I got in a car accident tonight.

[SmileyBoy]

I was delivering pizzas tonight, when I was having trouble finding a certain street. This certain street is in the richest neighbourhood in the whole metro area, BTW (1-2 million dollar homes). When I finally found the street, I turned into it. Rows of beautiful, million-dollar McMansions.

Now, before I go any further, let me say that the city had not been doing a very good job with plowing all the minor residential streets after snowstorms and icestorms (we had a big one yesterday). Actually, they DON'T plow or sweep the residential streets at all. So as a result, it makes driving on side streets VERY difficult, with all the skidding and such.

I had to follow a curve in the street. A lady had her Ford minivan parked on the side of the street in front of me, when all of a sudden, the ice took hold, and my control gave way. I started veering towards the right, skidding toward the van. I breaked as much as I could, but... *CRASH!!!*. The side of my front, left headlight had impacted the top of her right front tire.

I turned my car off and rushed over to the lady's van (she was in there waiting for one of her kids, BTW). I quickly apologized for ramming into her. I said that I did the best I could do, considering that I had skidded on the ice. I looked at her car first to see if there was any damage, and to my luck, there was absolutely NONE on her van. My headlight had impacted tire rubber, thank GOD. But she saw a scratch on the front bumper (NOT at the impact site), and then attempted to chalk that up to my car hitting hers. I explained, "That's in a different place. My headlight hit the top of your tire." I then saw that the glass on the far left side of my left headlight had been broken. I was ironically relieved that the small damage happened to MY car rather than hers. I then said that even though no damage was done to her car, that I'd still want to give her my information anyway.

Because I was on duty (and I still had a pizza to deliver), I told her that she had to call my work to get my insurance information, because I couldn't find it in my glove compartment, and that it was still in the office of the Domino's I work at. I told her to call whenever and get the info from my boss, and that I would tell him at work right away when I got back. And I did.

Now here's the thing: This lady lives in the richest neighbourhood in the city. One of her cars was a minivan, the other was a...... HUMMER.:puke". And you KNOW what kind of people drive Hummers, am I right?? She and her family looked like the typical upper-class suburban, white-bread, Hummer-driving, McMansion-dwelling, soccer-mom family. Actually, that's what they looked EXACTLY like. And that worried me A LOT.

When she was looking at her car to see if there was any damage, I SWEAR I could see dollar signs in her eyes and the word "FRAUD" plastered on her forehead. She probably knew I was a poor college student, but knowing the kind of person exists in her demographic (Bush-supporting, resource-guzzling, right-wing, doesn't care about others), the fear immediately popped up in my head that she could try to concoct some bullshit about her car getting damaged, and trying to pin that off on me.

I'm trying to keep even my own insurance company out of this. What I plan to do is to pay for my new headlight glass with my OWN money, out of my OWN pocket. I'm NOT getting the insurance company involved if I'm able to. All that has to happen is a report to be filled out by my employer, but that's a matter for Domino's Pizza to be concerned, not for my insurance company. So I don't have to worry about them raising my premiums. Besides, they can't raise my premiums for something that I paid out of my own pocket, right?? And also, they'll never know, not if there's anything I can do about it.

So I basically have to worry about that woman. I've got this REAL BAD feeling that she's going to try something wicked, and I'm very scared about it. She drives a Hummer, lives in a McMansion in a wealthy neighbourhood, she was obviously acting like she was desperately looking for something on her car she could pin on me, most likely Bush-worshipping, probably knows I'm a poor college student trying to make ends meet... I don't like this situation at all.

I don't trust this woman. I don't trust this woman at ALL.

[progmom]

1. Here's hoping you're wrong.

I hope she turns out to be a decent human being.


And I'm sorry you were in a car accident. That's so scary!

[SmileyBoy]

3. I hope I'm wrong about this person.

I really hope I'm wrong.

[HereSince1628]

2. You need to get a job over at the Viking ship museum

you'll "run into" a better grade of people.

I wish I had better advice. If you're still carried on your parent's policy you ought to talk to him/her.

If the wicked Hummer woman comes up with a big claim out of thin air you don't want to have cut off your chance to have the insurance help fight it in court.

[SmileyBoy]

9. I have my own policy.

I was hoping to not get into an accident before I turned 25. Now I don't know if I'll be able to keep that record with the insurance company.

[bleedingheart]

4. I hate to say this but you should have called the police if you

had that funny feeling.

See if the police came and you both filed a report then all would have been documented. Now you are going to be in the "he said/she said" situation which burned my brother.

He was merging onto a highway where there was a woman in front of him waiting to get onto the highway first, When he thought she had moved...she hadn't and he banged into the back of her car. Nothing happened to her car but my brother's was damaged. No police...they exchanged info...and right before the 2 year mark where she couldn't sue...she sued...and get this... she turned in pictures of another car not the one my brother hit...and State Farm paid her $30,000 to just go away...and my brother's premiums went up as a result.

For future reference carry a disposable camera in your glovebox...

[SmileyBoy]

5. You mean I'm gonna have to worry if she'll sue me for TWO YEARS??!!

Oh shit...

[Radio_Lady]

10. Smiley, I don't know if the law is the same in all states.

You really need to speak with someone knowledgable in auto insurance law. Your insurance company is supposed to represent you in no fault states. If you call someone there, it might be a place to start. I wouldn't worry so much about their paying for damage to your car; I'd be worried about the possibility of her pursuit of damage that did not occur in your accident.

[Radio_Lady]

8. I had a similar experience... but told the insurance company...

to be on the lookout for fraud. I accidentally hit a car that was stopped at a light. I must have been going all of 5 mph. and there was absolutely no damage to my front bumper. I got out of my car and apologized to the other woman driver. She screamed at me and told me she thought her rear bumper was askew and would have her husband take the car to the mechanic "to get a new bumper." I gave her my information, and returned home. I called the insurance company on their emergency number, gave all the information, urged them to come and inspect both my car and her car immediately.

They assigned a very pleasant lady in Seattle to my case, and she said not to worry. She called me the next day and said all was in order to inspect both cars. Both cars were examined. The insurance company denied her claim and I never heard from her again.

[GOPisEvil]

6. Not a good couple of days for DU delivery drivers.

I'm glad you're ok. Hope it all works out ok.

[NightTrain]

11. Tell me about it!

:eyes:

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. *hugs*

[NightTrain]

12. No doubt about it! I need to get the hell out of driving.

I too had a weather-related mishap this week, during which my delivery truck came very close to tipping over onto its side. As such, when I lost my job on Wednesday, I didn't feel quite as devastated about it as I might have otherwise!

[SmileyBoy]

13. Why did you lose your job??

[NightTrain]

14. You mean, you missed tonight's flamewar?!

Extra, extra, read all about it!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=2699584&mesg_id=2699584