‘Itchy Mustache’ Sends Cars Into Trees

The Washington State Patrol has a really savvy social media presence and often posts funny, but safety-related, stories from the daily grind across the state.

Say for instance, a gentlemen troopers found after he plowed into trees along the interstate ...

Distracted driving was the "safety" portion of the story of course, but that's an excuse too ridiculous not to be true.

My first car accident was similarly ridiculous.

I was in high school of course, barely driving for a few months.

I was on the way home from school and rocking out to Pink Floyd on the radio.

It was the time of the year when the sun was at the point on the horizon that blinded you around mid-afternoon. There was a school bus in front of me on the road to my house and a new Geo Metro with paper tags in between us. The bus didn't happen to have working brake lights and the bus driver drove like a bat out of hell, slamming on the brakes at every stop.

Well, during the course of the six-minute Floyd tune we turned a corner and the bus slammed on its brakes and neither the car in front of me or I saw it. I was sneezing and the driver of the Geo was flipping off her little brother sitting in the back of the bus with his middle school friends.

They hit the bus and I shoved them under it with my Ford Festiva. We were military brats on base, so as soon as the SP's (or Security Police, as the Air Force calls their base law enforcement) were on scene, my dad knew because they called him.

A whopping 15 mph and both the new Geo and the Festiva were totaled. It was my dad's work car.

I got a job as a lifeguard and bought the next car I drove for $500. It was 1992 and I had a Toyota Celica -- made in 1980. But it wasn't dad's and I could drive it.

Well, at least after my dad took the transmission apart and replaced the clutch, all the belts, plugs, wires...