I take back anything bad I said about my car. I love my car; it is a wonderful strong family car. I particularly love the bull bar on my car and most of all, I love the fact that I recently spent $380 on four new tyres for my car. Yes, I know I complained heartily at the time of purchase, but it was those same tyres which played a huge part in saving the lives of me and my children yesterday. If I had not replaced my tyres, I would have had no control at all over the collision my vehicle had with a school bus when collecting my children from school. Just 3km from home, I was driving along the same stretch of road we travel along every day, luckily not at the usual speed, as it had been raining and the roads were still wet. The bus, heading in the opposite direction towards me, was taking its usual route home, dropping the children off from the local college. The driver had not seen my car when he made a right turn - across the road in front of me.
The result would have been my car careering headlong into the side of the bus and the children within. The wet conditions would have given my old tyres no other choice. There was very little time to think and I knew a collision was unavoidable, but instead of smacking straight into him, I had enough control with those wonderful new tyres to swerve up the side road. Instead of a headlong collision, the front of my car only connected with the passenger door and headlight of the bus. My bull bar took the brunt of the crash, undoubtedly saving myself and my eight year old son in the front passenger seat from serious injury, if not worse.
The shaken teenagers managed to extricate themselves from the bus through the concertinaed sliding door and as I placed my precious boys, crying but unhurt on the grass verge, I remembered the $2.00 Star Wars toys I had picked up from Burger King that day. I had spotted the sign in the window and decided to buy the whole series and save them, giving them out one at a time for a treat when they next deserved something special - much cheaper than a trip to the toy shop I figured. I crawled back into the car, grabbed the Burger King bag and gave them the whole darn lot. You would have thought I had given them the moon, and there they sat, playing happily on the grass, surrounded by chaos and broken glass until their Dad came to pick them up.
As for my car, we are waiting to hear if it is declared a write-off, which I hope it is, because after seeing the extent of the damage, I don't really want to drive it again. Shame to waste those new tyres though...
