Re: Dak Accident takes a horrible turn

From: Eric Rhyder (rhyder@email.com)
Date: Wed Apr 14 1999 - 13:06:08 EDT


> Tell your insurance company immediately!!!!! You had mentioned that you
> were just going to pay them off for the damage to their vehicle but thats
> all over now. This is what insurance is for. They have lawyers that will
> make sure the other peoples claim is valid. You may have to give statements
> and possibly testify but for the most part its out of your hands. As an
> aside, the most important thing you can do in an accident situation is to
> find/have witnesses. I was deposed in an accident case I witnessed five
> years after it happened. People become unscrupulous when money is involved
> and the Last thing you want is your word against theirs with no
> corroboration.

I couldn't agree more. Back when I was in High School. I was involved in an
accident at a red light. My light turned green, so I pulled out. Needless to
say the woman that broadsided me tried to beat the red light. She ended up
smashing into the drivers side of my little Ford Escort, and pushing my car
about 30 feet down the road. I forget what kind of car she had, but it was
one of those big ol' '70's cars, and the only damage she had was a busted
radiator. My car was destroyed.

I walked away from it (a little bruised), but within 2 minutes of me
extricating myself from my mangled heap, I had 3 people come up to me with
business cards saying they saw the whole thing and it was her fault.

The funny part of the story is, as I was throwing all of my stuff into the
truck (the only place I could securely store all of my clothes, tapes, etc.)
the investigating police officer called me over to his vehicle and proceeds to
tell me that the woman says it was my fault and that I had ran a red light.
My response was, "Bull$hit officer, I've got 3 witnesses here that say
different" and I handed him thier cards. :)

Needless to say, she ended up with about 5 citations from the officer. The
moral of the story is, I was 16 at the time, and if those 3 people hadn't have
helped me out, I probably couldn't afford the insurance on my Dak right now.
(DAK Content. :) )

It got even funnier when her insurance company called my house and accused me
of causing the accident, but I'll save that for another time. :)

Eric



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