Guest post by Linda Bradshaw
One of the scariest moments I have ever had was when I was driving to class and the hood of the car that I was driving suddenly sprang open! At the time I was driving about sixty miles per hour and all of a sudden all I can see in front of me is the solid dark blue color of the hood of my car! I could not even see any crack of a space down near the bottom of the hood for me to be able to navigate!
Well, what would YOU do if that happened to you? I was afraid to slam on the brakes, for fear of going into a skid. My mind frantically tried to remember if the stretch of road ahead was straight, or curvy, and I tried to remember if there was any oncoming traffic to worry about swerving into. I was glad that I was alone in the car because I am sure that they would have freaked out, making me a lot more nervous to boot!
After a quick glance in the rear view mirror to make sure that I would not endanger anyone behind me if I DID lose control, and seeing that there was no vehicle in sight behind me, I decided to try to steer straight ahead (praying that the road WAS straight) and to gently apply the brakes in such a manner as to not go into a skid. My guardian angel must have been on my shoulder that afternoon, because I managed to stop the car and put on my emergency flashers. I opened my car door to allow me to see a little bit and pulled off to the side of the road.
I put the car in park, and got out of the car. There were two men that had been mowing the roadside overgrowth near where this occurred and they came running over to see if I was OK. We all looked at the hood of the car and could not figure out why in the world it had flown open, but the fact that it DID fly open when I was driving so fast bent the hinges and the hood would not close all of the way. Fortunately for me, I had some rope in the trunk and the men helped me tie the hood shut so I could continue on my way. I drove straight to the car repair garage, and they gave me a loaner so I could go to class. And they fixed the hood for free, too. I wonder if this was a common problem with that kind of car; I never heard about a recall!