Adding another event to my illustrious driving record, I got in an "accident" yesterday.  By "accident", I mean "a guy backed into me while my car wasn't moving".  To top things off, it happened in the church parking lot.  Oh, what a Sunday.  I'm so good at being a Christian:  The two tickets I got last year were earned while on my way to church; I got pulled over (but didn't get a ticket) for "running a red light" one time when driving home from a Bible study; and I got pulled over another time (but didn't get a ticket) for pulling out of the church parking lot at 2am because that's where a church event was carpooling from. 

So here's what happened:  It was around 12:45pm, and I was driving out of the church parking lot.  I got stuck behind an old, brown Plymouth (I think) who was driving slowly towards the doors of the church.  I figured he was gonna stop his car, so I tried to pass him on his left.  Wendy told me to not be so impatient.  He kept stepping on his brakes, but he didn't actually stop his car, so I backed off a little.  He started to make a left-ish turn, and it looked like he was looping around to pick up somebody at the door to the church.  I decided it was my chance to leave the parking lot, so I attempted to pass him on his right this time.  But before I could even get past him, his brake lights went on, and then his reverse lights went on.  The front of my car was behind his car at this point, so I beeped my horn, attempted to go in reverse, and yelled "NO!"  None of this helped as he lightly backed into my front left bumper, making a beautiful crunching sound and crumpling the cheap plastic that cars are so stupidly made of. 

At first, I felt pretty bad because I probably shouldn't have been trying to pass him.  My purpose in driving is to get to my destination, which was my couch in my house (to watch some football).  So perhaps I was a little impatient as I crept along behind this guy who appeared to not know what he was doing.  We both got out of our cars and exchanged contact information, but I said I didn't want to go through insurance (I hope you're not reading this, Mr. Car Insurance Company, you blood-sucking leech).  Thankfully, no one was injured and there wasn't much physical damage.  Actually, his old, ugly clunker didn't get a scratch.  But my beautiful, semi-new, shiny joyride got a nice dented bumper.  It wasn't too big of a deal, and I'm thankful it wasn't a headlight, a wheel, or a door panel.  But I had a feeling it was mostly my fault, so I just wanted to get out of there before anybody mentioned "police report" or "insurance information". 

As I drove home, I concluded that the accident was about 40% my fault and about 60% his fault.  Now, almost 24 hours later, I've concluded that it was more like 20% my fault and 80% his fault.  Sure, I'm an impatient driver and I'm among the most dangerous drivers on the road according to statistics.  But this guy made two major mistakes:  He didn't use his turn signals at all, so I had no idea what he was doing at any point; and he didn't look behind him while he was in reverse.  Impatience causes anger, and vice versa.  Ignorance causes accidents.  And I don't mean to call this guy ignorant, implying that his intelligence is lacking.  I mean ignorant as in unaware of his surroundings.  Impatience put me in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Ignorance backed into my car without looking. #travel