A good week for car accidents...

It was two hits and one very close call last week. On Tuesday I went into Billerica center for my lunch time jog. This was not one of my usual routes, but a coworker had seen a house on the internet and I thought I would check it out. I was running along the main road (Concord Road) and a car came out of a side street, stopped and then surged forward as I crossed the side road. The driver noticed me as he turned onto the main road and hit his brakes, but not before knocking me down. I had put out my hands in a reflex motion and so at the time I thought all my bruises would be from being flung down onto the pavement. The next day I discovered a large bruise on the outside of my left leg just below the knee. Since I had fallen mostly onto my right upper thigh, I suspect that the bumper of the car caused the bruise on my left leg. Most of the pain I felt the next day was self-inflicted: I had about 3 more miles left of my run and I think the adrenalin made me run faster than usual and so I was sore from that. I was furious when first hit but then the driver was so clearly concerned and so ready to make amends that I quickly cooled down. Also, I was really glad to be alive and thus feeling a bit generous. The Next accident was Friday the 13th of the same week: My wife's office is downsizing (just the rented space not staffing!) and so there was office furniture available for whomever wanted it. She got her parents to watch the kids that night and we would take the truck down for a load of file cabinets and so forth. We decided to stop for a bite to eat on the way home and in this case it would involve a left turn on a busy road. We came to the place, signaled and then stopped to wait for a break in the oncoming traffic. The car behind us stopped and then a few seconds later a large dodge pick-up did not stop. We heard the crash and even though our rear bumper was badly dented, we did not feel the crash. The Ford Taurus behind us was completely demolished (the driver and his passenger were unharmed). I guess there is something to be said for the safety which comes from driving 5,000 lbs of steel. The last incident did not cause even a scratch, yet it could have been the most fatal if the timing was just a little different. It was Sunday and I was bringing Surenna home from an overnight stay at her friend's house. We were on a side street approaching the main road. About 200 ft before the intersection an Isuzu Rodeo turned onto the sidestreet coming from the left side of the main street. He was going so fast that he swung all the way into our lane. Had we been a few seconds further along this would have been a head-on collision! We were in a little BMW 318ti and would have been going 15-20mph and the other guy was going at least 30mph. I think we would have been lucky to survive and would at the very least have been hospitalized and our car totaled. Quite an eventful week! It is fine to drive fast--I like to do this myself from time to time, but you have got to have enough judgment to do it without making widows and orphans.