Crunchy Car

The drive to work on Friday was fairly uneventful. Uneventful until what should have been the last 10 minutes of the trip.

Now, as you probably saw in my entry the other day, we got a decent amount of snow, but Alexandria did a pretty good job of plowing, so the roads were nice and dry.

Another thing about Alexandria, is that it seems to be filled to the brim with rich people. Thousands of BMWs, Mercedes Benz, Jaguars, Hummers and Bentleys buzz around the city. So when my poor Subaru Forester went ca-crunch agains the rear end of a BMW 330Ci in the intersection of Franklin and South Alfred, I guess I should have expected it, but it still took me by surprise.

So here’s how it happened:

Franklin, the street we’re both driving down in Alexandria, is a three lane road. I’m driving along in the left hand lane, when all of a sudden, this lady slices over from the center lane, directly in front of me. I hit my brakes and my horn simutaneously, but it’s too late. The passenger side of my car takes a direct hit into the corner of her BMW.

Blam.

Bits of headlight, tailight, bumper and grill all over the intersection.

I pull forward onto Franklin, she pulls forward onto South Alfred.

I run out and grab what’s left of my grill and headlight housing before the oncoming traffic smashes it to even smaller bits.

Here’s a panoramic of what the intersection looked like:

I go over and have a look at her car, sarcastically saying “Well. Good morning! Are you hurt?”

She climbs out of her car. She’s in her late 30’s, looks South Asian (Pakistani, I later discover), has too much makeup, and is very well dressed in an black peacoat and some kind of black boot with a red sole. Looks very expensive.

“No, I’m not hurt… Good morning… what the **** were you doing?” she exclaims.

“Uh, what?”

She stomps her foot. “What is wrong with you? Didn’t you look where you were going?”

I’m incredulous. “Look where I was going? You cut me off!”

“I had my blinker on. Didn’t you see my blinker?” she shouts, gesturing wildly at her car.

This is going to be a problem. “Umm, you came over from the center lane…”

“Well YEAH,” she sneers, “I’m trying to get around the ice on the road. You know how these cars are on snow!” I look at her tires. She’s got the thing on rims. Not the kind that you use for racing, but the kind that you buy when you’ve got too much money and decide to spend it on a car. The tires are ridiculously thin. She looks like everything she’s ever had has been given to her on a silver platter. I realize I’m really starting to make a lot of judgements about her, and begin to mentally back off before I do something stupid.

“All right, all right.” I sigh, and pull out my phone. I start taking pictures of her car. Her taillight is busted in, and she’s got a scrape on her bumber.

Here’s what it looks like:

I walk over to the front of my car to see it for the first time, and gasp. The left headlight is completely smashed, and all the housing around it is gone. The blinker is hanging by it’s wire. The grill is gone, the bumper and fog light is smashed in, and the hood has a gash in it. I can’t even open it. I groan. I snap a couple pictures.

I dig out my insurance and walk back over to her car. “I think we better trade insurance information.” I say, offering mine.

“**** that. I’m calling the cops.”

“That’s fine. But we still need to exchange insurance information.”

She glares at me. “Shouldn’t you be giving yours to me?”

“We trade. That’s the way it works.” I say patiently. I want to strangle her.

“I don’t even know if I have it.” She rifles through her purse. She looks like she’s got 20 credit cards in there, all gold, silver and black. She pulls out a Geico business card. “**** this. Do you know how expensive this car is?” She yells, kicking the wheel.

“I have a pretty good idea.” I lie, “Here. I’ll just write it down. You can keep your card.” I pull out a pen and a piece of paper. “What’s your name?”

She glares at me.

“Ma’am?” I ask. Silence. “Fine. Who is your insurance company?”

She crosses her arms. “I don’t think I should be telling YOU anything.”

I’m exasperated. “Ma’am, if you don’t give me your information, I’ll be forced to call the cops.”

“I already did.” She sneers, lights a cigarette, and gets back in her car, slamming the door.

I sigh. I trudge back to my car and get 911 on the phone. I tell the guy my situation. He sighs. “Get her license plate number in case she drives away, and an officer will be there soon.”  I thank him, and go write down her number. she glares at me through her rearview in between puffs.

Dejected, I open the hatch and sit in the back of the Subaru pondering my fate. Our insurance is already ridiculously high. I’d been involved in 4 accidents in the past 3 years. 3 of them were not my fault at all, but the insurance companies had ruled against me because of lack of substantial evidence.  The accidents had been with the cars connecting at the sides (the other drivers would merge into my lane on the highway). Since it’s essentially my word against theres with cases like that, it can do either way. Somehow, I’d lost all of them.

So needless to say, I was scared.

The Alexandria cop showed up. He’s a large African American man in a tuque.. He climbs out of his squad car, asked if I was ok, and then went to check on her.

After a bit, he came back to my car, handed me a form to fill out, got my license and registration, and asked me for my side of the story. As I tell him, his brow furrows. He walks around to the front of my car, holding his chin. “You stayed in your lane the whole time?” He asks.

“Yes sir.”

“Huh.” He walks to the front of my car again, then makes hand motions, reenacting the scene with them.

I get out and join him. “She won’t give me her insurance information.” I say, “What do I do about that?”

He chuckles. “That’s what I’m here for. All right. Hold on a bit, I’ll be back.”

He walks over to her car, then gets back in the squad car.

After a bit, he comes back, and motions me out. She’s already standing by his car, tapping her foot.

I give him my form, and she gives him hers. He gives it back. “You need your phone number.”

She writes it down. He gives it back. “And your policy number.”

More scribbling. He gives it back. “And your license plate number.”

She hastily jots it down and hands it back. In one fluid motion, he passes the paper to me, and gives mine to her.

“Wait, wait! How come he gets mine??” she yells.

“That’s the way it works.” The officer says patiently.

“Well ****.” She says, “He wrote in the comments that it’s my fault! Shouldn’t I fill out the comments??”

The cop smiles. “I don’t think that necessary. In fact, sir,” he turns to me, “you can go ahead and leave if you like, I don’t want to detain you further. You can drive your car home, but don’t drive it after that because of all the damage.”

“How come he gets to go?” She asks.

“Well ma’am, I’ve got everything I need for my report. And besides, I’m ruling that it’s your fault.”

“MY fault!” she hollers, “How is this MY fault??”

“Ma’am, well I’ve got 15 years of experience here, but even if I didn’t the evidence is pretty strong in his favour. If you were in the same lane as him, there’s no way he would have hit your corner like that. He hit the side of your car. If he hit the back of your car, it would have been different. But there’s no damage on the back. That means that you came out of the center lane and hit him.”

“But, what the ****! I had my blinker on–”

“Ma’am. If you like you can take it to court. But given the evidence, I’m 99.9% sure that you’re not going to get very far. You’d have to debate this citation that I’m writing you as well.”

I’d heard enough. I thanked the officer, got in my car, and limped it to the office, thanking God that I was safe and that the car was strong enough to make the trip.

The next set of hours were a flurry of phone calls to the insurance companies, telling retelling the story.

At one point, when talking with her insurance company, they mentioned that they might not repair my car, given it’s age. My heart sank. I love our car, it’s so dependable. But I just kept going. Late in the day, once her insurance finally got ahold of her (she avoided their calls for a while), they called me back and let me know they would be taking full responsibility, and arranged for a rental car for us.

Late that night, I drove it carefully home. What was left of the headlight rattled and shook over every bump, but didn’t fall out. Late that night, a tow truck came by to pick it up, and tow it to the collision center.

The next morning, I got up and got a lift from my neighbor over to the Enterprise to pick up the rental. To my surprise, the collision center was right next door, so I was able to go right in and sign the car inspection papers right over!

Enterprise outfitted us with a beautiful black Jeep Compass to get around in. It’s a little small for my giant frame, but it sure is pretty!