Crashing has thankfully been a rather rare occurence in my nearly 40 years of driving. An errant Saab did manage to thump the rear end of my stationary Metro fairly forcefully at a roundabout 20 some years ago and a small van did something similar to the rear of the Focus at a T junction when again I was stationary about six years ago but at barely a couple of mph and only created a miniscule crease in the plastic bumper.
Today I was minding my own business pottering southwards down the A948 from Auchnagatt to the Tesco at Ellon at about the 60 mph limit when an Asda delivery van coming the other way about 2 miles north of Ellon starts drifting over the white line towards me. The driver is looking down at his satnav, mobile phone, radio or whatever rather than the road and at the point when I'm contemplating whether initiating a painful excursion through a dry stone wall into a field might actually be preferable to a head on collision with 4 tons of van at a combined closing speed of 120 mph he finally looks up, hurls the wheel over, nearly rolls the f****ng van but happily we miss each other and I continue on to do my shopping.
An hour later, shopping in car, I'm driving back up the same road on the way home. About 4 miles north of Ellon there's a sharp bend, right hander if you're going north like me. Just as I'm coming up to that a van coming round the bend as a left hander from the north thumps into the kerb with its nearside wheels as the driver completely misjudges how wide his vehicle is or how to position it on the road without hitting anything else, this throws the van into the air briefly and lurches it into my path again until the driver hurls the wheel over and narrowly misses me. To my astonishment as we slide past each other it's the same f****ng Asda delivery van with the same incompetent nitwit at the wheel failing miserably to pilot it in any sensible way!
There's not much I can do to avoid people driving into the back of me when I'm stationary but I consider a couple of such minor instances in 40 years to be a reasonable downside of being able to drive myself around amidst the other fuckwits on the road. Nearly getting hit full on frontally at speed by the same bloody driver in the space of an hour is taking the piss somewhat though.
I've been in bed with the flu all week. I only dragged myself out to go shopping because I've run out of comestibles. I didn't realise it would be such a hazardous experience. I'm going back to bloody bed again where it's safe!