{"id":997,"date":"2013-06-22T07:39:28","date_gmt":"2013-06-22T11:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=997"},"modified":"2014-05-20T16:00:46","modified_gmt":"2014-05-20T20:00:46","slug":"turning-to-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/22\/turning-to-terror\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning to Terror"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know I complain about driving, a lot (see\u00a0“Driving Frustration”<\/a>\u00a0and “On the Road”<\/a>) but lately my South Florida driving adventures have hit an all new level.\u00a0 After some very close calls, I have actually become scared of driving, especially with my children in the car.<\/span><\/p>\n

Five times (that I can remember) in the past few weeks I have been nearly side-swiped.\u00a0 Somehow cars just don\u2019t see me and think\u00a0they should come into my lane when I am already there.\u00a0 It happened twice just yesterday.\u00a0 The first one was when I was driving home from teaching with Doodle, only about \u00bd a mile from home at an intersection where I regularly walk.\u00a0 I was in the outside lane of a double left turn.\u00a0 The car in the inside lane decided they actually wanted to turn right immediately after the corner.\u00a0 I saw the car riding the line as we made the turn and then it continued to come over into my lane until the car was nearly in the space where my car was.\u00a0 I was forced to slam on the breaks, hard enough to send my purse flying forward, and scary enough to make me lay on the horn and shout\u00a0 words (many words) that I would not have said if my girls had been in the car.\u00a0 The person didn\u2019t even flinch or acknowledge his\/her mistake.\u00a0 I then noticed s\/he had a \u201cChoose Life\u201d license plate yet this person nearly smashed into the side of my car where my newborn child was seated.\u00a0 So abortion is not okay but endangering a newborn\u2019s life by driving recklessly is?<\/span><\/p>\n

The second time yesterday I was luckily by myself.\u00a0 A car turned left out of a shopping center onto the two lane road going in the same direction where I was driving in the right lane, but instead of turning into the left lane, they continued into the right lane, again, right where I was.\u00a0 So again, I laid on the horn only this time I didn\u2019t scream or curse, I cried.\u00a0 It scares me so much to have experienced this so often lately and to have it happen twice in a matter of hours put me over the edge.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve tried to analyze what I may be doing wrong that causes this to keep happening but I can\u2019t figure out how staying \u00a0in my own lane and paying attention (thankfully!) to the other cars puts me at fault.\u00a0 I feel invisible and I am becoming terrified of driving with my children.\u00a0 Even now just thinking about the outrageous number of close calls we\u2019ve had lately makes me tear up.\u00a0 I feel it is inevitable that I will eventually get smashed into and I worry for the safety of my two little munchkins that are seated by the doors.\u00a0 If we do ever get hit, I know it won\u2019t be my fault because I know I am the safest, most conscientious driver I can possibly be but I also know I will forever have massive mommy guilt if anything were to happen to any of my babies while I am at the wheel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know I complain about driving, a lot (see\u00a0“Driving Frustration”\u00a0and “On the Road”) but lately my South Florida driving adventures have hit an all new level.\u00a0 After some very close calls, I have actually become scared of driving, especially with my children in the car. Five times (that I can remember) in the past few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-mommys-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=997"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4514,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997\/revisions\/4514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}