How Karin (didn't) cause an accident

Karin got her driver's license and Eda bought her a car.

One day she was driving her car and approaching a designated pedestrian crossing. A woman with a stroller was waiting there. She stopped and gave her the right of way. That's when she heard a crash. Someone had hit her from behind with such force that the headrest had crushed her hair clip.

Karin got out and went to look. The guilty party in the accident was a dazed pensioner. His wife told her that he had a high fever, was feeling sick, even faint, and that she was therefore taking him (from the passenger seat) to the emergency room. The explanation she received was apparently intended to justify his inattentiveness behind the wheel. It seemed like that was the case.

Afterwards, during these evidentiary proceedings, she was instructed to drive carefully around the hospital because of the concentration of sick people. The gentleman had been granted this status by his wife in advance. To the wife, driving carefully apparently meant running everyone off the road. The guilty party in her eyes was Karin

.

Another day Karin was driving her car again and approached a traffic light at an intersection. Since the light turned amber and she wasn't the first in line, she slammed on her brakes. But the 30-year-old driver behind her didn't. She heard the familiar crash and was again hit in the head by the headrest.

She had barely got out of the car when he told her that she was still supposed to cross the intersection and that she didn't know how to drive. Her head ached from the impact, so she didn't have the strength to contradict him.

A few months later, Karin was driving her car in an orderly manner again. As she drove through an intersection, she realized that another car was entering it at the same time at the same speed. The second car was coming at her from the left. But she was the one on the main road, of that she was absolutely certain. However, the driver of the other car had the same certainty, albeit false. The side impact knocked her car off course and demolished the front and rear doors.

She got out the passenger door and went to look at the damage. A married couple in their fifties got out of the other car. The husband was polite, and wanted to write up an insurance report. However, his wife shouted at him not to be stupid and to settle with Karin on the spot. They offered her 14,000,- which she refused with a thank you (the final damage amounted to 120,000,- CZK).

While filling in the insurance report, she sighed out loud that, contrary to the stereotypical narrative that women are worse drivers, this was the third time in one year that a man had crashed into her.

The wife, agitated by the accident and the prospect of losing her insurance bonus, shouted at her: "Now you've exposed yourself. If you're always hit by a man and never by a woman, you're clearly provoking those men and all the accidents are your own fault. I don't drive, for example, so I can't provoke any man into an accident. A woman doesn't belong behind the wheel!"

At home, Karin confided in Ed, crying. He remarked, "That guy deserves his wife. I've also had bad experiences with women I've hit with my car."