Crash Test Dummy

It will be several months before the Costa Concordia will be moved from its rocky resting place off the coast of Italy. And so there it sits, a reminder of just how wrong things can go when you try and put a hotel out to sea.
Maybe I should be more forgiving. I have suffered my share of vehicular collisions. They occurred predominantly in my youth and were my fault. I dropped a truck off the side of a mountain road. I pulled my Vega out of a parking space in front of an oncoming car. I merged the front end of my Volkswagen bug with a tree. I walked away from all of these wrecks. The cars I drove were not so universally lucky. Totaled the truck. The Vega had to be towed away for multiple repairs. I pulled the fender off the front wheel of the Volkswagen and drove it home. Between myself and the insurance company, I took care of my messes.
Years later, when I was employed by an office furniture company, I was periodically called upon to drive much larger vehicles. This included a twenty foot long Mack truck. A big diesel monster with air brakes. I did what I could to maneuver myself out of the driver's seat whenever I could, but every so often there was nobody else to go and move the truck. Or take it down to the recycling center to drop off all the debris we had generated from this or that installation. Or drive it back to the warehouse in rush hour traffic. And here's the frightening part: No one ever asked about my driving record. I would have been happy to confess my prior impacts and my relative level of embarrassment as a result.
Nothing bad ever happened. The next time I heard a crash was when another car leaped from the curb and insinuated itself into my passenger door. I was on my way home from working at the book warehouse. This was another job, a different state and years later. This one was not my fault. At first I didn't know how to react. My instinct was to apologize, but that went away abruptly when I felt a wave of indignation sweeping over me. Where did this moron get his driver's license from? K-Mart? What was going through his head besides air? Who was going to pay for this?
Which brings me back to the captain of the Costa Concordia. I wonder if anybody asked about his prior driving record. I wonder if his insurance is going to cover the salvage operation. At this point, I'm guessing he wishes he would have stayed on board. Or handed the keys to the First Mate.