The front fender is the bit of the side of the car above the wheel but behind where the bumper is, and before the door! I didn't know it had a special name. In fact, I never thought about what a "fender" was.
Anyway, tonight as I picked Moomin up from school, a big pickup truck backed into the drivers' side of my car. I saw it coming towards me, perpendicular, and just jammed my foot harder on the brake. It seemed like I might have backed up, but the truck was coming too fast. I had two thoughts, seriously:
"Moomin is safe, it's heading towards me and he's in the back seat."
and
"Oh well, my legs are already fucked up"
Oh the drama! I was very happy that I did not experience the thing which you may have imagined of being trapped in a car with your legs smushed and being pried out with Jaws of Life. Instead I spent an hour in the cold talking with insurance companies and a police dude and the hapless Other Driver, who was a really nice guy and who is a teacher. I could see him thinking that maybe he could get out of it and blame it on me but then he realized there was no way, and plus it was a moment of being honorable. I would say there was about a 2 minute window of half-desperation where he wished it were true...
After I got home I agonized a lot about making his insurance rates go skyrocketing up when he probably can't afford it. I thought about just sucking up the cost of the car repair and also doing minimal repair, ie straighten out the dent rather than make it all shiny-new. I don't intend to sell the car or anything. So it is not costing me anything to drive a denty scratchy car and I am a careless slob anyway. But, because we already reported it and his insurance decided very quickly he was at fault, I think the damage to his insurance situation is already done.
The insurance agent is just glad I am not claiming bogus injury as so many people do. So they are all acting like kissing my butt to make sure my "new car" is "perfect again" (as if it were perfect this morning... not.)
If he were another parent at that school and a rich one I would feel different about it. But in this case I am feeling guilty. I will get my fat cat new-ish car licked clean by insurance which could very well double this dude's premiums for years. I hope not... he said he had not been in an accident for like 15 years or something. So I feel like it is all very strange and doesn't make any sense. Do you see that it should not matter in this case about whose fault it is but it should weigh in what either of us could afford and what matters to us? I wish we hadn't called the insurance.
Ugh! I should not have gotten this car anyway! It was so wasted on me. I'm not used to this at all.
If a rich person had backed into me then their insurance would have been so good that their fees wouldn't go up anyway. But when you are poor you fuck up a tiny bit, just a hair, and you are utterly screwed. How is that fair?
It makes me think of that time we first moved here, and I was opening a bank account and had like a huge-illion dollars from me and Rook's new awesome-job paychecks, and the bank guy was like "oh, usually there is a $25 new account fee and one for checkbooks but since you are in the PlatinumosityAccountGroup of Valued Members we will just waive those fees, whatever". And I got boiling mad and was like DUDE how about I pay you the 25 bucks since I can afford it and your cocksucking fee-waiving is meaningless to me, and how about instead you waive the fee for someone who obviously can't afford it and who would care.
It feels just like that. Bitter privilege - it is very hard to walk away from. The bank has no mechanism to just behave decently and neither does the insurance company.
Anyway, tonight as I picked Moomin up from school, a big pickup truck backed into the drivers' side of my car. I saw it coming towards me, perpendicular, and just jammed my foot harder on the brake. It seemed like I might have backed up, but the truck was coming too fast. I had two thoughts, seriously:
"Moomin is safe, it's heading towards me and he's in the back seat."
and
"Oh well, my legs are already fucked up"
Oh the drama! I was very happy that I did not experience the thing which you may have imagined of being trapped in a car with your legs smushed and being pried out with Jaws of Life. Instead I spent an hour in the cold talking with insurance companies and a police dude and the hapless Other Driver, who was a really nice guy and who is a teacher. I could see him thinking that maybe he could get out of it and blame it on me but then he realized there was no way, and plus it was a moment of being honorable. I would say there was about a 2 minute window of half-desperation where he wished it were true...
After I got home I agonized a lot about making his insurance rates go skyrocketing up when he probably can't afford it. I thought about just sucking up the cost of the car repair and also doing minimal repair, ie straighten out the dent rather than make it all shiny-new. I don't intend to sell the car or anything. So it is not costing me anything to drive a denty scratchy car and I am a careless slob anyway. But, because we already reported it and his insurance decided very quickly he was at fault, I think the damage to his insurance situation is already done.
The insurance agent is just glad I am not claiming bogus injury as so many people do. So they are all acting like kissing my butt to make sure my "new car" is "perfect again" (as if it were perfect this morning... not.)
If he were another parent at that school and a rich one I would feel different about it. But in this case I am feeling guilty. I will get my fat cat new-ish car licked clean by insurance which could very well double this dude's premiums for years. I hope not... he said he had not been in an accident for like 15 years or something. So I feel like it is all very strange and doesn't make any sense. Do you see that it should not matter in this case about whose fault it is but it should weigh in what either of us could afford and what matters to us? I wish we hadn't called the insurance.
Ugh! I should not have gotten this car anyway! It was so wasted on me. I'm not used to this at all.
If a rich person had backed into me then their insurance would have been so good that their fees wouldn't go up anyway. But when you are poor you fuck up a tiny bit, just a hair, and you are utterly screwed. How is that fair?
It makes me think of that time we first moved here, and I was opening a bank account and had like a huge-illion dollars from me and Rook's new awesome-job paychecks, and the bank guy was like "oh, usually there is a $25 new account fee and one for checkbooks but since you are in the PlatinumosityAccountGroup of Valued Members we will just waive those fees, whatever". And I got boiling mad and was like DUDE how about I pay you the 25 bucks since I can afford it and your cocksucking fee-waiving is meaningless to me, and how about instead you waive the fee for someone who obviously can't afford it and who would care.
It feels just like that. Bitter privilege - it is very hard to walk away from. The bank has no mechanism to just behave decently and neither does the insurance company.
Don't worry about his rates. At least, he has insurance, which helps keep the rest of our rates down. And he will be more careful next time. I was once hit by someone who did not have insurance, and everything HAD to get paid from my end.
I'm glad you and Moomin are OK.
Posted by: Donna | February 21, 2008 at 07:02 AM
My car was once hit by a very scared young guy who only spoke Spanish and was driving his cousin's or uncle's car and I felt the same way. But I didn't have the extra money to pay for the repair myself, so insurance it was, and I just hoped that his cousin or uncle was doing okay and the damage to his rates wouldn't be too bad. I still think about it sometimes, though.
Posted by: elswhere | February 21, 2008 at 07:31 AM
Ah, that blows. I know that moment of desperation, like...maybe this isn't my fault? And before you mentioned banks I was going there in my head.
The flaky fairy-princess server at my favorite restaurant was blaming everything on the eclipse. She said everyone was ordering herbal tea, which was weird because I had come in there deliberately punting my usual beer order with an unholy craving for chamomile.
Posted by: SJ | February 21, 2008 at 08:08 AM
Glad you're all okay. If he takes defensive driving, that might help with the rates.
Posted by: fridawrites | February 21, 2008 at 02:18 PM
Glad you're all okay. If he takes defensive driving, that might help with the rates.
Posted by: fridawrites | February 21, 2008 at 02:18 PM
Um, NO, you are wrong. As a former multi-decade insurance adjuster and claims manager, your rates are not dependant on your income level. It is your claims paid to premium paid ratio that determines rates. And insurance (yours or his) is meant to put you back to where you were just prior to the accident, property wise. That is not always possible (as you know) with injuries.
He pays (personally or with insurance) because he f_cked up. You did nothing wrong. It's called personal responsibility.
He and the insurance company are probably just flabbergasted that a person with prior real physical problems isn't claiming that the impact exacerbated them. Because, almost everyone does claim that (if they live in California).
So glad to hear no one was hurt.
Posted by: Robin | February 21, 2008 at 08:44 PM
We had a similar thing happen a couple of weeks ago, where someone backed into our car (at extremely low speed, but it did leave a dent). He really wanted to settle it privately, so we did. We got an estimate and he gave us the money, but it took us a while before we actually got it fixed.
Anyway, a couple of days after the first crunching, the husband is driving around and backs into a retaining wall, crunching the same spot. I felt kind of bad for the dude, since the thing that we had just done to ourselves was way worse than the ding he did...yet his money paid for most of it, anyway.
Posted by: lyssa Kaehler | February 22, 2008 at 03:01 PM
Liz- You can't assume that he has crappy insurance just because he has a lower income. If he hasn't had an accident in 15 years he is with a premium company. Anyway, in AZ you have 3 days to withdraw the claim with no impact. Does CA have companies with accident forgiveness? If so, there may be no impact on his rates.
You can bet your ass that they want to settle this fast before you claim any bodily injury,and if you DO have bodily injury, DO claim it. An accident is an accident is an accident as far as rates go. It's not like they will raise his rates higher if they pay a higher claim. At least it's that way in AZ. You crazy Californian> Who knows?
Take care.
Posted by: tawnya | February 22, 2008 at 05:02 PM
Phew!! Well, I'm going to call him and let him know what's going on, anyway.
The repairs are going to come to about 2600 bucks so I'm glad neither one of us are paying for it. Still, if it happened again, I would probably rather go under the table and take it somewhere that would have popped off the panel, hammered out the dents, and popped it back on. Rather than replacing half the freaking car and licking it clean with hummingbird tongues, or whatever they're doing to justify that 2600 bucks.
Posted by: badgerbag | February 24, 2008 at 11:20 AM