Thirty years ago, almost to this day, I was involved in a car crash that changed the course of my life. I was a 16-year-old junior in high school who had his driver’s license for all of six weeks. It was the evening of December 22, 1985, and Christmas was in a few days. My brother was coming home from college the next day. Nothing was really going on in the Anderson household that night, and I wanted to get out of the house. I thought there might have been a home basketball game at my high school that night, but I wasn’t sure—it might have been an away game. In any case, I thought I’d kill some time and drive over to the school, just to see.
I hopped in our 1968 Pontiac Catalina (our car was white), and drove the few miles down North Avenue to the school. As soon as I turned into the school, it was all dark, so before I even made my way down to the gym and parking lot, I turned around to go home. I drove back down North Avenue, took a left at Kuhn Road, and was all set to go home. But I was enjoying driving, I was listening to Todd Rundgren’s tape Acapella, and I thought, “Maybe there really was a home game; maybe all the cars were down in the parking lot.” I figured I’d drive back, just to make sure.
I drove back to the school, went all the way down to the gym, and sure enough, everything was dark, and the parking lot was empty. Back home I went, down North Avenue, toward Kuhn Road.
I was on the inside lane, getting ready to make a left hand turn, north onto Kuhn Road. The light was green, but there was another car on the inside lane facing the other way, waiting to make a left hand turn to go south on Kuhn Road. Being the inexperienced driver that I was, since I didn’t see anything behind that car, without any hesitation I turned left at the intersection. It never occurred to me that there was a blind spot, and that there could be a car on the other side of the car waiting to make a left turn that I could not see.
As soon as I was into my turn, I saw the headlights. Instantaneously came the crash.
I know that sometimes, people who go through major car accidents black out the whole thing and can’t remember any of it. I remember it all. I remember the headlights screaming through my line of sight, I remember feeling the impact through my whole body as my car spun around and ended up facing the opposite direction. I remember feeling my knees slam up under the dashboard. I remember screaming out, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” to no one in particular. Although, in my heart I felt I was addressing God.
And I remember the tape player kept playing. The song was “Something to Fall Back On.
When the car came to a stop, and I realized the music was still playing. I yelled, “Shut up!” and ejected the tape. Realizing that I had spun around, I knew that if I opened the driver’s side door, I would be stepping out onto the highway; and so I slid over and got out of the passenger’s side door. I looked at the car: the entire front chrome bumper was practically ripped off.
Then I looked up and saw the car that had hit me—or rather, the car I had pulled in front of: it was a red Pontiac Fiero. I was driving a Catalina tank, and I got into a crash with a fiberglass car.
Fortunately, I had turned just enough, so when the Fiero hit me, it was not a direct head on collision. The impact had spun my car around, and the Fiero had jettisoned off the road and hit a pole. I got over to the car and asked the driver and his passenger if they were alright. The only thing he said (he was obviously in shock) was, “Why did you do it?”
I remember being very angry at this question. I thought, “What do you mean, ‘Why did I do this?’ Like I had nothing better to do, so I thought this would be fun?” It’s weird the odd things you remember in times of crisis. I also remember learning that the driver had borrowed his friend’s car, and was taking a girl out on a date. Boy, did I make that date memorable.
Within minutes there were police cars, fire engines, and the flashing lights were everywhere. As it turned out, a classmate of mine was driving past the scene of the accident and saw it was me, so he stopped to see if I was okay. I asked him to drive up the road to my house and tell my family that I had been in a car accident. The police officers took me over to the police car, and I told them what had happened. I was shaking and on the verge of breaking down, so they told me to sit in the back seat. Things were going to be okay, they said. It wasn’t a matter of me being intentionally reckless. It was simply a matter of me being inexperienced.
It turned out that the couple in the Fiero (although they were going to be fine) were pretty much wedged in the car, and they had to use the “jaws of life” to cut open the car to get them out. If I would have turned a fraction of a second later, and it had been a head on collision, I think they would have been dead.
A few minutes later, my parents and sister drove up to the intersection. By then I had gotten a hold of myself, and was quiet in the back seat of the police car. When the police officers brought them over to the police car, though, and when I saw my mom, I broke down and sobbed as she held me. The terrifying reality of life hit me: we are all on the edge of death.
It was a long night. Officially, I was given a ticket for failing to yield the right of way. As soon as the police officer wrote out the ticket and gave it to me, the song “Yield to the Spirit” by a Christian singer named Joe English played in my head. This was the chorus:
“Yield to the Spirit, He has the right of way
Listen and hear it, we must obey.”
It had been more than just a car crash for me. It was the night I experienced the ruthlessness of God.
Eventually the tow trucks came and towed both cars away. Both were totaled. Both the couple and I were taken to the hospital to get checked out, and we all were eventually released to go home. My entire body was sore for the next few days, but somehow neither I nor they suffered any major injuries…although I am sure that my dad’s insurance payments took quite a hit.
The next day, when my brother came home from college, we had to tell him that I had totaled the car that my parents were going to let him take back to college. The other thing that happened the next day was that my dad took me out in the other car and made sure I drove. My grandpa had told my parents, “Make sure he gets right back behind the wheel. Don’t let him get afraid of driving.”
Such is the life God has given us. Such is the life He has given me.
From time to time in my life, not because I’ve been necessarily rebellious or bad, but rather because I’ve just been my inexperienced, fallible self, I have unwittingly failed to yield the right of way to the Holy Spirit, and have been hit back and spun around by the crashing waves of the chaotic sea of life that God’s Spirit has whipped up as He goes about creating…something I know not what.
All I know is that I still feel the impact of that car crash 30 years ago. It continues to echo somewhere deep down in the caverns of my soul. It is terrifying, angry, hostile and fearsome. And yet I’m not allowed to be afraid of it.
I have to get back in the car, and keep driving. Where I’m headed, God only knows.
About six weeks after the crash, my sister and I were passing through that intersection. As we were waiting at the red light, we looked at the side of the road and saw that there was still some debris from the wreck. And so, we pulled off the road and got out. Sure enough, there were still bits of glass, reflectors, and fiberglass parts to the Fiero strewn about. I picked up a piece of the Fiero and took it with me. I still have it, packed among the memories of my youth.
