This morning, I almost died.
No, really.
I almost became another victim to Israel’s traffic, a much more imposing adversary than any suicide bomber. Luckily, I have lived to tell blog the tale.
My day began like most others. An early 6:00AM wake-up and out the door by 6:40AM. I did manage to get into a friendly conversation with the attendant at the gas station (who remarked that I looked under the weather, which was a fair comment since I have been sick for the past few days), but that is not too relevant to the story.
Approximately twenty minutes into my one-hour journey to work, I was travelling on road 1 towards Tel Aviv. All of a sudden, the car in front of me stopped short. I slammed on my brakes and moved into the right lane so as to avoid hitting the car. To my horror, my car began spinning around while moving over to the left lane. During this seemingly endless period of time, my life flashed before my eyes. I truly thought that my time was up, and that my car was either going to flip over, or be hit by an oncoming car. As it turned out, neither happened. Instead, I crashed into the side barrier, facing oncoming traffic, but on the side of the road and out of harm’s way.
As luck would have it, a policeman happened to see my 180-degree spin. He stopped traffic so I could drive the car around and to the other side of the road, where the service lane is located. As I drove, I could feel the damage to the wheels. I parked the car on the right hand side of the road and left my car to speak to the policeman.
The policeman thankfully did not conform to many stereotypes about the men in blue. He was helpful, friendly and patient. One look at my wheels and he advised me to order a tow truck. It seemed like a fair assessment.
A bit of background about today: it is probably the hottest, most humid day so far this year. Or at least it felt that way as I waited about two hours for the tow truck to arrive. When it did arrive, the driver offered me a piece of gum, hooked my car up, and we were on our way.
During the drive to the garage, I apologized for my poor Hebrew, using the already-old excuse “I am a new immigrant from Australia” (even though I have already been here for over three years). He asked me what I love most about Israel, to which I replied “the sense of belonging.” He agreed that despite all the aggravation, rudeness and lack of consideration sometimes displayed by Israelis, at the end of the day “people really care about each other and look out for each other.” A few moments later, he was back to cursing other drivers on the road. And I kid you not when I say that we almost had a couple of accidents during this drive in the tow truck!
While the car is now being repaired, I thank my lucky stars that I was not seriously hurt or killed. This is by far my scariest driving experience – even scarier than this one.
I still don’t know for sure why my car spun out of control. I think it was a combination of slamming on the brakes, the road being slippery due to the incredible humidity, and the condition of the wheels on my car (I had planned on getting them checked and replaced soon, but, due to work commitments, had not given much thought to it recently). Whatever it was, I am just so thankful to be alive. Yes, I realize it sounds very cliched, but only someone who has gone through such a terrifying experience knows that it is an apt way of describing your feelings.
