Wednesday, February 18, 2009  Accidents will happen...
...especially on rainy roads in normally dry Southern
California. Sometimes they involve a lot of cars. If you're
truly unfortunate, one of those cars is yours.  Guess who was
truly unfortunate on Monday afternoon?  My family spent the
President's Day weekend at my mother-in-law's, and started the
drive home after lunch on Monday. The weather was iffy, so we
wanted to allow extra time for traffic tie-ups. Even so, we
weren't doing too badly time-wise when we reached the San
Fernando Valley. We drove through rainy patches, overcast areas,
spots of sunshine, and some places that seemed to mix them all,
like the stretch of the 101 Freeway through Calabasas.
Suddenly, cars were slowing down and switching lanes abruptly,
and our attempt to take evasive action was unsuccessful. We
rear-ended another car, the airbags deployed, and Tall Paul
steered us off the road to the right-hand shoulder, where we
came to a stop. The kids were scared and we were stunned, bu