The Road Ahead

Just north of a year ago, I made a terrible decision made out of immature inexperience that nearly cost me my life.After the Litchfield Fair, at around 10 PM, I was getting in my car, a silver 2002 Ford Focus hatchback, manual gearbox, I had bought the car for my 16th birthday as I was going for my license. I loved the car, I picked it, purchased it from a former mechanic out of Topsham, and was 3/4 of the way paid my auto loan I had gotten to buy it, something most 16 year olds can’t say they had done with no outside financial assistance. But in one night on September 9,2016 it was all taken away.

As I was pulling out of the back parking lot, I noticed the steady stream of traffic leaving all down Hallowell Road, I figured i’d head down Libby Road which connected to Huntington Hill, the route i’d take to avoid traffic and get home at a hopefully better time with less interaction with other drivers, I hadn’t driven on Huntington Hill in a while (week or so) but I had grown up driving on Huntington Hill and knew it like the back of my hand, so I figured nothing out of the ordinary would occur.

As I pulled onto Huntington Hill from Libby Road, I began the drive at a typical 50 mph in the 45 mph zone, being mostly a straight road the 45 was something people regularly pushed a little, and as I said before, I knew the roads pretty well so I began doing the same. As I went along the road I got up to around 60, nothing crazy, in fact pretty regular, I wasn’t even thinking of my speed or driving it was so per the norm. Than I hit the literal straight stretch between Meadows Golf Course and Applewald Farms,stretching about a mile down the length of the straight, it was perfectly normal, so I decided to have a little fun, I punched it, that 60 turned to 70, than 80, 90, and right as I hit the triple digits, something jumped out front of me.

As I had said before I knew this road extremely well, I hadn’t driven on it in a handful of days, but how often does something completely change within that short of time? Now when I say something jumped out front of me, it wasn’t a deer or dog at a 100 MPH in my stupid idea of simply having fun, rather it was a sudden dropoff from pavement, to loose gravel, as I hit it I saw the very last second ‘PAVEMENT ENDS HERE’ road sign. And I felt the bottom of my silver hatchback slam against the ground, I looked down at that speedometer and it read 95 MPH. No sooner I felt that slam on the ground, did I look up and realize the front of my car was facing trees, I aggresively cut back my wheel,went the other way, cut one more time, than one more, looking down once again I was at a much more comfortable 10 MPH, of course I was still sliding across a gravel road, which was an issue, but much more manageable issue none the less, but I finally lost my forward progress and slid into the oncoming lane, going over the shoulder, dipping my right front fender into the loose dirt built up from the road tearup, and flipped oh so slowly onto my roof. ` I was fully aware of my situation and knew I was physically safe, I unbuckled myself, fell onto my roof and let out a few expletives, I heard voices screaming, yelling if I was okay, I replied with a simple “I’m fine I just need a light so I can crawl out.” to which I did of course, I called a parent on someone who came to assist phone (mine was dead), my parents came, my car was brought home, in the police report I told the officer I was going 55, same thing I told my father, same thing I told everyone, I tried blaming it on the lack of signs, and even though that was a real problem, I didn’t tell a soul, nor was their any evidence, I had gone 100 MPH onto that pavement dropoff, and as I said before, I tried placing the blame for months, damn near a year, but it was my mistake, one that caused me to have to finish paying off that car loan, along with restart a whole other one, oh and not to mention, almost (should have) killed me at the age of 16 on the way home from the Litchfield Fair.