Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

crash into me

Last night, after a dinner of kabobs with Dari and Michaela, Rob and I took the Metro back to Ballston. Rob walked me to my car, parked just across the street, and, since it was on my way anyway, I offered to drive him around the corner to his apartment.

That turned out to be a bad idea.

Rob’s apartment complex shares the building with a major hotel. On his street, there are a couple different driveways for his building: a drive-through drop-off / pick-up breezeway for his apartment complex, a driveway for the hotel parking garage, and another drop-off / pick-up breezeway for for hotel registration.

Three cars drove into the apartment breezeway all at the same time: a silver sedan, dropping off a passenger; a blue PT Cruiser; and me. The PT Cruiser actually stopped short several feet behind the silver car and just inside the breezeway, leaving me hanging out in the street, waiting for him to move forward.

Instead, he moved backward. Into me.

For that brief instant, time seemed to move at a glacial pace, and I just knew what was going to happen. But I couldn’t put my car in reverse fast enough before I heard the sickening crunch of plastic, glass and metal.

The driver put his car into park and, seemingly confused, got out of the PT Cruiser and surveyed the damage. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you,” he told me. I asked if he could move his car forward, and he headed back to the driver’s seat. I tried to back my car up, but it didn’t seem to want to move. He moved his car forward incrementally, separating our vehicles, and then stepped of the car again to look at the damage. My car, meanwhile, was idling in mid-turn, still blocking one lane of the two-lane street, and I had no room to move forward out of traffic. I asked the man to move his car again, and he drove forward into one of the breezeway’s temporary parking spaces. I moved my car to the end of the breezeway, off to the side, and finally got out of my car to inspect it.

Driver’s side headlight smashed and pushed inward, crumpling part of the hood with it. Front bumper scratched near the headlight. The other car’s exhaust pipe had punctured the bumper next to the license plate. Thankfully, though, the car was still driveable. (Although the smashed headlight and turn signal had been rendered useless.)

The other driver again approached me and apologized. I suggested that we exchange information. He told me that his car was a rental, and he wasn’t sure about insurance. I consulted a “what to do when you’re in an accident” checklist my insurance company had given me, and I decided to call Arlington County Police to sort things out.

Meanwhile, the girl who had gotten out of the first car had waited along with us and offered herself and the driver as witnesses on our behalf, should we need them. Rob took down her information and thanked her, while I rifled through my purse for my camera.

An officer arrived within 15 minutes, and a second officer soon after that. After a brief moment of panic in which I found registration and insurance cards for every year except this year, I handed over my current license, registration and insurance information. Meanwhile, the second officer seemed increasingly annoyed with the other driver, who was on his cellphone.

After another fifteen minutes or so of waiting, things seemed to get sorted out. Sort of.

It turns out that the man was from Colombia, and he was leaving for Miami the next day and then leaving the country on Friday. He was driving with a driver’s license from Colombia, which, one of the officers advised him, does not have a reciprocity agreement with the United States, so he was not legally allowed to drive in this country unless he got an international driver’s license from AAA. He believed he was insured through the credit card he used to pay for the rental car, but even after speaking to a credit card representative on the phone, he was still fuzzy on the details. I gave him my business card, and he said he’d call me the next day from Miami to settle things.

While the officer left for a few minutes to finalize the paperwork, the other driver again apologized to me. I just nodded at him and looked away, unsure of what to say. I couldn’t say, “It’s all right.” or “That’s fine.” The accident was his fault, and he’d just introduced a major inconvenience for me at a time when I really don’t need any more complications to deal with. All I could think about was the deductible, the rental car, the insurance rigamarole, the repairwork.

This morning, I took my car to the same auto body shop I’d used in 2002 when my car was rear-ended on Constitution Avenue in D.C. Preliminary estimate: $1800. The assessor warned me that the repair cost actually may be higher, as he hadn’t been able to get a clear view of all the damage around the headlight.

When I got to work, I filed a report with my insurance company. After a series of calls with with USAA and with the other driver, the situation as it stands is:

• His credit card coverage only takes care of damage to the rental car, and does not include any liability damage to mine.
• He offered to pay my deductible for me if I went through my insurance company for the repairs — an idea USAA was not particularly cool with.
• He does have auto insurance at home in Colombia. He will send me that information when he returns home.

So the current plan: I’m going to go ahead with the repairs, pay my deductible and have my insurance company take care of things. They will, in turn, bill him (or his insurance company) for the repairs, and, if they get the money back, will reimburse me. But, as the insurance agent warned me, that reimbursement may take a while, if it comes at all.

What a pain.