In early February of this year, while I was returning home from a late night rehearsal, a woman ran a red light and hit my car on the driver's side. As I was exiting the 101 freeway, I saw her at the last second and hit my brakes. She didn’t slow down at all. Luckily, the impact wasn’t that strong. She ended up hitting my front driver's side bumper and fender. It's an oddly set up intersection, so I think she was under the impression my green light was hers. Clearly, it was NOT. But if you're not familiar with that intersection, it’s an inevitable mistake to make. However, if one is paying attention, there’s plenty of warning prior to rounding the corner she rounded, that she was going to have a stop light. Upon having to inspect the area and look up a Google Map for my insurance claim, there’s TONS of warning. I've seen others make that mistake and I narrowly missed another driver plowing into me years ago, right at the same spot. We both stopped short and missed hitting each other by mere inches. Unfortunately, this time around, we made contact. The other driver and I were not hurt and were able to walk away from it. I am more and more grateful for this fact as the days go by.
So early February was all about giving statements to adjusters, getting collision center estimates and an entire saga involving getting my car towed from the tow yard to the collision center (the tow company that was dispatched to tow my car from the scene was trying to charge my insurance $1200 when my car was only at their facility for 2 nights - insanely greedy!). The other driver apologized to me after the accident, but did not exactly take responsibility. I was pretty livid and we didn't say much else to each other. We just exchanged info and parted ways. I came to find out later that the other driver held to the story that the green light was hers. As Yoda would say, “On crack, she is.”
Murphy’s Law was in full effect though, when about a week after my initial accident, my rental car was hit while parked on a quiet side street in a residential area. I came upon the car ready to run errands, feeling a bit more in the spirit of things and found a note under the driver’s side windshield wiper. The reason I parked it there was to avoid such an incident! What’s the saying? “We plan, God laughs”? Needless to say, I was far from laughing at that moment and I just about broke down right there. But at least the driver left a note, taking responsibility for the entire thing. Thank goodness my husband was there to help me call the driver, because it was a hot minute before I could put together a proper sentence. The other driver was cooperative the whole way through. His insurance agreed to pay for the repair to the rental. Pretty miraculous…
This morning I was walking down the stairs to the laundry room in my building, appreciative that I could do so. I feel fine and I'm just happy it wasn't worse. As angry as I was about the whole thing, and as resistant as I was about accepting the situation, it really could have been tragic. I am truly grateful for my husband, family and friends (especially my SGI friends) for their love, support, phone calls, texts, emails and visits. If nothing else, this has shown me how supported I really am in this gigantic, ever- expansive world.
So what happened with my car? It was declared totaled. My zippy, 15 year old Ford Focus (wow, two years older than I initially thought, another revelation in this experience) was beyond repair. It didn’t look that bad from the outside, but according to Shawn at the collision center, the entire frame would have to be reset, not to mention damage to the engine, etc. C’est la vie. So, that’s where I am now. On the hunt for a new car…