I was riding with mom (we shared the use of the car) after having lunch with dad. She was driving down Old Norcross Rd., we were coming through the intersection of Old Norcross and Cruse Rd. and this guy in a 2000 Toyota Camry was in the right turn lane onto Old Norcross, but instead of yielding to us, he decides he want’s to go straight - from a right turn-only lane, with a red light.

He came straight through and hit the front passanger door (my door),  his front bumper support caught the door jam of the rear door on the right side of the Jetta and just tore through the door like a can opener, the front bumper of his car smashed into the right rear wheel well pushing the rear wheel into the car, bending and damaging the sub-frame of the car.

He hit us with such force that we spun around and when the car stopped skidding, we were facing the opposite direction. With the combined force and damage the rear door received, it pinned itself against my passenger door and I had to climb through the driver’s door. The impact also took a huge chunk of the tire out and so that flattened the tire, took huge chunks out of the alloy wheel itself and was totally scratched up and everything. mom went to the hospital via ambulance.

She had some bruises from the airbag and her chest/breast hurt so she went to get checked out. Once my dad showed up (another story in itself) we went to insurance then to Gwinnett Medical Center and they released mom once we got there. they did x-rays and all that jazz, thankfully she didn’t have anything major, they recommended some pain killers and something else.

I can still close my eyes for a second and just see it all over again.. and feel it all over again.. and hear it all over again. Some stupid person hit us, he got out of his car with his stupid ear-bud headset plugged into his cell phone the entire time - even while the police were there and talking to him, while the ambulance was there, even when the wrecker got there - he never hung up his cell phone!

I’m still amazed that the air bags deployed. I looked at the Owners Manual, and they were only supposed to go off if the impact is within 30-degrees of each front corner, but I guess they would also go off if the on-board computer detected a sudden force of shock and/or skidding. I’m not sure as to what all the on-board computers in ’97s can measure and read out from the car, but I guess either the shock was of such intensity, or there’s some sort of gyroscopic reading on the car that could detect skidding in addition to shock.

She was a great car and will be missed.