@GreyWolf
The question is: does the car crash follow from the story itself? Again - I haven't read it, so I don't know.
Actually, it was a do-over story. In which early on I showed that the person repeating was changing history, either actively or just by being there ("Butterfly Effect").
The first, in their "original history" the 1979 Iran Hostage crisis ended not by them being released after the 1980 election, but by Iraq accidentally killing them in an air strike. And in a "contemporary movie" at the start where he has his fatal accident, instead of CGI they were flying real WWII era aircraft dangerously close over the heads of untrained extras as explosions were happening. Like in the "Twilight Zone" incident, the plane was too low, got caught by part of the explosion, crashed on the main character. Major change in history, and implying that the history was very different than the one we know.
This was to imply that anything after the character arrived back in 1979 could change. The Iran Hostage Crisis ended differently. And safety rules regarding aircraft on movie sets were lax, so likely his original timeline had no helicopter crash killing Vic Morrow and two children.
Then later, a car he was given originally had a failing transmission and died less than two months later. He knew that, so arranged to have it replaced with another car without that issue.
But those two things and more sent him on the trajectory to the end. Changing from hurdles to cross country running also saved him from a horrible ankle break which ended his chance at a college scholarship or of joining the military. I showed him several times making changes in his past, which is typical in a "do-over story". But made him start to feel he was invulnerable.
However, the intent from the very start was actually to show that when changes happen, they can be good as well as bad. At the end, driving at night on a winding canyon road with only one hand on the wheel and the other holding his girlfriend was the final piece. He had largely reverted to being a "typical teen", and not being as cautious about such things as an adult would be as he likely thought he was "safe". Tire blows out on a curve, car turns to that side, right over a cliff.
**It was right before school was to start again, and we had spent the night up at our favorite parking spot, in the hills above Newhall. It had been a delightful 2 hours making love, and Candy was holding my hand as I drove us back down the winding canyon road. And the front passenger tire blew out. As I only had one hand on the wheel, it was violently yanked out of my hand. And my last thought as the car pitched off the side and into the ravine is screaming in my head "No! This is not supposed to happen! I still have my entire life ahead of me again!"**
As I always do, I build subtle links in a chain that may only come together in the mind of the reader at the end. And I structured it that way as one of my "trope breaking stories". Just because you live for 50+ years, if you reset and make changes there is no guarantee that you will once again live for 50+ years.
And believe it or not, my original ending was much darker. The he knew the girl he hooked up with, and in his original life she was happily married to another woman. Originally, I was going to have her start to become torn and conflicted over this attraction, while being with him. She would then have killed herself, and he would have followed when he realized what his meddling had caused. But I felt the ending I came up with during righting was better.
But I also constantly warn people that any story I put in my "Dark Tales" universe does not have a typical "happy ending". Most ultimately end like some episodes of "The Twilight Zone", where they end in a kind of hell of their own making. Bang a teen, you might well end up in jail. Got a girlfriend into erotic asphyxiation, things may go too far. Get a watch that stops time and are warned strongly to make sure it never winds down? You had better make sure it is fully wound before you go into the local Catholic Girl's School with the intent of banging all the students.
Expecting a "Happy Ending" in any of my Dark Tales stories is kind of like watching Game of Thrones, and rooting for Ned Stark or Lady Catherine. We who read the books before the series knew how that was going to turn out.
"This ain't that kinda story, bruv!"
