lost

My female owner had a traumatic day which resulted in her procrastinating on her work, over-eating and over-sleeping. It started off with her anxious male client who told her that his GP had referred him to a specialist and as such, he would not be coming in until further notice. This is the second time an anxious client terminated on her and she wonders how much of it was due to her.

Anyway, more nerve-wrecking was that she was almost involved in a road accident today. She was driving her friend’s car, on the way to pick her up from a train station. As usual, the roads in Brisbane City confused her, with some junctions not allowing U-turns and other roads turning one-way suddenly.

While trying to work her way around, she realised that she had to make a U-turn to the other side of the street (there was no centre divider). Unfortunately, she failed to look behind her and u-turned just as cars were approaching behind her. The first car braked in time (otherwise she would have been hit on her side) and so did the rest of the cars behind. My female owner also managed to brake in time and reverse her car back to the side of the road. She tried to make another U-turn when the coast was clear and after making it, realised that it was a one-way road (with 4 lanes!). She ended making a full circle to face the right direction.

My female owner steeled herself to continue her search. She made a conscious effort to look at the directions of the road… and at one junction, turned wrongly into the bus lane. It was not a simple task of merely switching lanes (like Singapore) coz the next lane was for on-coming buses. And the bus lanes and vehicle lanes were separated by concrete dividers.

Gingerly, she turned at the next junction and continued her journey. She finally made it to the railway station, at the agreed time, only to realise that her friend’s train was running late. So she had to drive around unfamiliar grounds to find a legal place to park (without costing money). And while waiting, she realised that she had gone to the wrong railway station anyway. She thought that “South Bank” was the same as “South Brisbane”, coz the “South Brisbane” station was located at South Bank and her maps did not differentiate the two stations.

How cool is that?! She had not only narrowly escaped a road accident, driven on the wrong side of the road, driven in the wrong lane and had a short window of time to find her way to the right station which was not reflected on her 2000 street directory.

She was grateful for God's protection over her life. While my female owner was driving (before she started getting lost), she felt prompted to pray and pray she did. It was probably a split second miss. If she had been slightly faster in turning, or the car(s) were moving faster, there would have been a multiple collision.