Experiencing the carnage firsthand

On my first day at Manitoba Public Insurance (MPI), I was taken to the main car lot on Plessis Avenue in Winnipeg.

We were on our way to my first event of the season, but my supervisor wanted to drive me through the lot first. She said it was an experience I wouldn’t forget, and something every new MPI employee should see.

And she was definitely right…

The MPI car lot at Plessis is a never-ending jungle of mangled vehicles. When a vehicle is in a collision – and is written off – it ends up at the lot eventually. It is basically the final resting place where cars, vans, trucks and everything in between go to die after they have been deemed “un-drivable.”

As my supervisor drove through row after row of vehicle carnage, I looked in all directions and took in the scene around me. Windows were smashed, airbags were heaped in piles where they had deflated, and bumpers, trunks, doors and roofs were bent in a plethora of unnatural angles. I could tell where a person’s head hit a windshield in one vehicle, and I knew someone had been thrown out a window in another.

But what disturbed me more than anything were the vehicles that had “blood” written on them in red marker.

Everything in the lot is auctioned off, which means MPI must be up-front and honest about the condition of what someone will be purchasing. Some collisions – as we all know – are fatal. Sometimes they are messy. When that happens, the employees at the lot write blood on the vehicle so potential buyers know exactly what they are getting into.

As part of my job, I travel around Manitoba and teach junior high and high school students about the importance of wearing a seat belt. I wish I could drive each and every one of them through the lot so they are able to witness the devastation firsthand.

I bet it would scare a few more kids into wearing his or her seat belt. I bet it would also make a few people think twice about drinking and driving or behaving like a jerk on the road.

Hopefully I will never see a vehicle of someone I know in that lot. It’s not a place where you want your car to end up…