The Accident

A young driver, road rage, and the best of Italy meet at the station.

We know a girl who had recently passed her driver’s exam. She borrowed her parents’ car to drive a friend to the train station. A series of things made the drive tense—they were running late, her friend had to make this particular train, and the car was almost out of gas. With no time to stop to refuel they worried they’d run out. They arrived with minutes to spare to get to the train.

She said goodbye to her friend, and was tired, relieved, and still a bit stressed. She just needed to get gas and all was accomplished. She got back into the car, and as she tried to drive away, there was a problem. A car was parked in the very narrow roundabout in front of the station with no driver in sight. The line of impatient drivers behind her was growing, as was her uncertainty about how to handle the situation, especially as the station entrance had recently been renovated and the old drop-off zone had disappeared, replaced by this tiny, “emergency vehicles” only lane.

She waited for a minute and no driver appeared, so she decided to edge past the parked car. She hit the inner side of the roundabout, hard enough to put dents in her parents’ car, bend the traffic sign, and lodge the car on the curb.

At this point, the owner of the offending vehicle reappeared. He was in his sixties and with a younger woman. They headed for their car and started to drive away. A man in the car behind got out to shout that she needed to not let them get away before she got their information. She called her mother, who in the quick exchange assumed that her daughter had hit the parked car, rather than the center post, and also said that her daughter should get the contact and insurance information from the other driver. She approached the man and the younger woman, who refused to give her their information, as they had done nothing wrong and their car was untouched.

She was desperate. She had wrecked her parents’ car, there was a line of people shouting conflicting advice about what to do, and the people in the car that had blocked her were refusing to give her the information she thought she must have. She could only think of standing in the way of the other driver’s door, blocking him from closing it.

Then things went really wrong. He grabbed her to get her away from his door. She felt under attack and scratched his face. She called her parents to tell them what had just happened, and that the police had been called due to the physical altercation and were arriving at the scene. Her parents said that they would be there as soon as possible.

Our friends told us of the agonizing moments they spent on the half-hour drive to the station. Having just finished a book about the Amanda Knox case, horrible scenarios of the sometimes fishy Italian justice system were going through their heads. They said they were shaking with shock and dread, almost sick, especially as there was no cell phone connection for most of their drive and they had no idea what was happening.

When they arrived at the scene there were around ten police officers, and several police cars with lights flashing, blocking the entrance to the station. The husband jumped out to join their daughter and the clutch of police while the mother searched for parking.

The dad was met by a policeman who walked up to him with a big smile and said that he lived in their village and that his daughter had been in a local advertising video with their son several years ago when they were both kids. He had just had a long talk with their daughter that she needed to learn to approach life con calma. The dad quickly texted the wife, who was still searching for parking, and told her that it seemed that not all was lost.

Their daughter was standing next to the younger woman who had returned to the parked car—she turned out to be the daughter of the man who was scratched. Our friends’ daughter had been sobbing uncontrollably about what she had done and this woman held her while she cried.

The mom arrived at this point, and it took several minutes to unravel what had happened and what part the various parties had played. She was stunned that the two strangers comforting her daughter were, in fact, the people she had harmed.

The girl had immediately recognized that she had gone too far in her anger and fear and kept returning to the older man asking if there was anything she could do, each time crying harder as she saw the bleeding scratches. The man and his daughter were consoling her, saying that she could have been a member of their family, mistakes happen, and that we all react emotionally sometimes.

The man’s daughter confessed that when she was younger she hit an old man with her car, and that the scratches didn’t really matter as her dad was already old and ugly. He agreed, and laughed. Our friend’s daughter learned that the man had double parked in order to come into the station and help his daughter with a heavy suitcase. Our friends told us that this resulted in a fresh round of sobbing.

The officer who had first talked with her returned and told her to always look for the good in people. Another officer prepared a police report and took their daughter’s statement. Although she didn’t say anything about the other factors that contributed to the situation the officer put in the report that the girl was upset because she’d wrecked her parents’ car, and that the crowd, and her mother’s erroneous advice, had added to her reaction. The report added that she was a young driver and this was her first accident. The officer didn’t mention the scratches, only that she had defended herself with her hands.

The officer remarked that she’d never seen such identical statements from both the girl and the older man. Three different officers apologized to the family and the girl that they needed to issue a ticket for entering into the wrong place in the newly rerouted station layout, as well as for damaging the sign.

All began to disperse and the man and his daughter came up to the parents and their daughter. Hugs were generously shared and it was unclear who was in the most shock, the bleeding man, the daughter, or the stunned parents.

Yes, Italy.