Friday. It was finally the end of the school week. My sisters and I were officially headed home from just another day at school. My oldest sister, Kaylin, was the one driving us home since she was the only one at the time who had a driver’s license. My twin, Kenzie, was the passenger princess simply because of the seven more minutes of life she had on me. That left me in the backseat, the baby of the family who usually had no idea what was going on in the front windshield of the car. My sisters and I were on Randall Road, the road in my hometown that took us straight from school back to our house. Kaylin was going fifty miles per hour, as the speed limit clearly displayed going all the way down on Randall.
The car we were driving was a 2004 Lexus RX300, given to my family by my grandparents who were no longer using it. The exterior of the car was a faded gold with smooth tires that had just recently been put on. The inside of the car had five leather seats and a well-used cassette player in the front. There was also a sunroof found at the top of the Lexus, which allowed a nice breeze to come in when the car was driven during the summertime.
We were coming up to the intersection of Randall and South Street when I heard my twin start to repeatedly call out my older sister’s name: “Kaylin, Kaylin, Kaylin!”
I looked up from my phone and noticed both of my sisters had gone silent. In front of our vehicle was another car turning left in front of us as we continued to go straight at full speed. For the next five seconds, I waited to wake up from what felt like a complete nightmare that couldn’t possibly be my current reality. I never woke up. Before I knew it, our cars had hit each other and both went airborne, leaving our vehicle dead center in the intersection.
The three of us sat in the car for thirty seconds, simply trying to process everything that had happened. At that moment, I was experiencing an immense amount of pain in my chest from being slammed into the seat in front of me and being pulled back by my seatbelt. Tears started to fall down my face uncontrollably for the rest of the time we were at the location of the accident. Not only was I crying because of the pain I was currently experiencing, but also the realization that I was still alive. We all stepped out of the car and looked around to see all the people, either inside or out of their cars, staring at us and our destroyed vehicle. When the other driver finally stepped out of her car, we realized that she was just another teenage girl like the rest of us.
Kenzie approached the girl and asked, “Hey is everyone alright?”
The girl responded by throwing her hands up in the air and saying, “I had the green arrow, I know I had the green arrow!”
To this day, I am still shocked by the immediate attitude we received from this girl after experiencing a real-life game of bumper cars. As we continued to talk with the girl, we realized that she only had her paper license by this time and that she was driving two of her little cousins, who were around the age of seven. After calling 911, the police soon arrived at the scene, along with my parents. The teenage girl tried explaining to the police that she had the green arrow and that was why she was turning left at the time. Kaylin was honestly about to agree with the girl and accept the fact that her light must have been red. Before the police were convinced by this explanation, they informed us that the city had just put in traffic light cameras for the intersection a week before our accident. Obviously intrigued to see the truth of the accident, we all watched the video from the police officer.
Green light.
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