Afterward, Sujan’s mom took both her and student X to the hospital. The crash triggered damage from past concussions she’d had, and headaches plagued her a while. The doctors said her foot was fractured and put it in a cast. Soon, she found it wasn’t getting better. Another x-ray revealed that it was broken, resulting in the boot that Sujan donned for about five weeks.

Student X’s parents took him to a different hospital. He had a concussion and both student X and Sujan missed several days of school following the incident. And for days after, Sujan could taste the scent of the burning car in her mouth.

Student Y was thrown into the seat in front him during the crash since he didn’t have a seatbelt on at the time. Even though he didn’t miss any school because of the incident, he still hit his knee during the crash and limped around school for about two weeks.

But the repercussions were more than just physical. Student X hasn’t driven up that Montebello Road since. He can’t really explain why he won’t go in the near future, trailing off and faltering when trying to find a reason, but it’s linked to the incident. After the incident, Sujan’s parents have become more cautious too.

“When the actual accident happened they were like, ‘Oh it’s ok I am glad that you’re alive’ kind of thing, but when I got home after that they were like ‘You’re so dumb why would you do that, that was a terrible idea,’” Sujan said.

Nowadays, she’s only in the car with her sister — they can legally drive each other around because of the exceptions in the law where they can drive each other around for school related activities. More often than not, her sister is the one behind the wheel, although Sujan does drive on occasion. Since that incident, she hasn’t driven to a viewpoint. More often than not, Sujan’s driving adventures these days are all short drives, like going to a coffee shop to study.

Student X was behind the wheel of a car that didn’t belong to him — a car that was damaged beyond repair. Initially, he felt extremely guilty. Even now, he’s sorry for what happened. But he’s also learned a few lessons from the incident. Among those lessons are driving carefully, paying more attention to the road and perhaps just avoiding Montebello altogether. It’s a fun road, but it’s not the safest.

“It’s just that you should be more careful when you try to have fun,” student X said.

Student Y was one of the first few people who started the idea of taking that risky drive down Montebello. This time, however, he wasn’t the one behind the wheel. He describes Silicon Valley as a flat place — it is after all, a valley. The views and challenging roads are up in the hills. He’s driven down the road countless times. The risk of crashing is always present, yet he continues going because of the views and the opportunity to test his car’s limits — in simpler terms, he does it because it’s fun.

“I obviously don’t want to kill myself, as good as that sounds,” student Y said. “But I feel that it’s really fun … Then I mean, there’s always that chance of crashing.”

Share this Story