Michael picked up the car, which we are renting for a month, from the dealers yesterday at 1.30pm. He got his civil ID, and then his Kuwait drivers license just 2 weeks ago. And today, we had our first car accident - ever!
Now there is always a lot of talk about the driving here in Kuwait. People have a lot of money and petrol and cars are cheap, so there are a lot of fast new cars on the road. The biggest problem here is that people drive way too fast.
We had just been talking about cars, and tossing up whether it's better to have a fast car that can accelerate out of tricky situations, or a big car that can protect you in an accident, especially where the fault is someone else's.
Driving down the Gulf Road, suddenly someone stopped in front of us. Michael slammed on his breaks, and I thought we were OK, but then he yelled "We're going to be hit", and then...BANG... sure enough, a 4x4 slammed into us. Thank God we were in an Audi, and thank God Lenny wasn't with us, because if he hadn't had a seat belt on he would have been slammed into the front.
The guy behind us hurt his leg a bit, and the woman in front had 3 kids in the car, but luckily, none of them were hurt, just a bit shocked. We were shocked as well, and took a while to take it in. The police came and filed a report - I don't think it could be anyone's fault, and it seems that the blame thing is not pursued the way it is in Australia. Accidents happen, and the insurance is paid, the cars are fixed and life (in'shallah) goes on. Tomorrow we all meet at the local police station, the report is written and handed out, and, I hope, that is the end of it.
But today's lessons - wear a seatbelt at all times, don't drive fast, and drive a big mother of a car! The next one for us will be a 4x4.
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