Stopped with a THUD

I recently got into a car accident. My first car accident really; never been in one before. You know, with the Cincinnati weather and the fantastic driving skills of Cincinnati drivers in the snow, I always hesitate whether it's worth my while to head out in the snow. Since I live in Hyde Park and commute up to Hamilton (about a 30 mile commute), I keep watch on all the school closings, traffic reports and what it looks like out my window. I tend to listen to Cincinnati Public Schools and if it's bad enough for CPS to be cancelled, I call it a day and stay inside.

However, I did not follow my own rule at all when it came to that fateful Wednesday. I had stayed home on Tuesday because we got dumped with a pile of snow and I certainly knew better then, but when Wednesday came, I told myself to not be a sissy and get on the road. I didn't have to be in to work first thing, so I laid low in the morning and headed out about 10:30ish.

The roads were fine, especially main roads and the highway...or so I thought. I was driving, minding my speed, not messing with the radio, my phone or anything else. My focus was on the road.  I was in the left lane driving on I-75North.  I had just passed by I-275.  I was about halfway to work.  All of a sudden my car hit a patch of ice and I began to spin.  "Uh oh", I thought, "this isn't good."  I tried to correct the spin and Brent has told me time and time again to "turn into the spin"...well, in the heat of the moment, you're just doing your best.  The tail of my car spun to the right and it spun to the left.  I ended up spinning 180 degrees and I was facing southbound...I was nose-to-nose with another car on the highway.  Talk about scary.  Luckily, the traffic on the highway was sparse, otherwise, it would've been MUCH worse.  I traveled backwards down the highway across 3 lanes of traffic and ended up smacking my back left end into a cement wall.  It was like that scene in Wizard of Oz when the house finally lands in Oz after the tornado and there was this silence.  I had to do a once over and catch my breath.  I was okay.  I wasn't injured.  I hadn't hit any other car.  I saw a car drive past me and mouth the words "Are you okay?".  I nodded in response.  I called 911 to let them know what had happened. 

A police squad came and I sat in the back of their car as we waited for the tow truck.  My car was undriveable.  In the meantime, the nice policeman wrote me up a ticket for failure to control my vehicle.  I didn't even think twice about it since I got in an accident.  I thought it was standard procedure.  I reminded them that I wasn't do anything suspicious.  I wasn't messing with my radio or phone; I wasn't speeding.  I probably sounded crazy...probably like a person who has never been in an accident sitting in the back of the police squad waiting for a tow truck on a snowy highway.  While we were waiting, we saw several cars and trucks spin and have difficulty in the exact same spot I did. 

The next day, I got a phone call from that same police officer that wrote me the ticket and he felt bad for writing me a ticket knowing that others did the exact same thing as I did and so he recanted my ticket.  How nice.  Now I know that just because I got into an accident doesn't mean that I deserved a ticket. 

Even with that said, I'm staying home when CPS calls off !  Not worth it!