Hit

So yesterday I got rear-ended.  Complete stop.  The very nice (and very embarrassed) lady behind me saw the green light and reacted.  The front of her car is smashed.  My bumper is beaten (but I beat it back on for the time being) and muffler is at angle that is probably not right.  No-one was injured - all in all a pretty minor incident.

What surprised me about it was her reaction.  We got out, looked at the damage, and exchanged information.  She was a little shaken (unsurprisingly).  I was more concerned about her than the car.  Her response to the incident was something along the lines of being surprised and grateful that I was taking things so well.  

I shrugged it off at the time but thought about it later.  I truly wasn't all that concerned.  The biggest issue - her health and my own - seemed intact.  Accidents happen - and we usually don't intend them to, that is why we call them accidents - so it is not as if we plan them to.  The cars, although nice, are simply things.  They can be repaired or totaled - and I don't get to control that process at all.

I carried on until, driving later, I passed three cars pulling off the road.  Looked like a small rear end accident.  The damage to the car did not seem to be near that of the one that hit me and the car that was "hit" had no visible damage.  But you could tell the driver that had been hit - her body language and her short conversation to the driver of the other car indicated that such a thing was a very big deal.  It was going to be an unpleasant incident - and the police would undoubtedly show up for this one.

Is this what we've become?  A society that is so concerned about our things and our place in them that we expect people to explode when things like accidents occur?  Where we believe that we have a right to our anger for our inconvenience?  Where we have blurred the lines of importance to where things truly are seen as equal to individuals?  Where worrying about the impact on our lives overshadows the other individual involved?

I was in an accident yesterday.  My car will need to be repaired.  No-one was injured. 

There really are more crucial things to my life - and to all of our lives.