I’m a little sore right now.

This morning I had to take a cab to a meeting north of the city. As we drove east on Adelaide, moving at a pretty good clip, we approached the light at Parliament. I could see that it was red, but we were driving like it was green. I don’t think the cabbie clued in; around the time that I started to say, “Hey, that light…” a dump truck came into view, heading south into the same intersection that we were about to cruise into. The cabbie jammed on the brakes and tried to curl left around the truck, but he didn’t quite make it. The cab slammed into the truck’s rear tires.

I had plenty of warning; I clearly figured out that the red-light situation before the driver did. I had lots of time to brace, and we were probably only doing 30km/h or so by the time we hit the truck, but I still went into the seat belt pretty hard. Fortunately I didn’t hit my head on anything, and didn’t feel whiplash-y at all. It didn’t even freak me out all that much; I just angrily told the cabbie (who was fine, but clearly a little disoriented) to call dispatch and send me another cab. The front end was pretty much trashed. I crossed the street to the south side and talked to the truck driver. He was fine, obviously, and so was his truck. He was just annoyed at being held up with the accident report. Anyway, I still had to get to my meeting, so I climbed in the replacement taxi and headed north.

Midway through the day some soreness started to set in. No muscular pain or pinched-nerve feeling (which is something that would worry me), just some soreness through my shoulder and chest muscles. Really, it just feels like I lifted a whole bunch of weight all at once, from tensing up and bracing like that. My boss sent me home from the meeting early; I decided against a sitting in the chairs at a walk-in clinic (or even Advil) and just laid down for a while to straighten out. Felt fine after an hour. My back hurts a little now, but I actually think that’s ’cause I don’t have my new chair adjusted properly yet.

Anyway, I guess being in a minor accident makes me just a little more Torontonian, even if I wasn’t driving. Thanks, Beck Taxi #725.

[tags]beck taxi, accident, adelaide, parliament, dump truck[/tags]