I want to take a moment to publicly thank all the engineers and scientists who designed and built the safety systems of the Toyota Prius. Without your efforts, my wife would not be alive.
While driving across an intersection in Arizona, an oncoming, speeding car crashed into the passenger side of the Prius containing my wife and I. It was, as I later learned, a classic T-bone collision. Our Prius upended 45 degrees, skidded on two wheels across the intersection and into the oncoming street where it collapsed onto the sidewalk.
It was a accident: the interaction between the laws of physics and unfortunate timing.
EMTs arrived on the scene promptly, as did the police. It was from these that I learned how close my life came to changing that day.
Our Prius was fitted with curtain airbags. These deploy and cover the window during a roll-over. Had the Prius not been equipped with these, the EMT told me, my wife’s head would have gone through the window and, in all likelihood, she would have been taken away from the accident in a body bag.
Thank you, safety engineers: you saved my wife.
Thank you.
This may seem a strange time to talk about being organized, but on that day I was very grateful to have become an organized person over the years.
As regular readers of this blog know, my wife and I packed up all of our things to travel across the United States and Canada in search of a new place to live after years in London.
The project ended up being much bigger than I have imagined. When we visited my parents in North Carolina there was much paperwork to be done. We had to set ourselves up as residents of the United States, transfer ownership of the car, get health insurance, car insurance and numerous other things.
Without having a system in place to help keep track of all these projects, I wouldn’t have gotten everything done. The younger, pre-organized version of myself would have said, “It’ll be fine, lets just go.”
But things aren’t always fine.
Because I’ve practiced getting organized, all the paperwork and legal framework was in place when we needed it to be. I had all the necessary contact numbers in my phone. I had all the paperwork for the local police. We had already booked a hotel for the night and all of our possessions were packed and easily removed from the totaled car.
Getting organized isn’t just about getting more done in less time. It’s also about being prepared for tough situations and making them easier.
Do yourself a favor: make a packing list today and put local emergency numbers in your phone and contact information in your wallet. Also check out making an emergency kit for your home and car.
Hopefully you’ll never need them, but if you do, you’ll be glad you did.
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Header photograph by neil lall
Glad to hear that you’re both OK
The car that hit us was slightly bigger, but was a 2009 model, so it had crumple zones in the front that helped decrease the severity of the impact.
Quite frankly, I’d like to see SUV made illegal because of the danger they pose to other drivers, such as yourself. My goal is to live in a city where a car isn’t a necessity, so that I can avoid the issue all together.
That’s excellent and I’m glad to hear you and your wife are okay. However, I know someone who was also driving a newish Prius and got into a fatal accident with an SUV. Apparently the collision probably would have been survivable had the SUV been a regular car instead.
I drive a Mini which, like the Prius, earned top marks in crash tests and is of a similar weight. Naturally though, all else being equal, a heavier car is a safer car and in light of that fatal accident, I know my next car will also be a larger one. It’s unfortunate that SUVs are such a common fixture on our roads such that buying smaller economical cars disadvantages us safety-wise.
There are many factors to consider, of course, so I’d like to know your take.