It was the late 1970's and I was about 17 years old and working in a summer camp. A friend and fellow counselor was driving us back home from the camp. We lived in Rockland County, NY a commuting suburb of NYC. As we got into our development, two things happened in quick succession. The brakes went out and the accelerator stuck. In those days, we didn't always wear seatbelts and neither of us was wearing one. It seemed ok at first as the car was only going about 10-15 mph. Andy the driver was simply steering and the car had a mind of it's own. We didn't think ahead nor did we do know to turn the ignition off. All was fine until we got within two blocks of our street.

Suddenly the car accelerated and the last time that I looked down at the speedometer, we were over 55mph and heading for 60 and the street was coming to a T. I screamed what I thought might be the last word that I would utter in this world- ANDY! As if he could do something to save us. He tried in vain to make the turn at the end of the street. The next thing that I knew, we found ourselves parked on a lawn directly at the crossroad.

We hit nothing, not a tree, not a house, nothing. We had gone from 55+ to stop without so much as a jolt. If we had hit something without the seatbelts, surely we would have gone right through the windshield. What happened to Inertia? What happened period? To this day, I have no idea. I guess it was just not our time yet!!