Monday I got into a rear-end to rear-end fender bender. It was about 50/50 as far as who hit who. The bottom line is that we ran into one another. I looked but didn't see him. There is "No Fault" when it comes to an accident like this, on private property, both vehicles going backwards... In Colorado (and probably most places) this is a No-Fault accident. Both people are out a deductible, you get the thing fixed and away you go. You did know that one of Murphy's other laws is that this kind of thing always happens around Christmas.
Here's where everything gets interesting. The driver of the other car was a 19ish young man with his girlfriend in the passenger seat. Nice new Acura. He was very proud of it. He jumped out of his car and spent the better part of the next hour surveying the damage. My minivan, while a valuable part of our family, is mostly a way of getting 5 or more to their destination. I have always felt this way about cars. Now, don't get me wrong, I drool over the sports cars like the next guy. Back to the scene: This kid (I can say that - I'm over 40) was pretty worked up. He said he wasn't hurt, his girlfriend either, and neither was I. I was prepared to trade insurance information and go on my Merry (sorry for the seasonal punni-ness) way. He thought we needed to call the Police, and since he was getting pretty agitated, I let him do that, showing him where the non-emergancy number was on his cards. Two minutes later, the ambulance and a firetruck show up!? They spent two minutes finding out no one was injured (interesting side note here: our young friend had been walking around just fine up until the ambulance arrived, then he got into his car and the emergency personnel had to assess his situation there... hmmm...)
It gets better: His mom shows up and proceeds to start in yelling at me for robbing her sweet, innocent son of his deductible claiming it was me who hit him and he shouldn't have to pay. She didn't like the news that this was "No-Fault". I think from there it just went downhill. Dad showed up and proceeded to talk to his son at length. Police arrived after an hour (shouldn't have been called in the first place, but I wasn't about to tell this kid what to do in his agitated state, especially after mom appeared). The officer took our information, wrote a report, gave our stuff back, and I left. Yesterday morning I found out from my insurance agent that a whole new story appeared about them driving forward, me hitting them at excessive speeds (in a small, tight parking lot???), and that he has medical needs, and they aren't paying for anything, including their deductible, they want us to. Wow. What levels people won't stoop to. This story has yet to unfold totally, but I have been assured that nothing will happen to me.
What really puzzles me is the steps that it took for these folk to go from being involved in a simple, small fender-bender to creating lies, wanting to cheat someone and something (wonder why insurance rates are so high?) out of a few hundred dollars. Worse still is the lesson this young man learns from his parents. It's OK to lie, cheat, and steal if it helps you, ends up costing you nothing, and pays for your car to be fixed. In the words of my title: How Sad.
Here's where everything gets interesting. The driver of the other car was a 19ish young man with his girlfriend in the passenger seat. Nice new Acura. He was very proud of it. He jumped out of his car and spent the better part of the next hour surveying the damage. My minivan, while a valuable part of our family, is mostly a way of getting 5 or more to their destination. I have always felt this way about cars. Now, don't get me wrong, I drool over the sports cars like the next guy. Back to the scene: This kid (I can say that - I'm over 40) was pretty worked up. He said he wasn't hurt, his girlfriend either, and neither was I. I was prepared to trade insurance information and go on my Merry (sorry for the seasonal punni-ness) way. He thought we needed to call the Police, and since he was getting pretty agitated, I let him do that, showing him where the non-emergancy number was on his cards. Two minutes later, the ambulance and a firetruck show up!? They spent two minutes finding out no one was injured (interesting side note here: our young friend had been walking around just fine up until the ambulance arrived, then he got into his car and the emergency personnel had to assess his situation there... hmmm...)
It gets better: His mom shows up and proceeds to start in yelling at me for robbing her sweet, innocent son of his deductible claiming it was me who hit him and he shouldn't have to pay. She didn't like the news that this was "No-Fault". I think from there it just went downhill. Dad showed up and proceeded to talk to his son at length. Police arrived after an hour (shouldn't have been called in the first place, but I wasn't about to tell this kid what to do in his agitated state, especially after mom appeared). The officer took our information, wrote a report, gave our stuff back, and I left. Yesterday morning I found out from my insurance agent that a whole new story appeared about them driving forward, me hitting them at excessive speeds (in a small, tight parking lot???), and that he has medical needs, and they aren't paying for anything, including their deductible, they want us to. Wow. What levels people won't stoop to. This story has yet to unfold totally, but I have been assured that nothing will happen to me.
What really puzzles me is the steps that it took for these folk to go from being involved in a simple, small fender-bender to creating lies, wanting to cheat someone and something (wonder why insurance rates are so high?) out of a few hundred dollars. Worse still is the lesson this young man learns from his parents. It's OK to lie, cheat, and steal if it helps you, ends up costing you nothing, and pays for your car to be fixed. In the words of my title: How Sad.
2 comments:
This sort of thing really ticks me off. There should be severe penalties for people who try to extort money this way.
But as long as there are slick, unethical lawyers, it will continue to happen.
Sad but predictable. I wonder what his mom and dad will do if he ever really needs them to show up...
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