part just above it but it’s not too exposed. We definitely do need to get a new hood before we leave for winter. I guess that this was just a wake-up call to us that even though we got our stuff moving, we will still have a bit more to address before we leave.
