I had a fairly major automobile accident this evening on my way home from work. A woman in a full-sized van pulled across the street in front of me. I was doing about 45 mph, and I slammed the brakes on, but couldn't avoid the collision. Wow, both airbags deployed, shattering the windshield and filling the car with smoke. I thought for a time that the vehicle was on fire. I stopped, and put the gear lever in Park, but the car continued rolling forward when I let off the brake. For a moment I couldn't think how to stop the car. Then, of course, I switched off the ignition.

After I stopped the car, I went to the van to see if they were okay. Thankfully, the driver and her three daughters were all unhurt. No injuries except for burns and "road rash" on my arms from the airbag. One of the paramedics told me that the airbag frequently causes severe injury in relatively "minor" accidents. This didn't seem all that minor to me, but I guess any accident that everyone walks away from is relatively minor.

The other driver kept apologizing and saying she didn't see me. I could tell she felt really bad about the wreck. I told her that as long as everyone was okay, we had nothing to worry about. Her husband was following her on his Harley. When I discovered that fact, I nearly had an emotional breakdown thinking about what might have happened had I hit the motorcycle rather than the huge van. The lady told me that she had been praying that her husband would be okay on the bike as they returned home to a small town about 100 miles away. Scary stuff.

The police officer wrote the other driver two tickets for failure to yield right of way and for driving without insurance. She repeatedly apologized, and I told her everything was going to be alright. As I left after the wrecker took my vehicle, she apologized again and told me she would pray that I wouldn't be in pain from my (very minor) injuries. I am so thankful to God that the no one was injured. My car is probably totalled, but we are all thankful to be uninjured.

I've been trying to stay away from political posts, but I simply cannot resist tonight. Not that it matters, no one is reading this anyway. I see the Congress is passing legislation that will require states to verify that a person is a legal resident prior to issuing them a driver's license. I see little to disagree with in this legislation on the face of it. Having said that, though, I must say that I do not believe it will make us any safer than we are now. The 9-11 terrorists were in this country legally. They were not illegal aliens.

Secondly, this provision will be quite expensive for the states to comply with, requiring massive new investments in technology and manpower. While I'm on the subject of national security, isn't it time to repeal the Patriot Act? That horrendously expensive monstrosity was foisted upon us during a time of national crisis when the Congress needed to make it appear that they were doing something useful to protect the people. All they managed to accomplish is to spend billions of dollars for no good reason and to infringe upon the rights guaranteed us in the Constitution. Whatever happened to the idea that Republicans are for smaller and less intrusive government?