Altimate Mayhem

Something that I had dreaded and yet hoped would never happen. When given all the variables, it had seemed the impossible. You think that if you take care of yourself and be aware of your surroundings at all times that you can ultimately avoid the things that seemed to happen to everyone else.
My wonderful, beautiful white Nissan Altima was wrecked in a car accident that was not my fault. Everyone has a good (read as graphic) car accident story by the time they are my age it seems. Most of which probably fall into two categories: either happening right after receiving their driver’s license or the drunken "I'm twenty-one now" story. I had no such experience either being the driver or a passenger. Having been through one now, I have a whole new perspective on how fragile both life and automobiles truly are. There's just no way to understand how you'll react in a situation like an accident, or really what will go through your mind right before it happens. You can ponder your reaction time and quick wit all you like, but until you go through it, you just have no real idea.
Before I can explain about the accident, the reader really needs to understand my feelings on my car. I loved that Altima as completely as a girl can for her first car. A much nicer ride than I should have been able to afford, it was a stroke of luck finding it. Strolling through a Chevy dealership was where we ended up in the hunt. Technically used it was only six months old and three thousand miles into use. Someone had bought it with all the extras and then couldn't afford the payments was my guess. My boyfriend at the time did all the negotiations and we walked out of the dealership with an awesome deal. The Altima was a spacious four door sedan with tinted windows, a CD player (new and exciting at the time), a wood finish dash, a huge trunk, and a million other great little reasons this car was so completely great.
I took excellent care of my car, for which I was proud. In the past I had been known to be kind of lazy about taking care of stuff of that nature. Thankfully there was a Nissan Dealership a block away from where my parents lived. It was so convenient to just drop the car off and enjoy the outdoors during the short walk it took to get back to the apartment complex where I had grown up. The service shop got to know me well and through all my little crisis’s they were totally wonderful to me; getting the hook up on some expensive stuff was darn nice too. In every situation in life, whether at the club or fixing your car being a regular always pays off. On the other hand, I quickly learned that the dealership, although convenient, wasn't always the cheapest way to go. Even though I don't know much about cars I was surrounded by people who did. I just had to ask the right questions and buy the parts (don’t forget the beer).
It took the longest time for me to get use to the idea of owning my own car. I had never been allowed to drive the family car because my parents found it inconvenient to add me to the insurance. I honestly didn't get to drive on my own until my first job in college which was manual labor. For all intents and purposes my first car was a Ford F-2.50 truck that was a rusty beast. Beast or not I could drive that truck any where or any how, all over campus. There was something real satisfying about one of the boys having to jump out and ask me to take over driving because of a difficult maneuver that had to be done. I was one of the few that had a perfect driving record and could get anywhere on campus with out getting a tire track in the grass.
For as great of a driver I was with the trucks, this car was a lot lower to the ground. Sight lines were a whole lot different and there was more of a vested interest in making sure absolutely nothing happened to the vehicle. The paint that was taken off the bumper had been the fault of my boyfriend and a concrete post in the rather industrial parking garage at REI. As angry as I was about it, I figured I’d just get it fixed at a later date. I ended up causing some great damage myself, later on. After moving to townhouses in the city, the covered parking, although nice were very tight spaces. When I accidentally took off the passenger side mirror I was in shock. I had never done something that bad to anything I had owned. Seeing the mirror hanging there by the electrical wires just made me want to cry. I had hurt my car.
My car had also seen its share of damage thanks to drunken college students. The morning I woke up to be told that both my front and rear windshield had been smashed I didn’t know what to do. I’d had the car about three months and hardly driven it at all. The front window had two huge points of impact and the rear had a gaping hole in the center while the rest was just one big mass of shattered glass that was being held together only by the tinting. The rock in question had gone through and scuffed up my dash on the way by, coming to rest innocently on my passenger side seat. I’ll never know who or why but after hearing enough “drunk” stories from other people I went to college with I could take a wild guess as to while I ended up in debt for someone else’s inebriated lack of judgment.
Even with its share of damage I kept my car in pretty great condition. I didn’t wash it as often as I’m sure I should have, but who ever does? From the inside the car was pimped enough for me, an awesome sound system that made other people in tricked out cars look at mine, I didn’t want to change a thing. But the outside was just a plain white. As I got use to the fact that the car was mine I started adding to it. Besides the sound of the bass that people tell me, they used as a reference to my arrival; my car had become recognizable where ever I went. The license plate frame that I had made plainly stated “Clubbing Queen – House Music All Night Long”. After living down south and dealing with House music being like an underground movement I really felt like I needed to preach the gospel where ever I went. Along with that were various stickers of a sassy feline nature that earned my car the nickname of Kitty Mobile.
The Clubbing Queen’s Kitty Mobile got me where ever I needed to go. In the three years I owned that car it never left me stranded on the side of the road. Nights that I should never have driven, I still got home safe. The day I found out the man I loved was with another woman, I may have driven without care or reason but it got me home. Nights that will remain in my memory because they’re too inappropriate (read naughty) for me to write about here. I had become such a part of that car, I knew every in and out of its handling. Drunk, sober, reckless, carefree I’d never gotten myself into a situation that I couldn’t find a way out of. I always said if something happened to my car I would be devastated. I’d morn for my stickers that I would lose, but the car itself would deserve some sort of flaming Viking burial at sea. The problem with car accidents, especially when they’re not your fault, is that you have no way out of them.
Wednesday October 5th a friend of mine had wanted to hang out and as I sat at home thinking about it, something made me tell them that I had a feeling I should just stay home that night. Talked out of it I went to see “Corpse Bride” at the local movie theater. After ten o’clock I went for a short drive around my home town, up into the hills where there was great places to look down on the valley and see all the lights. Heading back to my place I was taking the long way home through town using all the side streets.
It was about eleven o’clock by now and being in a small town meant hardly any traffic where ever you went. Coming up to a T-intersection I remember tapping my breaks to slow below the speed limit because a car coming the opposite way was turning left. Checking to make sure I had green lights, I preceded through the intersection. That was when the next car turning left just decided to go.
I remember the surreal thoughts that went through my head all in slow motion. The whole thing must have been a second at the most but the memory reads like a life time. I wondered why that car was turning. As the passenger side came around in the turn I realized that there was no way the car would make it past me and that I was going to hit. Slamming on my breaks I had no time to move the wheel in any direction. All I saw was the side of the car seem to rush up at me and I closed my eyes. Bracing on the steering wheel I don’t remember being knocked around. The sound of the hit and head light shattering was all that filled my head.
Opening my eyes all I could see white smoke. For a moment I thought there was a fire but it cleared enough for me to realize it was the dust from the airbag. Looking around me I saw the car that I had hit start to pull away and keep going. Anger just exploded through me at the idea that the other person was going to get away. As silly as it all was, I threw the car into park and pulled the emergency brake, all in the time it took me to fly out of the car and start running after the other driver desperate to memorize the plate. As I came around the front of my car heading toward the other car it pulled up on to the side walk and stopped. I stopped my progress and stood in the middle of road, relieved for a moment that I wasn’t going to a ‘hit and run”. I became aware that another car sat in the intersection to my right, which had been waiting to turn left. The accident had happened right before their eyes.
A younger looking guy stepped out the car I had hit, wide eyed and looking scared. Rushing up on him I was angry, I demanded his proof of insurance and ID. He immediately started asking if I was okay and babbled something about the fact that he had insurance to cover me, but not his car. When I saw Vern Fonk on the insurance folder he handed me I had a terrible sinking feeling. Heading back to my car, I stopped to talk to the people in the other car that was still sitting at the intersection. My car was blocking them from turning anyway. Asking them to be witnesses, they agreed as if they already had planned on sticking around. Around my car they pulled to go park out of the way and I finally took the time to turn off the engine. I still hadn’t looked at the damage to my car I was far too worried about getting the other drivers information down. A black El Comino drove past me and the guy driving asked if the cops had been called yet. When I told him I hadn’t had the chance, he assured me he’d take care of it and drove away. With the mention of the cops the other driver started to get really edgy. “Oh man the cops. Shit!” The guy told me that he could drive his car and he had to get going, so he handed me his ID for me to write down and intended to just leave the scene before the cops showed up. Something was telling me that this guy was nothing but trouble and I held onto both his ID and his insurance until the cops showed up, surprisingly it was almost immediate.
The cop grabbed the ID and insurance out of my hands and took charge of the scene. I felt a little at a lost for what to do next since I hadn’t had the time to write down any information for my own records. Sitting on the curb I finally took a look at the front end of my car and realized how bad it really was. The whole passenger side was crumpled. The head light, turn signal and all were completely gone. The bumper was hanging the driver’s side and the fender over the passenger side tire was completely bent onto the tire. Even the hood was damaged. There was no way I was driving this car home. My baby had been wrecked.
And there in the middle of the night I sat on the sidewalk answering questions about had happened. The witnesses spoke with the cops and then personally came to me to leave their contact information. Assuring me they’d be here for me if I needed anything they finally headed out. It made me feel a million times better that the witnesses seemed to care so much. Now a day’s the world is filled with people that don’t want to get involved. Not even when they should be. The worst part was watching an off duty officer in plain clothes jump in my car and drive it out of the intersection. The scraping of the fender on the tire and the bumper across the ground was just horrible. Watching the other cop kick the shards of my head and tail light out of the road just made me want to cry. That was pieces of my car that they were kicking into the gutter. Pieces that should still be on the car!
After everyone’s statement had been taken and the tow truck driver was tearing off the bumper completely from my car, the whole situation set in. I had been in a car accident. My car was so damaged I couldn’t drive away from the scene. I was sitting on a sidewalk in the middle of the night covered in pop from the industrial sized drink that had exploded at the time of the crash. I had to call my parents to come get me because I had no way home. All of this hit me all at once and I just started to shake uncontrollably and not from the night air. I think the cop felt sorry for me, even though I was trying desperately to play it off like I was just cold I’m sure he knew I was starting to lose it. As he and the cop in street clothes watched the cycle of the lights, I listened to them talk. Both of them agreed that the other driver must have just tried to cut through the yielding green light and just didn’t account for my speed of approach.
I mumbled something of an apology when I had trouble answering a question the officer asked me about where the car should be towed. “I’m sorry I’ve never been in a car accident before.” The cop that had been the first on the scene and had taken all the statements smiled sadly at me. I realized that he didn’t look any older than I and I felt strange about that for a moment. Here I was experiencing this whole process for the first time and in the short or long time that he had been a cop he’d probably seen it a million times already. Life is so strange and it’s a fact of life that bad things happen. “Just be glad that this one wasn’t your fault.” The only good news I could have received that night after everything else. The officer repeated the news to my parents when they arrived to pick me up. Thank God! The last thing I needed on top of everything else was the anticipation of there being doubt from the police’s point of view.
Grabbing a few things that I knew I needed from my car I tried not to look at the front end or the fact that my bumper was being strapped down as a separate piece of the car. I was absolutely numb was I walked to my father’s car and got in clutching at my belongings like some sort of safety blanket. By the time I got home I snapped back into action and immediately called the insurance company. I figured I’d need everything to be fresh in my mind for whatever questions they had for me.
Now I was up to my elbows in phone calls and paper work to be dealt with. It wasn’t as easy as my friends had described in their past encounters. All I was hearing from people around me was the horror stories of being screwed by insurance companies, even your own. I had the car immediately towed the next day to an auto body shop that the insurance company suggested. The last thing I needed was storage fees wracking up at a tow yard. For once I was being very pro-active about asking questions and trying to understand all my options. I wanted my car fixed and NOW. Anything that aided that was all I wanted.
I was in a holding pattern with my insurance company because I had never gotten the other drivers information for my own purposes. I had to get the police report, in the mean time I was authorizing repairs to start based on my own insurance company footing the bill. Two days after the accident I received a very nasty phone call from the other driver. Telling me that he wasn’t at fault, he insisted that I had better change the statement I had given to the cops. This told me two things. One: the police report was ready since that would be the only way this person could have gotten my phone number, and two: the process of dealing with the accident was about to get nasty. Why couldn’t I have just hit a sweet little old woman or someone that had more than just liability insurance?
Now I was preparing for a legal fight. If he decided to dispute the police report, which I still hadn’t seen, then we’d be going to court. All of this would only delay any hope of getting the whole situation settled and money going in the right direction towards repairs. It wasn’t until the next Tuesday that I had the chance to get the report. It was so odd being at the police department and realizing I’d never had a reason to be any where near the police before. Flipping through the short report, nothing but an explosion of relief filled me when I read that the other driver had been issued a ticket which proved obvious guilt in the opinion of the officers that had been at the scene.
But it wasn’t that simple, I quickly learned. When the other driver had left that nasty message on my voice mail, he also called and told a whole story to my insurance company as well. A whole story that wasn’t even close to being reality. Calling the other insurance company I ended up making a report of the accident because the other driver hadn’t. Both I and my insurance representative found that strange and just a little incriminating. The guy had something to hide. He’d had the time to lie to my representative and threaten me, but not to make a claim with his own people? Interesting.
On my home front, the same day I got the police report I also stopped by the auto body shop to get more of my belongings out of the car. The gentleman that I had been talking to on the phone walked me out to the car talking the whole time about the damages and how they planned on fixing them. This was the first time I was directly faced with the damage of my car and even though it looked terrible to me, from the way the guy was talking it all seemed very fixable. Two weeks he told me, with the parts on order, the longest part would be getting the front end completely repainted. Two weeks and I’d have my car back, amazing! Leaving the most of the stuff still in the car, I walked away feeling glad that at least while I was fighting in court with the other driver, I’d have my baby back.
Too bad that little fairytale didn’t play out. Several days ago I was contacted by the auto shop letting me know that the other driver’s insurance company had an auditor appraising my vehicle. Shortly after that call, I got another, also from the body shop, telling me that the auditor had totaled the car and that I should call in order to get the details on disposing of the vehicle. I wandered up stairs and back to work looking like a zombie. They were going to trash my car. They had totaled it! They wouldn’t fix it! What the hell was I going to do!?! There was no way I could afford a new car; I didn’t even want to ponder shopping for one. I still owed eight thousand dollars on it. What was going to happen with that debt? What the hell was I going to do?
Calling the auto shop back I demanded to know what it was that had made the auditor total it when the auto shop’s own people had told me not three days ago that they had parts on order. I had a deadline of completion for two weeks! I couldn’t get a straight answer. They said that they were set to fix it when it was being paid for through my insurance company, as soon as the other company sent an auditor they let that person decide everything. I couldn’t have been angrier. I commanded that they look at the car and give me an estimate. I refused to take the other companies decision. The shop tried to give me more run around but I would not take no for an answer. This was not going to happen.
To top that off I got yet another phone call from the other insurance company stating that the car was indeed totaled in their opinion. Up to this point all my dealings with the other driver’s insurance company had been on hold as well. They had taken all my information but had yet to be in contact with their client. Apparently the guy had decided to call his company back and the representative let me know that the other driver had a completely different story to tell. He had been treated unfairly by the police at the scene, he had indeed had the right of way and it was I that was at fault, and he had a witness to back his statements. The representative advised me that he was going to hold off the payment options on the totaled vehicle until that whole story was sorted out.
Could things get any worse? They wanted to take my car to a junk yard and the other driver was now lying out his ass to his own company, stalling things even further. There were only two witnesses at the scene and both of them stated to me and the police that it had been obviously the other driver's fault. Who was he pulling in as a witness, his other split-personalities? The whole thing was absolute bullshit and just made me realize how desperate this other person really was about the whole affair. The fact that the “totaled” process was being stalled was nothing I was sad about. I planned to fight tooth and nail to save my car.
In contact with the auto body shop again, the news they gave me wasn’t helpful but it wasn’t terrible. A car is totaled by an insurance company when the cost of repair is more than seventy percent of the total worth of the vehicle. Because both air bags had deployed, that was what was jacking the price of the repairs past the limit, but they were in the process of looking for other options that would lower the cost. When I talked with him about the actual damage to my front end I specifically asked him “If this was your car would you get it fixed? Are there going to be more problems later on, or is this something that can just be repaired.” Without a doubt he answered me. “I would get this fixed. There’s nothing in the damages that I’ve seen that worries me.” That set my resolve. My car was going to be fixed if it was the last thing I did. The problem was getting the insurance companies to agree with me.
Another day rolls by and I’m back on the phone again with the other driver’s insurance company, I received yet another interesting message. Apparently after the auditor had decided that the car was totaled, they had priced my car at about ten thousand dollars. The policy that the other driver has limits the amount of money that can be paid out for an accident of this nature. They could not pay out the amount that my car was worth and there for I had to go back through my own insurance company if I wanted anything done. What!?! How the hell does someone carry insurance that makes it so they don’t have to pay for damages they’ve caused? When I called back to figure out what that all meant I just got more bullshit and more people to talk to that weren’t in the office. I was panicking at this point. If they couldn’t pay me the amount the car was worth, then why couldn’t they just pay to have it repaired? That was obviously less.
On top of everything else I’m getting sick. I hardly ever get sick! Being without a car has been stressful enough. I have to rely on other people’s charity in order to get to work and home again. I haven’t been able to do anything fun, and if it wasn’t for being able to tag along to band gig’s I’d lose my freaking mind. I spend all my time on the phone talking to people that aren’t doing their jobs or don’t want to give me a straight answer. Stress is pretty much the whole reason I’m sick. I know this, but it doesn’t change anything. I still have a million phone calls to make and a whole lot more fighting to do. I absolutely refuse to have my car totaled. They tell me they can fix it then someone is going to fix it!