I was headed to the Yahoo! holiday party this evening on 101, and at the offramp to 92, traffic had stopped in the lane for westbound 92. That's the lane I was in. I swerved to avoid rear ending the guy in front of me, and after some dramatic zig zagging, I ended up sliding sideways through a road sign and into the barrier wall on the side of the road.

What was going to be a night of free food and festivities ended up being a police report, tow truck ride, and filing an insurance claim. I'm not looking forward to the $1k deductible, either.

I wasn't hurt, and I got to experience the fact that there are good people out there that stop on the side of the road and offer you assistance. The tow truck driver was a marine reservist that had been deployed to Iraq. That made for some genuinely interesting conversation on the ride home. He was very friendly and forgiving when it came to the charges. I guess a lot of people get pretty irate with the tow truck driver. How much sense does that make? Perhaps if you were pulled over for driving without a license…

The last time I was in an accident I was driving my friend Debbie Balsley home from a dance and careened on wet pavement, overcorrecting a few times and eventually hitting the conrete divider. That was ten years ago. I'm glad I've been able to avoid hitting anything other than big concrete things (if you don't count the sign, I suppose).

While talking to the CHP officer, firemen, and tow truck driver, there were two (two!) other accidents in that same lane involving one car rear ending another. By the time I left the scene, the side of the road practically had its own party going on. I'm glad I arrived stag.