Four years ago I was driving an old £100 Toyota — I never bother buying expensive cars — and was dropping my younger brother off at the airport. I do a lot of canoeing and had a canoe on the roof rack, and that was far more expensive than the car itself.

As I was driving away from the airport I went across a junction and this guy came smashing straight into my passenger side. It turned out he had jumped the red light and was travelling quite fast.

I have little recollection of the actual impact, but I know that it sent my car spinning and it ended up 100 yards further down the road. The canoe just shot off the roof and landed in a local parish priest’s garden, narrowly missing several old ladies who happened to be walking by.

My first thought when anything like that happens is, “Is everyone all right?” and then, “Are you insured?” Thankfully nobody was hurt so the other driver and I exchanged details and after that I was mostly concerned with the canoe, which hadn’t sustained too much damage.

The car was a write-off, of course. The entire front end and left wing were wiped out. But I always think it’s only a bit of tin, so I don’t care about that. The other car had a bit of damage to its front end, but not that bad considering he’d caught me at speed.

It was nine o’clock in the morning and the first thing I did was call my girlfriend. She asked if I was all right and okay to go to work and I thought I was. The funny thing was I was completely hyper through delayed shock, and my colleagues later told me that I wasn’t really making much sense all day. It wasn’t until 24 hours later that I finally calmed down.

Donal MacIntyre’s last series, Wild Weather, is released on DVD and video by BBC Worldwide