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I was thinking the other day while driving toward Oradea that I recently renewed my driver’s license, so I already have over 10 years of driving experience.

However, in these years, despite having had accidents, only one can truly be considered my fault.

The first accident was with my parent’s car, a Ford Focus. We went to the forest with a sled in tow (myself, Cata, and her cousins) to have some sledding fun with the car pulling us. After picking up the girls, we started on our way, and not long after… a lady came from the opposite direction (her lane was occupied by parked cars). We both hit the brakes, but the car slipped, and we stopped just before the collision. My car had only a slightly bent license plate, but hers was in bad shape, with the airbag deployed, the radiator broke, and more.

Since I was a beginner and clueless, and also because I didn’t want to immediately tell my parents about the accident, the lady’s husband arrived and instantly started swearing and intimidating me. They called a mutual friend who claimed to be a policeman, and he declared me at fault, arguing that her lane was a “parking” area. The sign clearly indicated “no parking” on her lane, but that’s how things sometimes work here, with connections and acquaintances. Even the lady acknowledged that I helped her by accepting the blame. She repaired her car using her insurance, and she said, “Next year when the insurance needs to be paid, you’ll have my number, and I’ll cover it.” Yeah, right.

The next minor accident was entirely my fault. I was on my way to work and thought of sending a message to Catalina while at a roundabout. While typing, I had the impression that the car in front of me had moved and entered the roundabout, so I released the clutch slightly, but in reality… I collided with the car in front of me :)). It was a car with a trailer, and nothing happened to the car in front. The driver got out, looked at the damage, and laughed because only my front bumper was damaged. He drove off, and I had to pay for a new bumper for my car.

Another accident that wasn’t my fault happened in 2014. I wrote about it here. In short: a car braked abruptly to exit the road without signaling, and the car in front of me also braked suddenly, and since I had enough distance, I managed to stop without hitting the car in front. However, another car behind me didn’t stop in time and hit me, pushing me into the car in front, and then someone else hit the car behind me. It was a chain accident. The insurance didn’t pay anything after months of negotiation because the policeman who handled the case didn’t mention all the cars involved in the accident in the official report, and the insurance company took advantage of it.

My first accident with my own car happened, guess what… not my fault! I went to visit the construction site of my house and then headed to a hypermarket outside the city, using the Beltway. From the opposite direction, a BMW slowly moved into my lane, and I kept turning the steering wheel right, but I had nowhere else to go because there was a bridge there, and I would have wrecked my car badly, or worse… fallen off. I had my car parked in the insurance company’s yard for months after this. They didn’t pay attention to it, claimed it was a total loss, but they didn’t compensate me for it either… I have a picture from the incident here.

The next accident didn’t even happen while I was driving. My sister Daria was driving with Cata and Iosua in the car. I mention this because it’s related to the next one. The front bumper of our Touran got damaged, the wheel got stuck, etc. We were at fault, so our insurance covered the damages to the car we hit.

Shortly after the above accident (about a month later), my car was already repaired, the wheel straightened, and the bumper replaced, etc. I went to a store, bought something quickly, and when I was backing out of the store’s parking lot, at the same time, another car came out from the opposite direction and hit me. Again, it was difficult to determine fault since we both did the same thing at the same time. But since he was driving a company car, I gave him my insurance information. So, within 2 months, my insurance bonus class dropped by 4 positions.

I think these were the major accidents I’ve had in over 10 years of driving. I’ve avoided many others, and I may have lightly touched some cars or hydrants while parking 😂, but nothing serious. I consider myself a relatively cautious driver, and I can avoid accidents, but I also have my limits :). The bottom line is that from the list above, I only consider one accident to be 100% my fault.