Just a foot

The day was going quite well, and I picked the YFG up from school and headed off to gymnastics up the road.  Travelling along a fairly straight piece of road at about 50mph, I was chatting away with the YFG when all of a sudden there was an enormous bang behind me and I thought something had hit the car from behind.

The rear side door window right behind me had broken - it had a huge hole in it and the glass in the window was totally shattered.  In shock, my first reaction was to pull over and put the hazard warning lights on, but I only sat there for a minute because the damaged window was obviously on the road-side of the car and it was too dangerous to get out and do anything there because the road was too busy.  I crept along and turned off at the next opportunity, onto the road which heads home.  I was able then to pull over into a haulage yard and stop to think, and try to stop shaking!  I rang the FH and he advised us to come home slowly, but I carefully pushed the glass out of the window and into the car before I moved off again, because I was worried about it flying out and hurting anyone.

We made it home, and I called the insurance company.  They put me through to Autoglass who should be coming out to repair it, but I haven't received an email from them yet....the glass will be in the depot on Monday so it won't be repaired at least until then.

We eventually made it to gymnastics, much later than we should have been, and the head coach wasn't exactly chuffed that he had had to do all the setting out on his own, but we had tried to contact him in a variety of ways to no avail, so we just had to explain when we got there.

We can only presume that something either flew off a vehicle moving in the opposite direction, or such a vehicle threw a stone up.  I am just relieved that it wasn't a foot further forward that it hit or it would have been my window and I have no idea how I would have reacted to that.  I am also glad that it didn't happen on the same stretch of road yesterday when I had both girls in the car, as one of them would have been in the back of the car.  I have a £75 excess on glass on the car insurance policy so I have had to pay that and have no hope of getting it back from anyone - it was just an accident, and I have no idea how it happened.

What a day!  In twenty years of driving I have never had anything as dramatic or as frightening happen to me before, so I hope it is the only thing in the next twenty years as well, as I can do without that kind of drama!