My mother always said to be cautious of other cars on the road and now I know she was right. She said to slow down on green lights, look both ways before leaving a stop sign, and things like that. One of the most important things she never mentioned, but I guess it goes along with being cautious of other drivers, is to never trust blinkers. If a person relies too much on blinkers it could lead to a lot of trouble.

            It happened one year on the last day of school. I was taking a friend home and we decided to stop by the K-mart parking lot. It was a wet day. It had just rained earlier that day before we had left the school. Anyways, when we were done in the parking lot we went to leave. I sat there waiting to leave. The traffic was terrible. It is always bad traffic at the exit onto Sunset Blvd. My friend was helping me check to see if the coast was clear to pull out. I had it clear on my right. I looked to my left and there was a car coming with the blinker on to turn right. I thought, “Hey, they’re turning right, I can get out, there’s nobody coming on my right.” In my mind at the time I knew how hard it was to get out at that spot and here was a car coming with a blinker on to turn right. So I made a split second decision to pull out. It was too late when I saw that the car wasn’t going to stop. I braced myself for the impact. It rammed into the back bumper of my SUV, sending it spinning.

            Luckily no one was hurt. The SUV’s bumper took a brutal beating, and not to mention the other car. My insurance was cancelled, so I wasn’t able to drive again for a long time. The most important lesson I got out of this though was to never trust blinkers, and I never will again. I have learned my lesson. It is engraved into my brain, and I shall never forget it. Every time I go to leave any place and I see that a car has its blinker on, I stay put and wait to see what the car does. Yes. This was a very good lesson to learn, but I had to, unfortunately, learn it the hard way. It is tough luck for me, but at least I know now what I didn’t know before.