What’s The Story Behind Your First Crash?

Car crashes suck, period. Even if it isn’t your fault, and the other driver has decent insurance, a wreck is still frustrating, inconvenient and sometimes even painful. Thankfully, cars are so safe these days that, at least as long as you wear your seatbelt and don’t have any other health conditions, the odds of dying are incredibly low, but that doesn’t mean you won’t still get banged up. It’s even worse if you end up losing a car you made a lot of memories in.

You also never forget your first crash. Maybe it was your fault, and you were just young and dumb, or maybe someone else was the idiot. For me, it was probably a little of both. I was 17 and driving back from a Christmas party held by the restaurant I worked for at the time in the Kia Spectra I’d recently purchased, and being a young enthusiast, I chose the twisty route. The Spectra was no sports car, but it had a stick, and that was enough for me. Especially when you’re trying to fund your first car purchase on a busboy’s income. 

When I hit the fun section, I’ll admit I was driving a little faster than I maybe should have been, but I also wasn’t going nearly as fast as you’d expect from a 17-year-old enthusiast about to crash. After all, I was in a Kia Spectra. But anyway, as I came around the first corner, the driver in the oncoming lane cut the corner, forcing me to swerve out of their way. While I still insist I wasn’t going all that fast, I was still driving too fast to maintain control when something went wrong, and I’d also never lost control of a car before.

To make everything worse, I lost control for the first time in an S-curve, so while I’d like to think I could have saved it on a different section of road, I definitely didn’t have the skills at the time to get things under control while transitioning from a right-hander into a left-hander. Thankfully, the only thing I hit was a curb, but still. Curbs don’t play nicely with wheels and suspensions, leaving me with a $1,500 repair bill and a whole lot of embarrassment. 

Especially since I’m pretty sure no one believed me when I told them the other driver had crossed into my lane. I may not have been speeding right before I crashed, but I was a young, dumb 17-year-old in a rural county with lax speed enforcement, and I drove like it, so I’m not surprised. Me taking that first corner far too fast was a much more plausible story. 

What about you, though? What’s the story behind your first crash? Were you the dumb idiot, or did someone else ruin your day? Did your car end up totaled, or were you able to repair it? Whatever your story is, we want to hear about it down in the comments.