Broken Vue

Well, there's a first time for everything. And prior to this afternoon, I had never been in a car accident. But I can say that no longer. I boil it all down to poor judgement on my part. I had a couple of driving routes to choose from, and I regreted my initial choice as soon as I made it. Had I gone the other way, I'd be blogging about something else right now.

Anyway, at 5:25pm this afternoon, while on the way with the girls from school to Darby's softball game, my 2-year old car aged quite a bit in a matter of seconds. I was going 50 mph (the speed limit), the light I was approaching had just turned green, and someone going the other direction, misjudging my speed I presumed at the time, tried to turn across traffic. I slammed my brakes and swerved, hoping he would see me, slam his brakes, and I'd go around him. But he apparently never saw me coming, and I T-ed him.

Fortunately everyone is okay. Also fortunately, I slammed my brakes so hard that I didn't hit the other guy with much force, so I just have "minor" (but probably $2K worth) front-end damage, and my air bag did not deploy. Each of the girls got strawberries on their necks from the seatbelts. Here are the tragic photos of my poor Vue.

UNFORTUNATELY, the other guy fled the scene. He only spoke Spanish, had no ID, no insurance, and couldn't write his information down on paper for me. Can you believe that? I'm pretty frustrated about it. All I got from him was "Jesus B----".

As soon as it happened and I verified that the girls were okay, I was out of the car with my camera in one hand and my cell phone in the other. I was on the line with 911 and taking a bunch of photos. I was only trying to take pictures of the scene, but I did happen to get the runner on "film". So, if you see this man, please call the authorities.



In the confusion, while I was taking photos, trying to keep the girls calm, and talking to the insurance company on the phone, the guy flagged down a couple cars, put his wife and kids in one, himself in another, and drove off into the unknown. I'm pretty upset with myself for not having gotten usable photos of the getaway vehicle. During all of that I had also called the girls' mom, who I knew was also on her way to the game, to pick up the girls so Darby wouldn't be late for her game. Ironically, we had to forfeit because not enough of our players showed up, but I'm blocking that out for the moment.

After two more calls to the police, one by me, and one by someone who witnessed the other guy leave, a squad car finally showed up. He filled out his report, informed me that the hit-and-run detectives would be working the case, and a wrecker came for the other guy's car.

So, while certainly a terrible experience, it could have been far worse. Everyone is okay, and my car is drivable (though a headlight is out, and the range on the other isn't good, so night driving sucks). I do reserve the right to re-evaluate my opinion on the matter, as I've still yet to deal fully with the insurance issues, so the worse part of the deal may be yet to come. I'm pretty sure I DO NOT have rental car benefits on my insurance, so that will be an issue to be sure. We'll see how it goes.