So… What happens when someone elects to cross their Saturn with a Jeep Wrangler? Well, here’s how the Wrangler looks:

Here’s how the Saturn looks:

Basically, this is the result of a Saturn pulling across two lanes of traffic at the behest of someone stopped on the inside lane of two lanes going the same direction. (“The lady waved me across” is the quote that I will remember from this event.) I was in the outside of those two lanes, and wasn’t party to either the decision to wave across, nor the decision to pull across both lanes. I was, however, driving the unfortunate vehicle that was in a position to t-bone the passenger side of the Saturn.

Becky and I are ok, as was the other driver, apparently. I’ve got a couple of bruises, and some soreness, but that’s to be expected.

So how’s the Jeep? Well, the bumper damage is visible in the photo. The steering appears to be off by a bit, measured by the steering wheel not being aligned right when the Jeep’s driving straight down the road. The biggest weirdness is the steering wheel itself. It appears that at the time of impact, I had a death grip on the top of the wheel… and bent the steering wheel a fair amount. Near as I can figure, that probably was the culmination of my arms being stiff, preparing for impact, and holding on rigidly enough to push the top of the wheel forward.

So we’re ok. I’m really bummed about it though, along with all the uncertainty that comes along with something like this. Deep breaths….