Well, I guess it's time to say goodbye to one of our Dakotas. It's been a
good truck, and it's difficult to let it go. Of course, our families don't
understand how anyone can get emotionally attached to a vehicle, and trying
to explain it is pretty futile. I hope some of you might be better able to
sympathize.
For those of you who don't know us, my name is Jason Bleazard and my fiancee
is Norah Kiraly. We met here on the Dakota mailing list in November of
1996. I moved to Toronto from Orem, Utah last summer and we're planning on
getting married some time this fall.
My Dakota is a white 1995 4x4 regular cab, and Norah's was a black 1995 4x2
club cab. Even though we have almost everything in common, we first met
through our trucks and we feel like we owe them a debt of gratitude for
bringing us together.
On July 11, I had planned on getting new tires put on mine. We were
travelling together, the plan being that I would drop mine off and then we
would take the other one on some errand runs that needed to be done.
We were turning left at an intersection, and Norah was in the lead. When
the light changed, the car coming the other way slowed down like he was
going to stop. As Norah started out into the intersection, the guy in the
other car realized that he was going too fast and decided to speed up to try
to clear the intersection. The left front corner of his car slammed into
the front right corner of Norah's Dakota, pretty much putting a two-foot
dent in the front. It smashed in the bumper and pushed the whole hood up
and back.
Then both the Dakota and the other car spun off of each other, and his left
rear corner hit the right side of her bed. This pushed her headlong into a
lamp post. Dakotas are not exactly light vehicles, but hers had spun around
almost 180 degrees like it was on ice, and the car wound up turned 90
degrees and in the left lane of the road we had been trying to turn on to.
Meanwhile, I'm sitting in my truck watching the whole thing frozen in place.
Once she stopped moving, I managed to turn mine off, set the hazard flashers
and run across the street (I only dimly remember any of this).
Thank God, she was okay, except for some nasty bruises. They took her to
the hospital for a couple of x-rays and released her. Believe me guys when
I tell you that you never want to watch your wife / fiancee / girlfriend /
significant other get into an automobile accident. It's not a very good
feeling, and I never hope to see anything like it again. She's still pretty
sore, but at least she didn't get any serious injuries.
The Dakota, on the other hand, was not so fortunate. The side sheetmetal of
the cab no longer lined up with the bed, meaning one of them had shifted on
the mounts. All of the coolant and oil drained out into the gutter. Not
surprisingly, the insurance company totaled it out.
Of course, since Norah was making the turn, the police decided that it was
legally her fault for not allowing the oncoming traffic to finish running
the red light. The cop told her she could either pay the ticket or fight it
in court. He said "I hope you can read between the lines here. In order to
convict you, I have to take time out of my schedule and cancel whatever call
I'm probably going to be on, track down the other driver, have him make time
in his schedule, drag him away from work, and we both have to show up in
court in person and prove that you turned when it wasn't safe. I'm very
busy, and I think the other driver probably is as well."
Now, the Dakota only had three months left on the lease. We had spoken to
the dealership a little about what our options were going to be, and they
said that since the mileage was so low and we had taken such good care of
the truck, that we should be getting some equity out of it if we traded it
in. We were planning on trading it for a '99 4x4.
Isn't it funny how attached we are to a machine? We knew that trading it in
would be somewhat sad, but not too bad because it would be going to a good
home. Knowing that it's just going to a junkyard, I feel like I've lost a
friend.
The good news, which we just learned, is that the insurance company is going
to cut a check for the full value. There was some question whether they
were going to do this or just settle the remainder of the lease with
Chrysler. The dealer has found a new 4x4 for us, black just like the one we
had before. It's probably hugely silly, but I think I'll be able to take a
little comfort thinking that the old truck is still with us, at least in
spirit. Hopefully everything will work out with the financing and insurance
and we can take delivery of the new truck later this week or early next
week. It'll be nice to get this behind us and for everything to get back to
normal.
Oh, I almost forgot. The car the other guy was driving was an 87 LeBaron.
This is the second Dakota I know of to be totaled in a frontal collision
with a LeBaron (see Josh Brown's on the Dakota Pictures page -- his looks
much worse than ours did). Watch out for these LeBarons. They seem to be
magnetically attracted to our radiators.
This whole thing has shown me just how quickly things can happen. I've
noticed that I've been paying a lot more attention to my driving since this
happened. It's just too easy to get comfortable and let your attention
wander for one or two critical seconds. Be careful out there.
Jason
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:09:08 EDT