Fifteen minutes or more

I got in my first car accident on Thursday.

On my way to work, the car in front of me stopped abruptly, out of nowhere, apparently because he missed his turn. I managed to brake in time, but the guy driving behind me wasn’t paying attention, and slammed right into me.

Which sent me flying into the car in front of me.

After making sure nobody was hurt, the three of us finagled our way into an apartment complex parking lot, where a strange Asian woman noticed us and suddenly began darting between our cars in a high state of excitement.

“Accident?” she asked. “CRASH?”

After I politely assured the woman I was okay– just shaken–I decided to check out the damage. One of my front lights was broken, and both my muffler and back bumper were hanging off my car, limply moving in the gusty wind. The car in front of me looked fine, but the car behind me had crumpled as easily as aluminum foil. I told the other two guys, who hadn’t said much, that I was going to give the police a call to come and fill out an accident report, and that’s when they finally spoke up.

“Not my fault–” said the guy in front of me haltingly. He didn’t speak much English and seemed alarmed by the mention of “police”.

“Nawww,” agreed the guy who hit me. “I’ll just give you my phone number and we can get outta here.”

“….nawww,” I said, suddenly suspicious, and dialed 911.

“Nine-one-one!” screeched the Asian lady. “HONEYBEE OAKS!”

It took me a full minute to realize she was telling me the name of the apartment complex, which the 911 dispatcher appreciated. The police officer took some time arriving as well as filling out the accident report, so I spent that hour idly texting my boyfriend (at work), my sister (at school), and my best friend in Texas (sleeping), to calm myself down. The weird neighbor continued to circle my car but ignored me completely, so I took stock of things inside. The force of the crash had actually knocked out my cd player – the detachable faceplate was lying on the floor, along with my thermos of coffee, leaking slowly onto the floormat. I talked to my dad, who offered to come to the scene and which I was vehemently against. In retrospect, I probably should have allowed it and given him something to do. Instead, he promptly called everyone in the family to share his dramatic tale, secure in his knowledge that I was unhurt and calm.

“Dad called you ‘hysterical’,” my mom reported later.

“Your dad said it was a three-car pile-up!” my grandparents moaned.

When the police officer handed me my copy of the accident report, she blew an exasperated breath into my face and jabbed a finger at the paper. “The guy who hit you doesn’t appear to have insurance,” she told me. “You wanna go to court?”

“Uh…” I stammered, and then, incensed: “Wait. HE WHAT?!”

“It’s pending,” she said. “I gave him a ticket, and he will be going to court. Just call your insurance company when you get home.” She moved away from my car back to the guy, who by now had his hood up and was peering inside. I cursed my existence and wriggled out of my car.

“Any chance you have any duct tape or something to keep my bumper on?” I called.

“There’s a Jiffy Lube across the street. You’re a girl,” was her response.

Seriously?

A little miffed, I drove over there with my muffler rumbling like a damn battle tank. The guy behind the desk seemed more than willing to help me out, but when he finally appeared with a co-worker and a roll of duct tape, they were literally giggling and couldn’t meet my eyes. One of them shoved the broken rear cover into place while the other cut pieces of tape with his teeth, as I stood to the side in my dress and high heels feeling like the world’s biggest idiot.

After letting work know I wouldn’t make it in that morning – and they were great about it, thankfully – I got home and crawled into bed with a heating pad, a bottle of Aleve, my phone, and a pad of paper. Calling GEICO wasn’t as unpleasant of an experience as I though it was – thanks, Patrick, I will give you a 10 rating for customer service – but it wasn’t til this morning that I received confirmation that the other guy does not, in fact, have insurance. Since then I have vilified this person in my head to almost evil proportions, particularly after getting a damage estimate this morning and learning my car is most likely totaled. Either I eat the cost myself, or I take him to court in a couple weeks. Neither or those are appealing options. I don’t want to end up garnishing someone’s wages in this economy, but my empathy only goes so far; I need  a drivable car.

Basically, I’m raging at the auto insurance system. Things like this happen all the time: a driver with no insurance hits a driver who is responsibly, legally insured, and then that responsible, legal person gets completely and utterly screwed. What is the point of having auto insurance when I’m s.o.l. anyway?