Shaken, but Not Stirred

I was stopped at the light this morning, southbound on 2200 West, going to turn left to eastbound 5400 South. The light turned green, I saw the intersection was clear, and proceeded to turn left. Two lanes out, I saw an SUV headed towards me, not trying to stop. The speed limit on 5400 is 45 mph. I honked, but saw that the driver wasn’t stopping, so I decided to get out of Dodge as fast as I could. Only it wasn’t fast enough.

Once I got over the shock of being hit and realized my car was still sitting in the middle of the intersection, I started to pull it to the side of 5400. Then I realized that would be more dangerous than 2200, so I pulled it over to the west side of 2200, south of 5400. My car limped along, scraping and grating as it went. I unbuckled my seatbelt; it was reluctant to release me until it realized the car was at rest and the ignition turned off.

I checked myself for injuries. Finding no blood, seeing no protrusions from my skin, and having no extreme pain anywhere, I determined it was okay for me to get out. My door gave pause at the idea of me exiting into the street until I threatened it with the jaws of life. Fingers shaking, I called 911. I realized there were people approaching and went to meet them. One lady said she was a witness, offering to make a statement and leaving her contact info. Still in a state of shock, my synapses did not extract my unpleasant memories of what happens when one leaves the scene of an accident if the total damage is sufficiently large. Thus she received no warning from me, and it wasn’t until just now that I thought of asking the police officer to only give her a warning if anything.

Now that the shock has worn off, my body is telling me something happened in that intersection involving a lot of momentum, you know, p = mv.