The Accident

No matter where one travels in the world, he or she inevitably brings home stories of crazy drivers.  I knew Albanian drivers weren't the best in the world, but sitting in the back and being driven by some good drivers while over here before, I think was pretty oblivious to the challenges our 'chauffeurs' faced most days.

Once we were blessed to get a vehicle of our own and I sat in the front seat I have had whole new appreciation.  When we asked for prayer protection on the roads, it was with the realization that we would be driving on roads in poor conditions, with inexperienced drivers (I'm not yet 40 and I've been driving longer than it's been legal to own a private car), and dodging all sorts of surprises in the highway from uncovered manholes to livestock and children wandering into our path.  I sit in the front as an extra set of eyes because you really have no idea from what direction something will be coming at you.

We've literally dodged being passed on the sidewalk, encountered vehicles driving UP the off ramp, cars driving without headlights (in the dark), a family of four riding a motorcyle in the dark with no lights nor reflectors, bicycles in 6 lanes of high speed traffic, unattended livestock wandering onto the road, people running and vaulting over the cement barriers to cross the autostrada in the rain, and vehicles turning left... from the far right lane.  

On Friday we were on our way to homeschool co-op.  One afternoon per week for a few hours Ellie and Reni can participate in a group of about 20 children up to age 10 with organized games, crafts, singing and Bible story time.  It was a drizzly afternoon and we were a mere 200 meters from the school which hosts our group each Friday.  The school is situated on a narrow side road that requires an extremely sharp left hand turn.  Nathan always signals our turn then drifts a little right to make the hard turn left (more than once we've not turned sharp enough and had to do the turn, reverse, and turn some more).

We had almost turned all the way on to the side road when we heard and felt a loud crunch of metal on metal and the tinkling of glass.  A young man in a Mercedes immediately jumped out of his vehicle shouting at us.  I was a bit stunned, trying to figure out what in the world had just happened.

What appears to have happened -- since his car was in the passing lane when we got out of our vehicles (in the photo above he had already moved it out of the way) -- was that he was following behind us and because he was in a hurry, he decided to pass us.  I can't figure out how he didn't see us, short of being distracted.  There were no skid marks on the road and he his us quite hard, accelerating, not braking.  Had he stayed in his driving lane, he would not have hit us.  The only way he could have hit us was if he was passing in the left lane.  (The front, right corner of his Benz was quite damaged, more severely than our VW).

We are so fortunate that he did not hit our tires.  Our vehicle was still driveable and we didn't have any broken tail lights.  The kids were buckled in, but Ellie said she hit her head on the side of Reni's car seat.

He was yelling at us, "What were you doing?"  We pointed at our still-blinking turn signal that we were making a left-hand turn and returned his question back at him since it was the rear of our car and the front of his which was battered.

We called Mandi immediately and as I had him on the phone, he heard Nathan say over and over to the other driver "You hit ME!  You hit ME!"  (You have to hold your own verbally in situations like this).  Unfortunately, Mandi overheard and thought we were being BEATEN!  (oops!) and he immediately called several friends, trying to find us.

I don't know what we would have done without our friends Mandi and Arjan.  There have been public transportation issues going on all last week and Friday a big strike was planned.  All of the street police were occupied with enforcing some new bans on private van taxis and no police were available to come and make a report (so we could file an insurance claim).  Arjan knew a chief of police in another community who knew someone in the jurisdiction where we found ourselves and an hour and a half later, he got an officer on the scene.

Once Mandi arrived, I decided to go down to the school and check on the kids (who had already been taken to co-op by another family that arrived shortly after our incident).  A male crowd had been gathering, mostly family of the guy who hit us, since he lived just down the road.  They were pressuring us to just take money and not involve the police or insurance.  We were grateful for someone who could speak Albanian on our behalf, even if we were still outnumbered about 5 to 1.

Nathan told me the officer laid into the other driver as soon as the officer arrived and assessed the situation.  Nathan was feeling quite relieved and called me to say the officer was ticketing the other driver and that he (Nathan) was driving into Tirana to make copies of the police report and sign a statement of his account of the situation.

Upon reaching the station, the superior officer pulled out the official red "rules of the road" book and told Nathan that he was at fault. The rules place responsibility for accidents resulting from left-hand turns on the driver making the left-hand turn, even if the collision is from behind. Nathan was told that the other driver was within his rights to attempt to pass us (in spite of admitting that we did have our turn signal on) because the road had a dashed line. Nathan will return to the station on Monday at 1:30 and likely be ticketed for 'causing the accident'. 

And if that makes no sense, we learned that you only have to have your turn signal on for a minimum of 10 meters (or about 30 feet)!

I think I knew a fender bender would be inevitable, I just didn't anticipate it to be so soon.  In spite of the damage, we are quite thankful that we had friends to help, that the children could go on and do something normal and not have to sit and wait through the whole ordeal, intensifying the trauma for them.  We are also grateful that our vehicle was still driveable so we could go on with our plans to go to the village later that afternoon.  To those of you who pray for us, thank you!  We saw God's hand of protection on us!