Winter Driving

At last, I remembered a topic I wanted to write about!

People like to make fun of me because I have this ability to get into car accidents easily. My first couple of years driving, I got myself into quite a few accidents. I was then deemed a "bad driver" by most people, including myself. I believed that I was a horrible driver for a long time.

I now believe I was mostly wrongly accused. In the beginning, I chalked it up to being a novice driver. While the beginning of my life driving and accidents associated could be said I was a novice driver, the rest, not so much. Therefore I just figured I was a bad driver.

Looking back on just the last few years of my life, I have been in far less accidents and received far less tickets. In the matter of tickets, I actually went over year with not a single one, until I was driving my friends car on the highway one day in the spring and was paying too much attention to the idiot tailgating me rather than my speedometer.

As far as accidents are concerned, the only one that I feel the most fault for is the first one. I blogged about it a long time ago, and unfortunately can't link to it as it's been archived. I lost control after a major snowfall (driving a manual), it was my first winter driving and it wasn't plowed. I should have slowed down more before trying to turn the vehicle.

The rest are mostly history, but thinking about them, I have felt that in every instance I did my best, and did what I could to avoid them. In the few most recent ones (by recent I mean years ago lol) I was hit by another car.

There is always the "what if's" but I don't blame myself for them. Anymore. I was hit and I couldn't have done anything about it.

All that being said, looking back the last few years, I have noticed some things. I didn't realize how bald my tires had gotten until someone pointed them out. I avoided many accidents, in some pretty bad situations. I have spent a lot of time driving in the last couple of years. I drive many more kilometers every day than anyone I know (unless they commute to the city).

I'm not a bad driver. I just don't have great luck or the perfect circumstances most of the time. I have had plenty of practice and I have learned how to avoid collisions very well, even with bad luck and crappy circumstances.