My First Time In the Back of a Police Car

This was a very interesting morning. After a later than expected night at Beth's cookie swap, I came home loaded with sugar, so I decided to stay up a little later than usual reading and just go into the lab a little later. One of the perks of doing so would be getting to leave after rush hour. As I got on the interstate around 7:30 this morning, I realized that I had not missed rush hour completely, as I-65N was at a dead stop just after the Alabaster merging lane.

I merged over to the right lane, and patiently I waited for traffic to start moving. Next thing I know, I hear tires squeeling like crazy behind me. Just as I turn to look, BAM! My car is knocked sideways. I regain my composure and slowly pull off to the shoulder. Shaken, but thankfully not seriously injured, I assess the damage. My baby (the Mustang) actually looked pretty good. It looked like I just had some bad scratches to the driver's side rear wheel well.

The other driver was also uninjured, but his car was definitely not in good shape. I would not be surprised if his is totaled. Turns out, he was from out of town and didn't realize how bad traffic gets along 65. He just wasn't paying enough attention and couldn't come to a stop in time. I estimate he was probably doing about 50 when he hit me. We are blessed as it could most definitely have been worse.

Now to where I got the title. Alabaster police and fire were the first responders, and let me just tell you how absolutely wonderful they were! I was so shaken, having never been in a wreck before, but they were so nice. They calmed me down, joked with me to get my spirits back up, and were just so sweet. They took one look at my car and noticed something I hadn't seen - the wheel that got hit was at about a 20 degree angle (not normal). I decided, with their consultation, that it was probably not a good idea to drive it and risk more damage, so the great Alabaster police officers called me a tow truck and gave me a ride back to my house - in the back of their car. THey offered to handcuff me for the full effect, but I politely declined. As we drove all down 31 in Alabaster, I just knew we would pull along someone I know and have a lot of explaining to do...so if you saw me riding around in the back of a police car today, I promise that I had not broken the law!

Now my poor baby is sitting in some wet, gravel lot waiting on an insurance adjuster to come and assess the damage. I have a sore shoulder, but am relatively unharmed and the other driver had no injury whatsoever - praise God for that! Below are a couple of pictures I took with my phone. They're not very good, but it was the best I could do considering the circumstances. One is of us tying up post-rush hour traffic. I bet there were some unhappy campers. The other is some of the damage to my car. It's the best I could take without stepping onto the interstate. I wanted to take a picture from the back of the police car, but I thought the officers may not like that.