Functionally ReTodded

These are from my camera phone and they’re not great, but you’ll get an idea about how the cars hit and where we hit and how we stayed together, given the rubber tire mark on the side of her car.

Notice also that her car is pushed in all the way to the bracings in the door. It’s a 2005 Hyundai and I’m betting the damage is three or four times what mine is money-wise.

These are from my camera phone and they’re not great, but you’ll get an idea about how the cars hit and where we hit and how we stayed together, given the rubber tire mark on the side of her car.

Notice also that her car is pushed in all the way to the bracings in the door. It’s a 2005 Hyundai and I’m betting the damage is three or four times what mine is money-wise.

I have spoken to the girl that I had the incident with this morning several times. For convenience sake, let’s call her Olga.

Well, after making an appointment to meet her at 1:30pm at the Gwinnett County Police Department precinct over by La Mall, she called me back, having apparently had a change of heart.

It seems she looked at the back of her fear-inducing insurance card and noticed that it said “moving violations and accidents stay on your record for 3 YEARS.”

She obviously talked with her husband and they agreed that putting the cost on the credit card might end up FAR better in the long run than going thru your friendly neighborhood “pay me a thousand bucks a year but don’t ever think of fucking calling me” insurance company.

I replied that I was fine with that, as long as we weren’t talking about fifteen $100 monthly payments, and she said “of course not,” so we had a deal.

I explained to her that in my recent experience with the local gendarme as well as your friendly auto repair shops, that the damage looked to be around $1,500 and she thought that sounded okay.

I have since been to my autobody place (Sterling Auto Body in Duluth, GA) and gotten an estimate that, including my rental car, is around $1,350.

Then, I got a call from Olga stating that this was out of her price range, and maybe we should fill out a police report, which required me to leave work AGAIN and go to the police station to do that.

I said fine and we headed to meet with a law enforcement body that totally fucked me over the last time I was involved in an accident that wasn’t my fault.

So we got there and a policeman met us at the door about 10 seconds after I arrived, and his punctuality was much appreciated. He asked for our pertinent information and then for each of us to describe what happened. I was buoyed by the fact that Olga right away said “and I drove out of my lane and into him.” HOORAY!! Admission of guilt, or at least absolution for me.

To Olga’s credit, she was able to get the tag number of the car that pushed her into me, and that came back valid to a driver with valid insurance, and the cop said “was it a blue Chevy cavalier?”

Ummm…Yes officer, it was.

He then explained that for a hit and run to occur, the offending vehicle doesn’t have to strike another vehicle or vehicles. That vehicle need merely act in such a way as to cause an accident and then flee the scene.

So, Olga and I have been advised to contact our respective insurance companies, and we were also assured that a detective would be paying a visit to Ms. Shit for fucking brains regarding the near cataclysmic accident she would have caused were it not for the superior driving skills and cool under pressure actions of myself. Further, it appears that my corroboration of Olga’s story strengthens our respective cases against Ms. Shit for fucking brains, which is also good.

Actually, I sort of embellished that part. But let’s be fair. Had I done what the driver to my right did, I’d have been upside down under a box truck like a scene from The Blues Brothers, and you’d all be seeing it on the evening news.

I am with and have been with my insurance carrier for about 15 years. This is the 3rd time I have been involved in an accident that was no fault of my own in the last year. In one, the other lady paid straight away, but in the other, I was forced to file a claim and my insurance rates were affected despite me being absolutely not at fault.

I won’t tell you which company it is, but they better get their good hands together and applaud my driving skills while they are handing me a check from the other person’s insurance to pay for my damage and my rental car, or I’m going to talk to the good neighbor folks. I need support and help from my insurance company, not the “Meh? Whaddya gonna do?” treatment.

I’ll keep you posted as the situation develops.

I’m not sure how many of you have experienced this, so I’m gonna ask.

Do any of you know how frightening it is to be playing pinball with your car amidst and among a thousand other cars at 75 mph or better knowing full well that, if you unexpectedly change lanes or hit someone else, there’s gonna be a shitstorm a mile long and 500 feet wide?

I am just sitting here now and thinking about how close that was to really catastrophic.

I must commend the young lady that hit me. Although she hit me instead of choosing to leave me out of it altogether, she did more or less maintain control of her car without exacerbating the situation by freaking all the way out, jerking the wheel one way or the tother as many young drivers would do.

I guess in the end of the day, if all I got out of a highspeed collision during rush hour on an intersate was some right front damage, then I should consider myslef retty lucky. That could have been much MUCH worse.