The episode where my car was banged up.

Driving home from work one night, it was actually the day after my 40th. It should have been a good day, it should have been a good month, but for some reason I had this nagging feeling that March was not going to be the great time of year it usually is. (Possible self fulfilling prophecy coming up)

March 7th was a day when it rained, not unusual for Melbourne, but it hadn’t rained for over a month. I was driving home after a not too stressful day at work and decided to take a different route home. Normally it’s High street north, but that day I decided to head up Heidelberg Rd. The roads were wet and slippery, but the rain had stopped for the day. I was heading towards a set of lights which had just turned green. Got through the intersection and then quickly slowed (???) and stopped as my lane (the middle lane) had come to a complete stop. Looking ahead, I couldn’t see what was holding everything up. All I could really see was the taxi in front and a large minivan in front of him.

The cars on the outer lane were zooming by, so I started that process of looking back and wanting to shift lanes, but before I could even turn to the mirror, I hear a massive screech, very close and very loud.

Time stops and I looked in the rear view only to see some balding young driver (well, younger than me) in his Nissan Pulsar, eyes shutting and teeth clenching as he embraced for impact. Seeing this, I went rigid too, arms stiff, legs stiff on the brake.

BANG!!!!!!

Nowhere to go, he hit me fair square in the middle of the boot. My car is a family sized vehicle so he didn’t end up joining me in the back seat of my car; his seat belt probably helped him stay put too. The impact was not only at the rear end, he was travelling at top speed (i.e. the speed limit I’m guessing) and pushed my car forward about 4 or 5 metres, unfortunately the taxi was only 2 metres in front of me.

BANG!!!

Into the taxi. Shit. I could see the face of the taxi passenger in the back seat turning as I lurched forward and hit her ride. The force of the impact moved my driver’s seat back along the rails and the back of the seat into a sleeping position. When everything stopped, I saw the taxi driver get out of his car, running back to me.
“Are you OK mate?” He says.
I couldn’t talk. It was my birthday the day before, shit like this shouldn’t happen when you are 40 and 1 day old.
“You OK?”
Still couldn’t speak, started to feel crap. I felt emotion welling up inside, an unwilling participant in a metal sandwich. The prophecy has started to become true.
“Sir, you ok?”
Then the culprit came up to check on me.
“Sorry, sorry, are you ok?”
“I just need a few minutes to regroup” I said.

They went to the back of my car and inspected the damage. I had settled down after a couple of minutes and all the anger went out of me. I guess it would have been easy to get out and thump him, what purpose would that serve. Let’s hear what he has to say before I push him under a truck…..

I climbed out of the wreck and surveyed the damage. The other two were at the back and I headed there. The Pulsar driver was very apologetic, he explained how he wasn’t concentrating on the lane he was in, he was looking to his inside as a van was creeping into the lane and he wanted to avoid him, but taking his eyes off the van, he then realised that our lane wasn’t moving. Nowhere to go! Bang! The damage at the back of my car was enough to buckle the boot and hinder it from opening; the front of the car had what looked like minor damage, but the bonnet wouldn't open either. My car still ran, which was a darn site better than the Pulsar, it was really banged up. His engine had stopped and it wasn’t going to start again.

We pushed him around a corner and we did the usual swapping of details. His car wasn’t his car, it belonged to his grandma. Poor granny. Luckily he was covered by her insurance, there wasn’t going to be a problem, well, not from that point of view. A couple of phone calls later and I had the repairer on my doorstep ready to take the car away in the morning. The insurance people were on the case and I had a rental car organised to get me through the next couple of weeks. How long could it take to repair what looked like some pretty minor damage, after all, the car still ran.

A few days later after very little contact from the repairers, I received a distressing call. Not that they couldn’t repair the car, but that it was going to cost $15,000 to repair and wouldn’t be ready for another 6 weeks (2 months after the crash). Shit! So they starte talking about writing the car off, and I started looking at new cars. As soon as the euphoria of getting a new car took over, they rang back and told me that the repairs are going ahead and there wasn't going to be a write off.

So what do I do for a car while I waited? My car is a leased vehicle through work which I was going to be paying for, without having it. The HR guys couldn’t or wouldn’t help me, bastards, and then to top it off, I had to pay for the rental cars myself and hope that my insurer will recoup the costs from the third party (insurance talk for the Pulsar driver). Over the two months, I begged, borrowed and lent the following: Toyota Camry, Subaru WRX, Toyota Land Cruiser, Ford Falcon, Toyota Corolla, Toyota Avalon and my mums Holden Berlina. If only I had access to my old Mazda, that would have saved me a lot of trouble.
Update: I decided to call JP today, funnily enough I spoke to his mum and he wasn’t home. He’d call me back later. Let’s see how long it takes.

Anyway, I eventually got my car back, 2 months, 1 week and 4 days after the accident. The car had to go back due to a couple of minor things, but I wanted them fixed to make sure it was paid for by the insurance, not me.

The moral of the story is, stick to your regular route home. Crap moral, but I’m going to stick with it.

Ciao.
Forza Ferrari, get back on top.