Personal stories, by their very nature, are always at least a little selfish.

Ask most opinion columnists to write about what they remember of their Thanksgiving weekend in 2016 and they’d probably come up with a retrospective on their thoughts and feelings surrounding Trump’s successful election to president, followed by their feelings regarding how the world has changed since then. Perhaps if the columnist lived in Chicago, they’d instead choose to write about the Cubs’ first and only World Series victory since 1908. Either way, they would probably choose an event millions of people experienced and invite their readers to reminisce and reflect on the shared experience with them.

Instead of doing that, I’m going to share a story about a car crash.

***

With the benefit of hindsight, even if the weather was good, it was an obviously bad plan.

My oldest son, then a teenager, was visiting me for Thanksgiving. Originally, his mother lived in Elko, which meant that, about once a month (give or take, depending on time and budget), I would drive the nearly 300 miles from wherever I lived in Reno during his childhood to wherever he lived in Elko, stay the weekend in a hotel, spend some time with him, then drive the nearly 300 miles back. A few years before 2016, however, he and his mom moved to one of Salt Lake City’s many suburbs, which meant that what used to be a four hour drive in each direction now took closer to eight. So, instead of seeing him once a month, I instead tried to see him for longer but less frequent visits when I had more time off from work, like Thanksgiving weekend.

The day before Thanksgiving, as soon as I got off work, I drove to Utah and stayed the night at a hotel. The following morning, I picked him up and drove back home. The plan for that weekend was to, on Sunday, make the drive back, drop him off, then drive back home, all during the same day. This would, in theory, maximize our time together at home at the expense of 16 hours straight of driving time — a small sacrifice for me, as I saw it, since I enjoy long road trips anyway.

Even without taking the weather into consideration — more on that in a bit — this was not a well thought out plan. My car, a white 2008 Kia Rio LX with more than 200,000 miles on it, ran pretty well for an eight-year-old Korean-built subcompact with hundreds of thousands of highway miles on the odometer, but I knew I was going to have to think about replacing it fairly soon. Little issues were starting to accumulate — the four-speed automatic transmission was starting to shift increasingly vaguely and erratically; if a crosswind hit the car just right, a plastic-on-plastic flapping noise would come from the front passenger door; the suspension groaned whenever it had to exert itself against a pothole or speed bump. The car, in other words, was reminding me that it’s not the years, it’s the miles, and 200,000 is a lot of miles.

When I bought the car during the Spring of 2009 — right at the start of the Great Recession — it was just after I started working in Minden, roughly 50 miles south of Reno. Though my financial situation was better than it was during college, I still had one last account in collections; consequently, my credit score, and my corresponding ability to borrow affordably, were effectively subterranean. Putting my lengthy commute and my inability to finance much of anything affordably together, I decided my best bet was to buy the cheapest, semi-disposable commuter car with a lengthy warranty and decent highway gas mileage I could find, get my money’s worth out of it by driving it until the wheels fell off (metaphorically, I hoped) while meticulously holding to the manufacturer’s maintenance schedule, then replace it with something better after I finished rehabilitating my finances. The Kia, much to my pleasant surprise, rewarded my fastidiousness by holding together long enough for me to finish making payments on it (plus the 20 percent interest charged on the loan) and never leaving me stranded at the side of the road.

Even so, it was always meant to be a temporary solution. The car was a way for me to get from home to work and back until my finances, credit score and job prospects improved enough to buy something better than barely adequate. By that Thanksgiving weekend, I was keeping the car more out of a combination of sheer stubbornness, miserly parsimony and morbid curiosity than any sort of practical material consideration. I told myself when I bought the car that I was going to drive it and take proper care of it until the wheels fell off. Now I was emotionally invested in finding out when that was going to be, exactly.

Until then, however, I was pinning the success of a 16-hour, 1,000 mile road trip in late fall through Northern Nevada and Utah on an increasingly mechanically tired car which, even when new, possessed some truly harrowing handling characteristics on snow and ice. The car didn’t have anti-lock brakes — quite the contrary, if there was ice on the road, one of the car’s rear drum brakes (it was never the same one) reliably locked under the faintest pedal pressure, threatening to throw the rear end one direction or another. It was also nearly impossible to get going once stopped on an icy hill — half of the time, it would just swerve either to the left or the right, usually preferring whichever direction seemed most suicidally dangerous. Granted, going up an icy incline isn’t something most front-wheel-drive cars are particularly good at because the weight shifts off of the drive wheels when driving uphill (the key, in my experience, is don’t stop), but even by those already familiarly weak standards, that car required more concentration and effort than most.

Naturally, early Sunday morning, it snowed.

***

The snowstorm wasn’t entirely unexpected. Though it was forecasted to strike most of Northern Nevada (the airports at Winnemucca, Battle Mountain, and Elko all received a dusting of snow), it was supposed to bring a light dusting, then melt off in the morning. My plan for the day was to leave a little bit later than I would have otherwise — say, a couple hours after sunrise — to give the things a chance to defrost. It was a good excuse to sleep in a little anyway.

Then I woke up. I looked out the window. The roads surrounding my home were covered in snow. My reaction was not entirely dissimilar to this.

Even so, I was backed into a corner. Like most kids his age, my son had school the following morning, only his school was 500 miles away and I was his ride. Abandoning the trip was out of the question — the drive was just going to take longer than I thought, that’s all. We got dressed, packed the car, picked up some breakfast at a drive-thru, then started heading east.

After the Truckee River flows east through Reno, Sparks and Truckee Meadows more generally, it cuts a channel between the Pah Rah Range to the north and the Virginia Range (not to be confused with the Virginia Mountains, which are on the other side of the Pah Rah Range, nor Virginia Peak, which is the second-tallest peak in the Pah Rah Range) to the south. As far as riverine passes go, the one created by the Truckee River is relatively gentle — it’s no mountain-walled Rocky Mountain pass with tight, blind corners, persistently falling rocks and steep drops.

Interstate 80 parallels the Truckee River for roughly 30 miles until it reaches Fernley and, in so doing, follows the natural contours the Truckee River has carved for itself through the generations. Under normal conditions, the curves of the Truckee River’s canyon are gentle enough for most drivers to usually travel with some safety at interstate speed limits (please pay careful attention to the conditionals — accidents aren’t uncommon on this stretch of highway). In inclement weather, however — like immediately following a snowstorm — those same gentle curves with adequate enough sightlines to drive mostly safely-ish at 65 miles per hour or so become blind, treacherous corners at half that speed.

Only a few miles after we left Sparks, roughly halfway between the Lockwood and Mustang off-ramps, Interstate 80 curves to the left. Around that curve that morning was a car accident, which blocked the left lane and was being cleaned up by emergency personnel. Fortunately, I was in the right lane and saw it in time to start slowing down, feathering the brakes and keeping a close eye on how my car’s rear end felt while doing so. When two cars flew past me, however — first one in the left lane heading directly towards the accident, then a second car via the emergency lane to my right — I realized with sudden dread that I had to worry every bit as much about what was happening behind me as I did about what was happening in front of me.

That’s when the semi truck hit.

After a loud, crunchy pop, my car was pointed nearly ninety degrees to the left of the direction it was previously pointed. As it slowed, it began to gain traction in the direction it was pointed, perpendicular to the freeway — just in time for the semi which had just rear-ended me to come into view in front of me.

Just in time for my car to slam into its trailer.

This can’t be good. (David Colborne/The Nevada Independent)

As I observed the crease the trailer created against my windshield, I began an inventory. Was I alive? (Yes.) Was I hurt? (Didn’t seem to be; I wiggled my fingers and toes just to make sure.) Was my son alive and unharmed? (I asked him — he was fine.) Once satisfied that the present was not the worst of all possible outcomes, given the circumstances, my thoughts turned to the immediate future.

My car was wedged under a semi truck, perpendicular to the freeway, with the driver’s side facing oncoming traffic. Two cars passed me before impact because they were going too fast to slow down. When was the next car coming? Would it slow down or veer off before hitting my car? If not, would my son and I live through the impact? 

***

With those questions in mind, let’s discuss the side impact safety of a 2008 Kia Rio LX.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), an agency within the federal Department of Transportation, the 2008 Kia Rio received four stars out of five for side crash safety for the driver (as both my son and I were sitting up front, this is the rating that matters). However, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), a nonprofit organization supported by auto insurers and insurance associations, gave 2006-11 Hyundai Accents and Kia Rios (they share a common design) a Poor rating overall for side impact safety, with driver side safety in particular receiving Poor ratings for torso and pelvis/leg driver injury measures.

Both the IIHS and NHTSA test for side impacts using similar methodologies — they load up a vehicle with a standardized barrier and a standardized amount of mass, then drive it into the side of a car at a predefined speed. There were, however, a couple of differences between the methodologies used against this generation of cars. The NHTSA tested the Kia Rio using a 3,000-pound Moving Deformable Barrier (MDB), which struck the side of the car at roughly 38 miles per hour. The IIHS, however, used a heavier, taller barrier to better simulate a side impact from a pickup or SUV. When the Kia was tested, the IIHS was testing with a 3,300-pound barrier at 31 miles per hour — nowadays, the IIHS tests newer cars with a 4,180-pound barrier at 37 miles per hour.

When considering these seemingly lackluster safety ratings, context is important. Both the IIHS and NHTSA have been crash testing vehicles for decades, and, in so doing, have provided manufacturers with the information they need to build safer cars. This was vividly illustrated when, for the IIHS’ 50th anniversary, they crashed a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu into a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air — while the driver in the Malibu was protected by an airbag and a strong cage around the passenger compartment, the driver of the Bel Air was impaled by the steering column and launched into the ceiling. That’s why, according to the NHTSA, the average vehicle on the road in 2012 (nearly a decade ago now) had an estimated 56 percent lower fatality risk for its occupants than the average vehicle on the road in the late 1950s — and newer cars are even safer.

Side impact protection in particular, a common source of vehicular fatalities in intersections, has received considerable attention over the past few decades. According to a review conducted by the NHTSA of vehicle safety technologies developed between 1960 and 2012, the development of side door beams in the late 1960s, improvements to vehicle structure and padding during the 1990s, and the installation of curtain and side airbags in most new cars (including my Kia Rio) during the 2000s each reduced fatalities from side impacts by 15 to 25 percent. Cumulatively, they’ve roughly doubled the chances of survival from most side impact crashes.

Consequently, though the 2008 Kia Rio may not have been particularly safe in a side impact compared to its peers, it still possessed safety technologies, like curtain airbags and a stronger passenger compartment cage, which weren’t present on any car I drove during college. Those cars, in turn, possessed safety technologies which weren't present on any car I grew up in during the 1980s and 1990s. Statistically, then, I was probably less than half as likely to die from a side impact in that car than I would have been if I experienced a side impact in, say, the Pontiac T1000 my parents drove when I was in preschool.

That didn’t mean my chances, nor my son’s chances, of death were zero — and our chances for serious, life-changing debilitating injuries were certainly considerably higher than that, especially because my car’s structural integrity had already been compromised.

***

The first thing I was thankful for after the accident happened was that my son and I both appeared to be in good health. 

The second thing I was thankful for was when oncoming traffic stopped — and stayed stopped.

Guess I won’t be conducting an unscheduled test of the side impact protection of a 2008 Kia Rio after all.

After nervously watching the oncoming traffic for — seconds? a minute? a few minutes? time was admittedly fluid during all of this — a first responder knocked on my son’s door on the passenger side of the car and asked if we could get out.

Thankfully, we could. My son opened his door, I crawled over the center console, and we both walked away from this:

While we stood in the snow and waited for a ride back to town, I found more to be thankful for. The accident happened near my home instead of hours later and miles from anywhere. I was also thankful that, despite it being Thanksgiving weekend, there were still flights available from Reno to Salt Lake City, so he could still get back to his mother’s in time for school the next day.

Finally, I had to admit — the snow really made the scenery picturesque that morning.

***

Quite a bit has changed for me over the past five years. My oldest son, the one I was trying to return to Utah, is now an adult, and his younger brother will be starting high school next year. I got divorced, then got engaged, and, if all goes according to plan, will be marrying the kindest, smartest, and most amazing woman I’ve ever met next year. I got a new car, of course; it’s now five years old and, like its predecessor, has more miles on it than it probably should have at this point in its life. I was promoted to management at my day job. I also started writing columns for this publication — thank you for reading this one, by the way.

The biggest change since the accident, however, is how I approach life, time, and thankfulness more generally. Thankfulness is no longer something for saccharine-sweet, hyper-sentimental cable television movies I try to avoid whenever I visit family (though I do still avoid those when and where I can — not everything has changed). Instead, it’s an acknowledgement that I and many of my loved ones have been rather lucky and fortunate over the years. It’s an appreciation for learning how to better balance the risks life presents — like the financial risk of buying an airplane ticket on Thanksgiving weekend versus the risks inherent in driving for 16 hours in late November, for example. It’s an understanding that there have been several moments in my life when things could have been worse, perhaps should have been worse — but they weren’t, and it’s important to be mindful and glad for that.

I’m thankful for many things this weekend, but one thing I’m particularly thankful for right now is I have the time and opportunity to write for you. If circumstances were just a little bit different, you might be reading someone else’s column right now — and I will never, ever forget that.

Happy Thanksgiving and happy holidays.

David Colborne was active in the Libertarian Party for two decades. During that time, he blogged intermittently on his personal blog, ran for office twice as a Libertarian candidate, and served on the executive committee for his state and county Libertarian Party chapters. He is now an IT manager, a registered non-partisan voter, and the father of two sons. You can follow him on Twitter @DavidColborne or email him at [email protected].